Emergency Declaration Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Emergency Declaration Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 24, 2022

While it's not hard to imagine Emergency Declaration having been sparked at least in part by fears of a worldwide pandemic (it evidently wasn't, put into production before Covid 19 became our current reality), it might be just as easy to see it as some Korean marketing guru's answer to Train to Busan. The "pitch" may have gone something like, "Hey, instead of a train, let's make it a plane, and instead of zombies, let's make it a bioterrorist!" That pretty much sums up what viewers will have in store with this often viscerally unsettling film, one which most definitely should not be viewed by anyone with phobias surrounding either disease or flying.

While the bulk of this film plays out in the confines of a Boeing 777 (more about the impressive set in a moment), kind of interestingly it actually starts out with something seemingly unrelated to a flight, although of course a connection is made soon enough. In-ho (Song Kang-ho) is a detective investigating a pretty grisly corpse scene. The story will interstitially return to In-ho throughout the main narrative taking place on the plane, something that's helped by the hoary trope of having In-ho's wife Hye-yoon (Woo Mi-hwa) be one of the passengers. And in fact in terms of some of the roiling subplots that threaten to overwhelm this piece at any given moment are a number of undeniable clichés from disaster films in general, and airline disaster films in particular.

Among those "previously seen" aspects are the Van Heflin type terrorist intent on bringing down an airline, albeit in this case not for insurance purposes, but more for what might be termed mad scientist proclivities. The villain in this case is a virologist named Jae-hyuk (Lee Byung-hun ), who is like everyone's worst nightmare of a lab worker, intent on spreading a bioterrorist virus to the most crowded plane he can find. Once he unleashes the disease on the filled to capacity airliner, people start dropping like flies, predictably (and here's another example of a "ripped from an airline disaster film headline") the pilot. But, wait, you also get a passenger with a background in piloting (of course), but who is dealing with his own issues. This is barely the tip of a very convoluted iceberg (if that's an appropriate analogy, given the airborne nature of the film), but I have to say as someone who has a lifelong issue with atopic dermatitis, it made me kind of happy to see a subplot involving eczema (and that is not a joke).

The film actually gets into some additionally fraught territory with a calamitous flight, including a terrifying sequence involving an out of control "roll" which utilizes the interior of an actual 777 sent to Korea that was put on a gimbal. (A making of featurette has someone suggesting this is a "brand new technology", which may surprise the likes of Fred Astaire in 1951's Royal Wedding, though joking aside, maybe this was in reference to the size of the contraption.) There's also a rather interesting political aspect that's woven into things, especially once the plane is not allowed to land anywhere.

Emergency Declaration Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Emergency Declaration is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists a couple of Arri Alexa models and a 4K DI as the relevant datapoints. (In terms of a 4K DI, it looks like Emergency Declaration 4K is slated for release next year in Germany, and I frankly wouldn't be surprised to see Well Go USA releasing it in that format down the line, since they've started expanding into 4K UHD releases.) This is a generally well detailed looking presentation that is often graded toward cooler blue tones. For some reason, director Han Jae-rim and/or cinematographers Mo-gae Lee and Jong-chul Park really like digital horizontal lens flare running through the middle part of the frame, and the repeated use of that stylistic flourish frankly started to annoy me after a while (see two examples in screenshots 8 and 9). Screenshot 8 is also a good example of one other issue which may detract from the overall quality, namely a noticeably noisy appearance in many of the lower light scenes, which tend to become the norm as the plane encounters more and more difficulties. Still, fine detail levels are often squeamishly precise looking, and the CGI is also generally well handled.

Emergency Declaration Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Emergency Declaration features a really fun and immersive Dolby Atmos track in the original Korean, as well as a generally excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the English dub which is fine but which can't quite match the omnipresent directionality of the original language Atmos offering. There are a number of standout effects sequences, especially once the plane starts experiencing any number of traumas, and there is some very aggressive engagement of the surround channels during the most calamitous moments. Large group settings in both plane scenes as well as showdowns involving a governmental minister and the press can also provide a wealth of surround activity. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Two sets of optional English subtitles are available.

Emergency Declaration Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (HD; 5:59) offers a brief overview including interviews with the principal cast and crew. Subtitled in English.


• The Characters (HD; 3:22) offers even briefer introductions to several of the main characters. Subtitled in English.


• The 360 Shot (HD; 3:04) has some cool behind the scenes footage of the immense jet set and the gimbal it was attached to. Subtitled in English.


• Cannes Film Festival Interviews (HD; 3:44) actually begins with stills from the festival and then some kind of generic footage of the cast and crew arriving and then what I'm assuming was the Cannes screening, before finally getting to some brief comments. Subtitled in English.


• Trailer (HD; 1:38)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically (so that clicking on Making of is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Additionally, packaging features a slipcover.

Emergency Declaration Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're planning on flying anywhere over the holiday season, I'd strongly recommend not making Emergency Declaration any part of your festivities planning. Despite running around two and a half hours, this is a rather amazingly briskly paced feature which probably dips into a few too many disaster film tropes for its own good, but which still manages to work in an undue number of primal fears which keeps the angst levels consistently high. Technical merits are generally solid (I'd personally rate audio above video), and Emergency Declaration comes Recommended.