21/04/2025
Pandora (Korean: 판도라) is a 2016 South Korean disaster film written and directed by Park Jung-woo, starring Kim Nam-gil. The film was released in South Korea on December 7, 2016.[3]
Plot ::
Jae-hyeok is a young man who works at the aging Hanbyul Nuclear Power Plant, which is their namesake town's only source of energy and jobs and is currently undergoing construction of the second reactor unit. Jae-hyeok, who lost both his father and brother working at the plant in his early years, lives with his mother, sister-in-law, and nephew Min-jae. Jae-hyeok expresses his desire to leave the town and the plant behind him and work on a fishing vessel to make money for his family, but is discouraged by everyone he knows, including his childhood friend-fiancee, Yeon-joo.
Pyeong-seok is one of the head operators of the plant, who, along with other plant workers and a group of anti-nuclear activists, tries to get the President of South Korea Seok-ko Hang, to shut down the plant, whose safety inspections had been inadequately rushed during the construction of the first unit, but their concerns are dismissed by the other senior plant operators, especially the Prime Minister. An earthquake suddenly strikes the town, causing the nuclear reactor to overheat. Due to aging safety systems, attempts to cool down the overheating reactor are botched.
Meanwhile, Hang's administration fiercely debates between allowing the reactor to vent radioactive particles into the air to relieve pressure from the core or evacuating large population centers around the plant, eventually settling on evacuating residents closest to the reactor, but the town's streets became gridlocked as there is no contingency plan in place. This critical delay led to the reactor building exploding before the crew can open the pressure release valves, killing or injuring most of the plant workers, alongside Jae-hyeok, who eventually collapses from nuclear radiation poisoning.
The KCDC quarantines the town's residents not far from the reactor. However. after Yeon-joo gets proof that the reactor exploded and delivers the news, they set up an internet jammer and locks the evacuees inside the evacuation center, as they, along with most of the nurses abandon the town to leave them to die, with the exception of Mi-sook, a junior nurse who is now treating Jae-hyeok and other plant workers. Yeon-joo, along with the town's residents manage to break out from the evacuation center and commandeers one of the buses for their citizens to escape.
Despite the firefighters' efforts, some firefighters start to suffer from radiation poisoning as the reactor continues overheating. Hang, after being demoralized since the power plant explosion, finally regains control of the situation and orders the firefighters to use seawater to successfully decommission the reactors. Upon discovering that spent fuel rods are losing coolant due to the damage sustained by the earthquake, Hang addresses to the nation on television, requesting aid from the plant workers to seal the cracks of the tank above the plant's waste room to prevent coolant from escaping when the Army refuses to perform that operation.
Jae-hyeok, although resentful due to the government's negligence, eventually agrees for the sake of the people, and after one of his friends, Gil-seop, convinces them to go. Jae-hyeok calls a distraught Yeon-joo before getting on a bus back to the town along with their surviving crew. During their operation, the crack underneath the coolant tank grew bigger and they are ordered to retreat. Jae-hyeok suggests they seal the door and blow up the tank to allow the spent fuel rods to fall into the basement, effectively creating a new tank.
However, at the current situation, both of these steps must be executed simultaneously, meaning that one will not be leaving out alive. Jae-hyeok, the only person among the group who can operate explosives and having already been too sick from radiation poisoning, volunteers to sacrifice himself, allowing the workers to then seal himself into the waste room before fleeing the area. Jae-hyeok uses his helmet-mounted camera to broadcast a farewell message to his family and Yeon-joo before blowing up the tank, killing himself in the process.
