The Terror Live is a movie I had planned to write about a while ago, but the week I was going to publish it, the attacks in Paris happened and that made me think. A lot of the movies I’ve written about this week have something to do with bombs. For the moviegoer they are a source of entertainment, excitement and spectacle. But sometimes we see the real damage they can do in real life. I made me wonder why we’d still choose to see those type of movies? In my opinion it is partly to be able to experience something we normally wouldn’t be able to. We can escape our everyday life for a moment and face our biggest fears, but then in a safe environment. Sometimes though (like after the attacks) fiction and reality come too close together and it will feel wrong to enjoy such films.
In the past various shocking events have had their effect on movies. A scene was removed from Gangster Squad after the cinema shooting in Aurora, Colorado and the director of Die Hard with a Vengeance thought about removing the opening explosion because of the events in Oklahoma. At those moments scenes like could be considered insensitive/in bad taste.
The event in The Terror Live are fictional, but because in real life we can follow events instantaneously they do feel realistic. Yoon Young-hwa (Ha Jung-woo) once was a successful TV-host, but was pulled from appearing on TV after an incident. He now has to make his money making radio shows.
During one of his broadcasts he receives a phone call from a man who threatens to blow up an important bridge in the city of Seoul. Yoon doesn’t take the threat as a serious one and tells the man he should just do it. To great shock he witnesses from the window of the studio how a detonation happens on the bridge. With the man still on the air he doesn’t decide to call the authorities, but instead he sees an opportunity to become relevant again and get his old job back. He decides to have cameras installed in the studio and agrees with the terrorist that he will air their conversations live on TV. It is a deal which can potentially endanger a lot of people.
The movie mainly takes place in one location, the radio studio. Yoon Young-Hwa, just like Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, is more or less forced to stay there because the man threatens that he is able to have things happen in the studio as well. The setup guarantees a constant danger while you’re watching it. You don’t have a clue what’s real and what isn’t and even though the main character isn’t really a sympathetic one you still care for him, because it is up to him and his actions to decide what will happen to others.
It results in a very unpredictable movie where you’ll hardly breathe. It’s not hard to imagine something like this in real life and that is a very scary thought.
Another one I’m not familiar with but that looks really interesting. Need to look it up.
These movies are difficult to find, but worth seeking out.