SINKHOLE

Official Selection, 2021 Locarno Film Festival

Ah, the dream of homeownership. The Parks have finally ascended to middle-class happiness. A home for their kid, a shorter commute. Sure, things might seem a little off. One of the kooky new neighbors might be more unnerving than oddball. Co-workers exude romantic awkwardness at their housewarming. Oh, and the ground is uneven, according to their son’s marbles. Nothing that can’t be fixed with… oh never mind, they’re all doomed because they’re in a movie called SINKHOLE!!! Out of nowhere, the apartment complex is devoured by the earth, plummeting into an abyss that does not care about marbles, or romance, or middle-class comforts. Neighbors become crewmates on a sinking tower, and it’s up to a band of unheroic misfits to tackle a challenge that’s definitely not in the HOA manual.

Filmed before the pandemic, but released in the middle of one, SINKHOLE delivered Korean cinema’s biggest opening weekend of 2021. Equal parts survival thriller and confinement comedy, SINKHOLE is an over-the-top disaster romp of Sharknado proportions that stages a most unprecedented nightmare of getting stuck in one’s home, and then lets the audience laugh at its utter absurdity.

–Brian Hu

Co-Presented by Korean American Bar Association (KABA) and Korean American Coalition – San Diego.