Tunnel

"When all collapsed, only hope remained."

2016 2h 6m KO

👍

7.3

SOLID

★7.3TMDB · 670

ThrillerDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A man is on his way home when the poorly constructed tunnel he is driving through collapses, leaving him trapped leaving himself for the unexpected whilst emergency services struggle to help.

“When all collapsed, only hope remained.”

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Cast

Ha Jung-woo
Lee Jung-soo
Bae Doona
Se-hyun
Oh Dal-su
Dae-kyung
Shin Jung-keun
Captain Kang
Nam Ji-hyun
Mi-Na
Jeong Seok-yong
Chief Choi
Lee Han-seo
Soo-jin
Kim Hae-sook
Minister

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Kim Seong-hun
Writers: Park Song-i, Kim Seong-hun, So Jae-won
Languages: Korean
Countries: South Korea

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $52M — a 52.4× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 10 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Kim Seong-hun, shot by Kim Tae-sung. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Mok Yeong-jin. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Kim Chang-ju shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Ha Jung-woo and Bae Doona and Oh Dal-su carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "When all collapsed, only hope remained.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Kim Seong-hun directs. Kim Tae-sung behind the camera. Mok Yeong-jin scores. Kim Chang-ju cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in South Korea. Dialogue in Korean.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $52M — a 52.4× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
3Released 10 years ago.
4Directed by Kim Seong-hun, shot by Kim Tae-sung. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Mok Yeong-jin. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Kim Chang-ju shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Ha Jung-woo and Bae Doona and Oh Dal-su carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "When all collapsed, only hope remained.".
9IMDB entry: tt5910280 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 8 themes, including "survival", "disaster", "reporter", "trapped".

The technical file

Cinematography: Kim Tae-sung
Original score: Mok Yeong-jin
Editing: Kim Chang-ju
Production design: Lee Hwo-kyoung
Costume design: Chae Kyung-hwa
Makeup / hair: Choi Hye-im
VFX supervisor: Kim Nam-sik
Sound: Gang Hye-yeong
Runtime: 126 min · 2h 6m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $1,000,000
Box office: $52,444,295
Return: 5244% of budget
Original language: KO
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Tunnel (2016)

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Kim Seong-hun

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Reno2017-06-05
★ 8/10
It's not just about survival... The title says it all. Then I read its synopsis and right away I knew how much should I expect from it. Because this might be a fresh attempt in the Korean film, at least for the first time I'm seeing in a Korean film, but not from the world cinema. Yeah, I have seen plenty, and I'd liked most of them. But this film was much, much better than it had been rated in the internet. The story, the main event starts without wasting any time. There's no initial developments like intros. When the thriller-adventure parts commences, reveals everything you have to know. Just over 2 hours long, the story frequently switches back and forth to where a man got trapped in a collapsed tunnel road and the outside where people and rescue team gathered. Like any other similar themed film, it borrowed a handful of clichés, but still you can witness the effort for the avoidance. Like if you see something or someone's crucial part come into play, usually you would predict what might happen to it in the later part of the story. Since those are unavoidable, they simply skipped in the final act as it is understandable and not to waste developing them to some extent. So a man is fighting for his survival after a disaster strikes. But he got a cell phone signal buried under a deep mountain that I could not get. Anyway, he does make know his state of condition to the outside world. Soon they all rally to get him out. This film is not entirely a serious episode, despite the theme was. A little bit of satire. If that's how the film was intended or not, at least I had a couple of good laughs. Kind of reminded me 'Peepli (Live)', about the media circus in such situation. But that is the truth, what todays media have become, because of competition among themselves. ❝Don't be weak and say you'll die, just live.❞ The trapped man has to make sure about food and water to survive till the rescue team reaches him down which could take a week or more. Yeah, they kind of mention the recent Chile event which was made into the film, 'The 33'. His portion of the story is like the combination of '127 Hours', 'Buried' and of course that Chilean film. There are lots of things happen, you could say twists and turns. Kind of too much at some point, the way they added more contents to it, but decently it all worked out. Meanwhile, on the outside world, not lags behind. It has its own set of characters and its circumstance events. Lots of fun and also highlights wrongs. Particularly like I said, the media and how politicians make use of such incident for publicity. And the final one about the construction firms and their shoddy works for profits. They have dug on these topics, but did not go deeper, because to keep it lighter and entertaining film than all about awareness. All the way an engaging narrative. Means a long film, but very swiftly told story. Visually, it was a well made film, like everything's looked natural and believable. You could not differentiate the CGI/green screen work and the real objects of those disaster parts. But not the technical details such as drilling or the hollow space where he stays alive. When the narration progresses, it gets even worse, like you would say how could that even possible or just they wanted it that way to end the tale. A small part of the end kind of skips, but that's good for the film than dragging it for another half an hour. The casting was good, they all performed well, but my favourite was Oh Dal-su. As usual, I loved his part, one of the finest supporting characters in the world cinema. It's not a great film, but good, and acceptable as what it is. In the end feels like worth it. So I decided to suggest it for those who are interested, but could not decide whether to go for it or not, and for the Korean film fans outside the Korea. 7.5/10

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