AllMovie

A mammoth storm threatens to level a major city in this thriller advertised as China's first disaster movie. Xu (Wu Gang) is the mayor of a large city off the south coast of China, and one day he receives disturbing news from Cheng (Song Xiaoying), a trusted scientific advisor who was one of his teachers when Xu was a schoolboy. A powerful and rapidly growing typhoon nicknamed "Blue Whale" is heading towards the city, and Xu and Cheng must formulate a strategy to protect the city and its citizens before the storm reaches the shore. Chang has had experience with world-class storms before; his father was a storm chaser who died in a typhoon in 1956, and as he deals with the current crisis, he can't help but think of the disaster of fifty years earlier. Meanwhile, a handful of people in the city are struggling to deal with their personal issues as they prepare to meet the storm, including a visiting meteorologist from the United States, a politician in town for the wedding of his daughter, a thief on the run from the cops, and a man who lives on a small island nearby trying to get back to protect his wife, who is expecting a baby. A major box office success in China, Chaoqiang taifeng (aka Super Typhoon) was an official entry at the 2008 Tokyo Film Festival.