This movie was already released in Indonesian theaters more than a week ago, but as my wife and I were on holiday trip, we only saw it last Saturday. It was rather challenging as we also wanted to see another big superhero movie while this film only played in several cinemas. So we ended up having to move to different location just to see both on the same day. All right then, why don't I just get to it.

Brief Story Line

Set in the year 1971, a passenger plane was scheduled to fly from Gimpo to Seoul. The crew consisted of the experienced Pilot Gyu-sik (Sun Dong-il - Project Wolf Hunting, Ghost Doctor TV series etc), First Officer Tae-in (Ha Jung-woo - Ashfall, Narco Saints TV series etc), flight attendant Ok-Soon (Chae Soo-bin - The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure, Rookie Cops TV series etc) and Chang-bae (Moon Yoo-kang). 

There were plenty of passengers who board the plane including Yong-dae (Yeo Jin-goo - Beyond Evil TV series, Ditto etc), a middle school student Han-bong (Moon Woo-jin - The Atypical Family TV series, Peninsula etc), a newlywed Nam-il (Kim Chul-yoon - A Time Called You TV series etc) and several others. Unfortunately though, during the flight, one of the passengers hijacked the plane and instructed the Pilot to go to another destination.

So what would happen to the plane and all its crew and passengers? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

The movie had been dubbed as based on true story so if you have known or read about the actual events, you would have known the ending. Since my wife and I did not have any knowledge about it, we were watching the movie with high level of curiosity and suspense as we were not aware what would happen and how it would end. Hence the intensity was strongly felt during the hijacking till the movie finished. The film did not immediately start with the flight but instead focusing on the background of lead character, First Officer Tae-in which I thought was important to provide better understanding on him. But it did not take long before the focus shifted to the hijacked plane.

Throughout the whole movie, we were kept at the edge of our seats as it was fast paced and well told. For me and my wife, the cast did their job pretty well since we felt they were all quite convincing in portraying their roles and made the tension felt very real. I do not know how many of the characters were real but according to the information I read, the pilot, first officer and the terrorist were based on actual persons, although their names have been changed. Aside from the people I mentioned above, there were other characters as well such as Air force pilot Dong-cheol (Kim Dong-wook - Along With The Gods: The Last 49 Days, Find Me in Your Memory TV series etc), Tae-in's wife Moon-young (Im Se-mi - The Worst of Evil TV series, Awake etc) and several support cast as some of the passengers. 

This movie also opened our eyes that safety standard had come along way since 1971 and made us appreciate more on the changes done now to ensure nothing like this could happen. There was one funny scene before the passengers were getting ready to board the plane. Apparently at that time, the procedure was a lot different and made audience laughed. Although that was pretty much the only light scene cause the rest of them were very heavy. Like in similar kind of movie about hijacking, there would be some emotional scenes here with the moment towards the end that really affected me and my wife. Oh before the closing credit, there were few photos and words that provided more info on the hijack, but there was no mid or post end credit scenes.

The film was directed by Kim Sung-han in what seemed to be his directorial debut (could not find more info on him) with screenplay from Kim Kyung-chan (writer of Pipeline, Hit-and-Run Squad etc). It was released in South Korea since June but only played in Indonesian cinemas a month later. By the time I wrote this post, it seemed to resonate with audience there as it was in the Top 10 films of 2024. It also made it to the Top 10 most viewed in Indonesia for the past two weeks, quite an amazing feat considering there were so many other new ones released including that huge superhero movie.

Overall this was a dramatic, suspenseful and intense movie about a plane hijack. The special effects were pretty decent and the sound effect was good too. My wife and I felt the film as totally engaging especially through the heroic deed of the people involved. One thing that I thought a bit unusual was the portrayal of the terrorist as it was shown to be done due to very specific reason. Whether there is any truth in that or it's just dramatization/fictionalized to give human side to the person is unclear. Anyway the dramatic story and conclusion was the part that made this movie very memorable for us. So if you want to experience this in a cinema together with other people, then you can certainly give it a try as it's currently still playing in several theaters. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars