WHITEOUT

A thriller about a terrorist take-over of Japan's largest dam, Whiteout grossed Y4.2 billion (US$35.3m) - the most of any live-action Japanese film released last year - while proving that Japanese filmmakers can deliver Hollywood-style action on a fraction of a Hollywood budget. What Whiteout tries to do, however, is less to pile on the stunts and effects a la John Woo in MI:2, than to crank up the tension a la Kang Je-gyu, the director of the 1999 Korean megahit Shiri. But whereas Shiri was rooted in the political realities of the Korean peninsula and even prophetic in its vision of North-South rapprochement - Whiteout is sheer mangaesque entertainment, based on a best-selling novel by former animation director Yuichi Shinpo. First-time director Setsuro Wakamatsu, a TV veteran making the transition to the big screen, stages the action scenes with assurance and impact, as though he has been woodshedding with tapes of everything from Die Hard to A Better Tomorrow and getting most of his lessons right. In the second hour, the plot becomes busier than most of his models - slowing the film, if not burying it. The ending, however, is clever; Instead of the expected explosion to end all Japanese movie explosions, Wakamatsu gives us something - cooler.