Lee Dae-ho is a single father and manager of Tower Sky, a 120-story luxurious twin-tower building complex located in Yeouido, Seoul. He promises to spend Christmas Eve at an amusement park with his daughter Ha-na, but has to call it off when an upcoming party requires him overseeing the preparations. Attendees include tenants of the Tower Sky complex and its owner and president, Mr. Jo, as well as VIPs and South Korean politicians.
Jo and Mr. Cha, the Tower Sky's safety section head, decide to host the party despite the forecasted strong winds and the faulty water sprinklers of Riverview Tower, one of the two towers. That night, two helicopters are sprinkling snow near the party when updrafts cause the crafts to lose control. The lights attached to one helicopter crash into the glass bridge connecting the two towers, while the other crashes into the 63rd floor of the Riverview Tower.
The building catches fire because of leaking fuel, and pandemonium erupts as people attempt to flee. A team of firefighters arrives at the scene, led by Captain Kang Young-ki, who joined at the last minute despite being off-duty, including Sergeant Oh Byung-man and rookie fireman Lee Sun-woo. The squad enters the building when they bump into Dae-ho, who is frantically searching for his daughter, unaware that she is taking shelter inside the Chinese restaurant alongside Mr. Cha and Yoon-hee, Dae-ho's romantic interest, among other survivors.
Dae-ho leads the firefighting team through the quickest path to the server room where the helicopter crashed, and Young-ki hands him a radio and an oxygen mask so that he can go search for his daughter. They reach the server room on the 63rd floor, but can't extinguish the flames, even with Young-ki's resolute but risky maneuvers.
In an attempt to stop the fire from spreading, Jo decides to activate the firewalls, leaving Dae-ho, who finally reunited with Ha-na and the rest of the survivors, as well as many other people, trapped within the blazing floors. The firefighters attempt to destroy the firewall leading to the restaurant to free them, but the walls cause the entire floor to collapse. Dae-ho, under Yoon-hee's suggestion, directs the trapped survivors to jump onto the gondola in order to escape, but an elderly couple perishes during their descent, and Young-ki euthanizes a critically injured victim using morphine.
Dae-ho's group tries to escape to the other tower, the Cityview Tower, by crossing the skybridge between them, but the structure gives way and Cha falls to his death, with Ha-na and Sun-woo barely making it. The Riverview Tower then starts to buckle because of the fire damaging the structure due to its intense heat warping the building's steel frame, and Fire Commissioner Jang decides to demolish it to avoid it toppling over the other tower or the Yeongdeungpo District. He orders everyone in and around the complex to evacuate, and Young-ki uses Dae-ho's fingerprint access to discharge the tower's water tanks in order slow down the rate of collapse.
Young-ki and Dae-ho then ride the freight elevator in free-fall to quickly descend to the surface, and alongside pregnant woman Nam-ok, they manage to climb out before the elevator slams into the basement, trapping Yon-hee and Byung-man and leaving them slowly asphyxiated. Dae-ho voluntarily goes back inside Tower Sky along with Young-ki and his crew to rescue the trapped survivors. They leave the survivors on the storm drain and set out to detonate the rainwater storage tanks, hoping the fast-moving current will send them straight towards the Han River before the tower collapses. However, Young-ki loses the detonator before reaching the survivors.
Young-ki then sacrifices his own life by manually detonating the explosives, and the resulting rushing torrent carries the group towards the river, right as the firefighters blow up the Riverview Tower. The survivors are pulled out from the water by the rescue team, and Sun-woo and Byung-man salute their fallen captain.
Before the closing credits, a white chocolate cake, which was meant to be delivered to Kang Young-ki, is seen in an empty display case at the now-empty bakery. An aerial shot shows the 63 Building and the remains of Tower Sky, now consisting of the single 120-story Cityview Tower, with their surroundings covered in thick dust from the demolished Riverview Tower.
The crew built 26 different sets to create various spaces in the fictional 108-story Tower Sky such as a Chinese restaurant, elevators and a pedestrian overpass between the two blocks. For the scenes involving water on the 80th floor, actors Sol Kyung-gu and Kim Sang-kyung filmed in a water container set in Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province, without using stuntmen.[11]
Kim worked on the film's post-production for two years. 1,700 cuts out of 3,000 were based on CGI and 500 of the CG cuts were full 3-D cut scenes. For more authenticity, live action shoots were combined with CGI, such as the shooting of a miniature in the United States with a motion control camera for the ending scene.[2]
On its theater release on December 25, 2012, The Tower drew 431,759 admissions, the second highest opening day ticket sales in the history of Korean cinema (after The Thieves' 436,628).[12][13][14] It sold two million tickets in its first week,[15] 3.54 million by its second week,[16] and 4.45 million by its third week.[17] On January 22, 2013, it became the first Korean film in 2013 to reach the five million mark.[18][19][20][21]
The film was pre-sold by CJ Entertainment to Entertainment One in UK, Splendid in Germany, Benelux, Zylo for French-speaking territories, Horizon International in Turkey, Rainbow Entertainment in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia; and Jonon Source in Mongolia.[22]
Built in 1969, the N Seoul Tower is South Korea's first general radio wave tower, providing TV and radio broadcasting in Seoul.[3] Currently, the tower broadcasts signals for Korean media outlets, such as KBS, MBC, and SBS.
Built in 1969 at a cost of approximately US$2.5 million, Seoul Tower was completed on 3 December 1971, designed by architects at Jangjongryul though at the time the facility interior was not furnished. N Seoul Tower opened to the public in October 1980. Since then, the tower has been a landmark of Seoul. Tower elevation ranges from 236.7 m (777 ft) at the base to 479.7 m (1,574 ft) above sea level. Seoul Tower had its name changed to N Seoul Tower in 2005, with the "N" standing for 'new', 'Namsan', and 'nature.' Approximately 15 billion KRW was spent in renovating and remodeling the tower.
When N Seoul Tower's original owner merged with CJ Corporation, it was renamed the N Seoul Tower (official name CJ Seoul Tower). YTN acquired it from CJ Corporation in 1999, and changed its name to YTN Seoul Tower. It has also been known as the Namsan Tower or Seoul Tower. It is also Korea's first general radio wave tower that holds transmissions antennas of KBS, MBC, SBS TV, FM, PBC, TBS, CBS, and BBS FM.
N Plaza has two floors. The first floor includes the ticket booth, N Terrace, N Gift and a burger shop. The second floor houses the Place Dining, an Italian restaurant, and the Roof Terrace where the "Locks of Love" can be found.
The N Tower has four floors: 1F, 2F, 3F, and 5F (most buildings in Korea avoid having fourth floors).[5] There are four observation decks (the 4th observation deck, which is the revolving restaurant, rotates at a rate of one revolution every 48 minutes), as well as gift shops and two restaurants. Most of the city of Seoul can be seen from the top. Close to N Seoul Tower is a second lattice transmission tower. The tower offers a digital observatory with a 360 panoramic view that showcases Korea's history through 32 LCD screens. This is located on the third floor of the N Tower.[6]
Many visitors ride the Namsan cable car up the Mt. Namsan to walk to the tower. The tower is renowned as a national landmark and for its cityscape views. The 236.7 m (777 ft) tower sits on the Namsan mountain (243m or 797 ft). It attracts thousands of tourists and locals every year, especially during nighttime when the tower lights up. Photographers enjoy the panoramic view the tower offers. Each year, approximately 8.4 million visit the N Seoul Tower, which is surrounded by many other attractions South Korea offers, including Namsan Park and Namsangol Hanok Village.[8] Visitors may go up the tower for a fee that differs for the following groups: children, elderly and teenagers, and adults. Rates differ for each package and group size.
The N Seoul Tower is illuminated in blue from sunset to 23:00 (22:00 in winter) on days where the air quality in Seoul is 45 or less. During the spring of 2012, the Tower was lit up for 52 days, which is four days more than in 2011.[10] The tower uses the latest LED technology to offer visitors a digital, cultural art experience through 'light art.' [11] The N Seoul Tower puts on many different shows, including the "Reeds of Light" and "Shower of Light."
An exception to this is Earth Day. On Earth Day, lights were held nationwide to promote awareness of energy conservation. At 8 p.m KST. on that day, lights at N Seoul Tower on Namsan disappear into darkness.[12]
In a poll of nearly 2,000 foreign visitors conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in November 2011, 16 percent stated that hanging named padlocks on the Tower fence as a symbol of love was their favorite activity in Seoul.[13] This attraction is situated on the 2nd floor of the N Plaza, at the Roof Terrace. The "Locks of Love" is a popular location for people to hang locks that symbolize eternal love, and has been depicted in many Korean television shows, dramas, and movies for this reason.[14]
'Love padlocks' is a common couple activity consists of the purchasing of a padlock and key, where initials, messages and symbols can be personally inscribed onto the surface of the lock with markers and pens. Securing the padlocks on the fences filled with locks of previous participants, the key is often thrown away as a symbol of everlasting love.[15] This is similar to the love locks in Paris, France, on the Pont Neuf bridge.
b37509886e