SOAR INTO THE SUN aka R2B: Return to Base (2012)

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Kim Dong-Won
Cast: RAIN, Shin Se-kyung, Kim Sung-soo, Lee Ha-na, Yoo Joo-Sang, Lee Jong-suk
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Rating: TBA
Released By: Encore Films and Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 18 October 2012

Synopsis: An attempt at a dangerous zero-knot maneuver during an air show by ROK Black Eagle Special Squad pilot Tae-hun (RAIN a.k.a. JUNG Ji-hoon) turns the event into a scene of chaos and he's kicked out of the team. He is transferred to 21st Fighter Wing and meets his former classmates Yu-jin (LEE Ha-na) and Eagle squad leader Dae-seo (KIM Sung-soo). He slowly adapts to the new Wing and squad mates, but constantly butt heads with Falcon squad leader Cheol hui (YU Jun-sang), who is known as ‘Top Gun’ of the Wing. To defend their own honor they get into a F-15K flight match but Tae-hun tastes his first ever loss. He brings in top aircraft maintenance mechanic Se-yeong (SHIN Se-kyung) to look after his jet and manages to win a later air combat competition with her support.

Movie Review:

Soar Into the Sun certainly wasn’t planned this way, but the movie, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, serves as an emphatic nod towards Top Gun: starting as a modestly appealing and intimate mesh of a combat pilot’s reckless tendencies and his romance with a colleague who is both annoyed and impressed by his attitude, and becoming a smartly orchestrated and visually accomplished dogfight movie. So it seems fair to talk about Soar Into the Sun in terms of how everything comes together to form a compelling show. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t quite as rewarding as the support that the Korean air force has lent to the production.

In his last role before being drafted into military service, Rain plays a fighter jet pilot with a strange penchant for disobeying commands and risking his life in the interest of performing the most dangerous stunts. He’s expelled from the squad and invited into another (out of plot convenience, apparently), meeting a strict superior and a female aircraft mechanic. This sows the seed for the next half of the movie where he learns about teamwork and responsibility, making use of these newfound attitudes to help defend his country against North Korean invaders and stage a daring rescue from behind enemy lines.

If the second half of the movie sounds more exciting than the first, that’s because it is. Not that the first half is bad, but since tickets are being bought in anticipation of watching the actors pull off one bravura aircraft maneuver after another, the second half is what we want to see more of. And amazing is what I want to leave my impression of the movie with, a task made easy by no less than three aircrafts forcing the air above the South Korean skyline into satisfying cracks. Here is a movie that revels in pushing its aerial combat into increasingly dangerous places, raising stakes and tension by getting the enemy aircraft to actually attack civilian structures (an approach that we’ll see again in Jack Neo’s upcoming Ah Boys to Men).

No one really needs to see the first half – although without a doubt, those pretty visual effects and stunts aren’t nearly enough to sustain the whole movie. But the issue actually revolves around how Soar Into the Sun melds the first half with the second half. Air superiority competitions and the romance between Rain’s character and his colleague keep the first half rooted in establishing the kind of person that he is, but it’s a little too tedious to watch this all play out without any sense of what these lessons might build into. There’s certainly no suggestion that the North might attack the South later on, creating a very jarring shift in tone as chaos jumps in out of nowhere.

That’s actually as succinct a summation of Soar Into the Sun as you could ever hope to ask for. It’s amazing, but only because it’s such a spectacular treat for anyone who’s ever into fighter jets. So if you’re a fan of fighter jets, don’t hesitate to buy a ticket. Soar Into the Sun is otherwise ineffective, troubled by its egregious inability to tie its halves into anything resembling a proper movie. It looks like the show was made by two directors who hurriedly cut and pasted their parts into a single package. If it turns out that the Korean air force is still willing to lend its full support to another movie in the future, it’ll not hurt to make better creative choices to avoid another missed opportunity.

Movie Rating:

(Amazing aerial combat scenes and visual effects aside, Soar Into the Sun seems to be made by two directors who hurriedly cut and pasted their parts into a single package)

Review by Loh Yong Jian