Jessica Chastain leads a classy cast of spies in action thriller The 355.
Ralph Fiennes suits up for this World War I-era prequel to the sharp-dressed Kingsman series. Keanu Reeves returns to the Matrix in a new cyberpunk action thriller from one of the creators behind the original trilogy, Lana Wachowski. Rumors told us this sequel to Homecoming and Far From Home would see former Spider-men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield join incumbent Tom Holland for a multiverse-based web-slinging adventure. with all that pushed back a year, West Side Story is Disney's family blockbuster for the holidays in 2021. (He makes the most of the Moroccan locations and the film’s reported $20 million budget.Steven Spielberg's remake of the legendary musical was originally supposed to fill Disney's traditional big-money holiday movie slot in 2020, plugging the fallow year between the last Star Wars trilogy ending in 2019 and the Avatar sequels kicking in.
Don’t be surprised if Hollywood comes knocking on Seung-wan’s door in a big way. The question makes for an involving and suspenseful action-thriller that Ryoo Seung-wan handles with flair, capably staging big action scenes - like the final, nerve-rattling drive to potential salvation - while not neglecting the human stories at their heart. Do they put aside their differences to help each other or cling to their long-held animosity?
That’s the basic narrative drive of the propulsive “Escape from Mogadishu” as both sets of Korean diplomats and their families - cut off from communications and supplies - have to plot how to get out of a country in which a large share of the populace suddenly wants them dead. There was only one option left for the ambassadors and embassy employees: get out. In response, the South Koreans accused the North Koreans of selling arms to the rebels.īut as Somalia slid deeper into civil war and anarchy, and both the government, the rebels and ordinary Somalians started to turn on foreigners in general, it became clear that the time was up for the gamesmanship that had served the interest of the two Koreas in the past. On the other side, the North Koreans - such as officials Rim Yong-su (Huh Joon-ho, “Default,” “Kingdom”) and Tae Joon-ki (Koo Kyo-hwan, “Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula”) - are trying to thwart South Korea at every turn. The film opens with a group of officials from the South Korean embassy - including Kang Dae-jin (Jo In-sung, “The Great Battle”) and Han Sin-seong (Kim Yoon-seok) - on their way to bring a small gift to Barre. In 1990, South Korea wanted desperately to join the UN and, since many of the countries that would have to vote on their admission were in Africa, the country launched a campaign to woo local leaders, including Somalian dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. “Escape from Mogadishu” is “Argo” and the fall of Saigon set on African soil. Most American moviegoers probably know very little about the collapse of Somalia into unrest and civil war in the early ‘90s and what they do know, they learned from Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down.” Now, they can add South Korean filmmaker Ryoo Seung-wan’s thrilling “Escape from Mogadishu” to that very short list.īased on an actual incident and set against the backdrop of East African geo-politics - in which both North Korea and South Korea were involved in the region for their own selfish ends - “Escape from Mogadishu” is a tense look at how sly political maneuvering, power games and spycraft, when mixed with a disregard for the local citizens among whom they work, can devolve into a political horror movie with those who think they’re in control running for their lives.
A scene from the South Korean film 'Escape from Mogadishu' Photo: WellGo USA