Screened as part of NZIFF 2015

Haemoo 2014

Directed by Shim Sung-bo

This tense, lavishly staged high-seas drama was produced by Bong Joon-ho and marks a spectacular directorial debut for his Memories of Murder collaborator Shim Sung-bo.

South Korea In Korean with English subtitles
111 minutes CinemaScope / DCP

Director

Producers

Bong Joon-ho
,
Cho Neung-yeon
,
Lewis Taewan Kim

Screenplay

Shim Sung-bo
,
Bong Joon-ho

Photography

Hong Kyeong-pyo

Editors

Kim Sang-bum
,
Kim Jae-bum

Production designer

Lee Ha-joon

Costume designer

Choi Se-yeon

Music

Jung Jae-il

With

Kim Yoon-seok (Captain Kang Chul-joo)
,
Park Yu-chun (Dong-sik)
,
Han Ye-ri (Hong-mae)
,
Moon Sung-keun (Wan-ho)
,
Kim Sang-ho (Ho-young)
,
Lee Hee-jun (Chang-wook)
,
You Seung-mok (Kyung-koo)

Festivals

Toronto
,
San Sebastián
,
Vancouver 2014
,
New Directors/New Films 2015

Elsewhere

“Co-written, co-produced and reputedly also supervised by Bong Joon-ho, Haemoo (it translates as Sea Mist) must be the most gripping sea story since The Perfect Storm. Like Memories of Murder – Bong’s first collaboration with Shim Sung-bo – it’s based on a real incident notorious in Korea, in this case something that happened off Korea’s southwest coast in 2001… Kang Chuljoo (Kim Yoon-seok, excellent) is the cash-strapped captain of the trawler Junjin, a rustbucket heading for the scrapyard. His money problems are compounded by even bigger problems with his marriage. In quiet desperation, he offers his services to a broker in smuggled goods – only to find that the contraband he’ll carry is human: 25 illegal immigrants from China, all of them ethnic Koreans, some of them probably refugees from North Korea. What could possibly go wrong? However much help he had from Bong, first-time director Shim gets muscular performances from the whole cast and stages the action with scary conviction. You can almost smell the salt water, the rust… and the Freon gas.” — Tony Rayns, Vancouver International Film Festival