Sea Fog (; Haemoo) is a 2014 South Korean film directed by Shim Sung-bo. The film is adapted from the 2007 stage play Haemoo, which in turn was based on the true story of 25 Korean-Chinese illegal immigrants who suffocated to death in the storage tank of the fishing vessel Taechangho; their bodies were dumped by the ship's crew into the sea southwest of Yeosu on October 7, 2001.
It was selected as the South Korean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards and the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, but was not nominated.
Plot
The 69-ton fishing vessel Jeonjinho fails to catch as much fish as its crew had hoped. To make more money, the crew decides to smuggle thirty illegal immigrants into Korea. But things don't go according to plan when the Jeonjinho encounters heavy fog, rain and waves on its return journey, while also being chased by a ship from the South Korean Maritime Police. On orders from the captain, several crew members hide the illegal immigrants inside the fishing tank, where they are in danger of suffocating to death. Amid the chaos, the youngest crew member Dong-sik tries to protect a young female migrant with whom he'd fallen in love.
Cast
Kim Yoon-seok as Captain Cheol-joo
Park Yoochun as Dong-sik
Lee Hee-joon as Chang-wook
Moon Sung-keun as Chief engineer Wan-ho
Kim Sang-ho as Boatswain Ho-young
Yoo Seung-mok as Kyung-gu
Han Ye-ri as Hong-mae
Jung In-gi as Oh-nam
Kim Young-woong as Gil-soo
Ye Soo-jung as Dong-shik's grandmother
Yeom Hye-ran as Shipowner's wife
Production
Sea Fog is the first feature film directed by Shim Sung-bo, who co-wrote the screenplay of Memories of Murder with director Bong Joon-ho. Bong is this film's producer.
Kim Yoon-seok was first cast in the role of the ship's captain in June 2013. Song Joong-ki was originally offered to star opposite Kim, but had to turn down the role when he received his enlistment papers for mandatory military service. K-pop singer and actor Park Yoochun was cast instead in August 2013, in his big screen debut. Filming began on October 6, 2013, with locations in Masan, Goyang, Busan and Ulsan, and ended on March 6, 2014.
Budgeted at , the film was pitched for pre-sales at the American Film Market in November 2013. The first official press conference was held on July 1, 2014.
Box office
Sea Fog was released in South Korea on August 13, 2014. It reached 1,084,375 admissions after one week.
Critical reception
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 77% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 6.17/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100 based on 6 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The Hollywood Reporter described the film as "A possible riveting nightmare fogged up by concessions to blockbuster conventions." It praised Hong Kyung-pyo's cinematography and Lee Ha-joon's production design as "effective in highlighting the differences between the lands of vast, cold port and the unforgiving environments of the sea and cramped insides of the fishing boat," but criticized director Shim Sung-bo's lack of subtlety and reflection, "with Haemoo subscribing to many of the conventions of both disaster epics and revenge drama, and the over-dependence of a central seaborne romance."
Variety wrote, "Turning a real-life human trafficking tragedy into a comment on social inequality and the cost of survival, Haemoo dramatizes a stark nautical ordeal fraught with tension. Produced and co-written by internationally recognized Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer, The Host) this directing debut by helmer-scribe Shim Sung-bo echoes Bong's trademark cynical vision of human nature, but the characters lack dimensionality and psychological depth."