Emergency Declaration - Der Todesflug

A 90s-style "we're on a plane and we're screwed" disaster flick that arrives two decades too late. Anyway, at the top of the imaginary list of "I definitely don't want to see in-flight while someone is coughing next to me" movies. Putting topicality aside, this is proper genre work. Despite the excessive running time, it good pace, it can be adrenaline-pumping as well as thrilling, and nicely uncompromising at times. And though it's not afraid to embrace more than one cliché as its own, it stays within the waters of believability. (08.04.2024)

South Korea and an intense catastrophic airplane thriller (one of the best in the genre!). I like airplane movies a lot, the confined space, panic and chaos just works well on screen and Korea goes about it a bit differently again, because a bomb on a plane is a cliché isn't it? Why not just drop a deadly virus in there and make it bioterrorism of massive proportions that the whole world will have to get involved in. On the ground, we have the great Song Kang-Ho (Parasite) who plays a detective whose wife is on board the plane and does everything he can to both prevent the disaster and track down the culprit (one gesture he makes at the end is a total display of strong character). On the other hand, in the air, is South Korea’s biggest star Lee Byung-Hun (great to see two top actors together), who has one unexpected secret. A very uncomfortable and stuffy atmosphere haunts the whole film, there are some really unenviable situations that no one would want to experience first hand. The film raises the unpleasant question of Sophie's choice, whether to save the plane and endanger the whole world, or to shoot it down. The involvement of Japanese fighters gives a slight wink to the American Top Gun 2. I also enjoyed the politics, where the government and the surrounding countries deal with the whole situation, and the detective part where they try to find the origin of the virus. The finale is a decent emotional inferno that won't leave just anyone cold. A brilliant thriller with all the right ingredients. 8/10 (26.11.2022)