PM: (“singing”) “Win in the end! I’m gonna win in the end! Win in the end! I’m gonna win in the end…”
SA: What the hell is that?
PM: It’s a song called “Win in the End”
SA: I gathered as much. Why are you singing it - and badly at that?
PM: Well, first, singing badly is the only way I know how, baby! Second, it lifts me up and inspires me and reminds me of a childhood favourite.
SA: What’s it from?
PM: Teen Wolf.
SA: Teen Wolf???
PM: My favourite Michael J Fox movie! It’s even better than Doc Hollywood, you know. “I am the one and only! Nobody I’d rather be!”
SA: Please stop. What about Back to the Future?
PM: “Don’t need no credit card to ride this train…”
SA: You’re a lost cause.
Topic intro
SA: Today’s episode is on Korean Sports movies.
PM: More your kind of topic than mine really.
SA: You like movies.
PM: Yeah, they’re fine but I also resent them a bit. I think people make too big a deal over them sometimes. I really don’t think what’s at #1 at the box office needs to be a major headline every bloody Monday, does it?
SA: I know what it is.
PM: Do you now?
SA: You’re bitter that music doesn’t generate similar attention anymore.
PM: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Moving on, let’s discuss the point of this episode.
SA: Fine - even though I’m right. Today we’re going to discuss a handful of notable Korean sports movies. I have selected two.
PM: And I have picked two more.
SA: And we’re going to share info about them, our impressions, what they tell us about sports.
PM: All that good stuff.
SA: With that said, let’s begin. Would you like to do the honours?
PM: I’d be happy to.
As One (aka 코리아)
PM: My first pick is As One from 2012. It is based on what took place at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan when North and South Korea agreed to send a unified team. It stars Ha Ji-won and Bae Doo-na as players who have been selected to team up in spite of their differences. This is the first indication that the truth, let’s say, is more liquid than solid.
SA: How so?
PM: I find it hard to believe that the two could do so well after such a short amount of time playing together. This is not to knock them as table tennis players only to suggest that it probably takes more than a few weeks for a doubles team to get in synch.
SA: On the other hand, this unified team was cobbled together on pretty short notice so they wouldn’t have had long anyway.
PM: That’s a good point but I imagine they had a little more than a week’s notice. But, yes, as you suggest, the very nature of this unified team is that it was put together fairly quickly and then it disbanded just as abruptly, as the film details. I saw it in the theatre when it came out and only recently re-watched it and I was struck by it being perhaps the last film from the Sunshine Policy era.
SA: Didn’t the Sunshine Policy end in 2007?
PM: Yeah, around that time. I remember president Lee Myung-bak saying that South Korea wasn’t getting anything out of it.
SA: You mean aside from peace, stability, the chance for family reunions and a path to reunification?
PM: Mr S, you forgot the economic benefits as well.
SA: Yes, them too.
PM: But, yeah, I feel that it fits in with earlier films such as Taeguki and Welcome to Dongmakgol which both humanized North Koreans and, maybe even more importantly, looked at things from their perspective: forging an understanding instead of having one side strongarm the other. That said, most of the North Korean officials, aside from the coach, are cold blooded, heartless monsters intent on sabotaging the entire thing.
SA: So it’s post-Sunshine Policy in that respect.
PM: Yes, I suppose so. One of the best things about As One is the male characters are almost a non-factor. At one point, after the two divided sides begin getting along, the male table tennis players sneak off in the middle of the night to drink whisky, stuff their faces with snacks and look at nudie mags.
SA: They sound like a bunch of fourteen-year-olds whose parents went out for the evening.
PM: Exactly. And they’re about as useful too.
SA: Weren’t they there to play table tennis as well?
PM: So you’d think. In fact, Kim Taek-soo, a South Korean, actually took home a bronze in the men’s singles competition but he isn’t in the film.
SM: The men were just there to party and act like idiots?
PM: Well, it is what we do best, is it not? (laughing) Actually, it would be nice to see a bit more of the men having their late night unified get togethers.
SA: “Hey, look what we have! We smuggled in some good whisky!”
PM: “아사!”
SA: “And bags of chips!”
PM: “대박!”
SA: “And choco pies!”
PM: “흘!”
SA: “And best of all wank mags!”
PM: “오와!”
SA: “So what did you guys bring from the North?”
PM: “Uh, we have commemorative pins of 김일성 climbing Mt Everest in world record time. Don’t let them pierce your skin, they haven’t been disinfected”
SA: “Oh, great. Just what we always wanted”
PM: Back to the actual film. A fun fact is that Bae Doo-na learned how to play table tennis left-handed for it. And it isn’t even her first movie role as a high level athlete. Can you name her first?
SA: She was the archer in The Host, right?
PM: I can’t get anything past you, can I? As with many of her films, she’s excellent. She really captures that emotionless melancholy we imagine North Koreans must have. Not unlike 정호연 who played Sae-byeok in the first season of Squid Game.
SA: Anything more to add?
PM: A couple more notes. Korean actress 김재화 plays Chinese table tennis legend Deng Yaping. She comes across a robotic six foot tall menace where in actual fact she was a fun sized 4’11” robotic menace. Every point she scores is the result of her Korean opponents messing things up, not because of her skills.
SA: That figures.
PM: And finally, quiz time: why is As One’s title in Korean simply ‘Korea’?
SA: Because they couldn’t think of anything better?
PM: No, that’s what I thought at first too. In fact, it was the official name of this unified team. Not Daehanminguk or whatever it is North Korea uses as their official name. I guess it was a compromise. And with that let’s get to your first selection.
Fist of Legend
SA: We’re going to talk about a movie that had potential to become a classic, but seems to have faded away.
PM: A Barefoot Dream? You’re right- it could have been Korea’s The Blind Side but it didn’t even get to Next Goal Wins status here.
SA: No, no. This is a movie about fighting!
PM: Isn’t that 98% of Ma Dong-Seok movies? And those aren’t sports movies are they?
SA: Yes! I mean Yes to your first question! But my pick for today’s episode is Fist of Legend. Starring Hwang Hun Jun as Im Duk-kyu, a guy down on his luck, but gets invited to a contest called Legendary Fighter run by Kyu Min who’s played by Lee Yo-won. 20 years ago Duk-kyu and his friends were legendary street fighters in high school and he originally didn't want to fight again. But in the present, his daughter got into a fight and beat the brakes off a girl in school, and he needs to pay her hospital bills & compensation.
PM: Ah yes, the good ole’ blood money plot! Literal blood money in this case.
SA: Perhaps she should’ve gone on the show instead? Anyway, he wins his first MMA match then fights an old classmate, and fights his way to the finals. I’d spoil the ending but I can’t remember it. Anyway, that’s not why I consider it a classic.
PM: And why’s that?
SA: The 3 legendary fighters are not what I’d call sports legends. There’s a real-ness to their backstories. But as such, this gives the movie some time to discuss how class inequities here drive people to do desperate things to take some measure of control in their lives. The other reason is that most of it was filmed in Namwon and Jeonju. It was one of the opening movies at the Jeonju Film Festival that year and my wife and I got to watch it and see the actors on stage.
PM: A personal touch always helps the memory.
SA: I’m not saying it’s the precursor to Squid Game, but you can see a bit of the economic tension and reality TV aspects wrapped into both films.
PM: Squid Game without the funny masks huh?
Take Off 2
PM: For my second choice I’m going with 국가대표 2, aka Take Off 2, sequel to the first Take Off movie from 2009. In truth, it’s more of a follow-up than a sequel. While the storylines are reasonably similar, the characters are completely different. The original is a cinderella story about a band of ragtag ski jumpers but this time we have a plucky women’s hockey team instead. It stars Soo Ae as a North Korean defector who had been something of a hockey star up north.
SA: The first Take Off was about ski jumpers so that works as a title but Take Off for a hockey movie?
PM: I know. Why didn’t they go with Face Off?
SA: Because of the John Travolta-Nick Cage film of the same name?
PM: Maybe but the same title can be used for more than one movie. In fact, possibly Soo Ae’s best film is Sunny from 2008, not to be confused with the other Sunny from 3 years later which is also Korean. FYI, the Korean title of the Soo Ae Sunny is 님은먼곳에. It isn’t well remembered today but it’s really good.
SA: So, is Take Off 2 at all realistic?
PM: No, not at all. As One took liberties with actual events but this movie dispenses with fact altogether. Watching it you would think they were competitive in the 2011 Asian Winter Games but they were anything but. South Korea lost all four of their games, scoring just one goal and allowing thirty-seven.
SA: And they figured this was good fodder for a movie.
PM: I know, right? There’s also a story revolving around Soo Ae’s character discovering that the North Korean team has a player she knows very well. Oh the tears. Not mine, mind you.
SA: You didn’t get a little choked up?
PM: No, I didn’t. I’m not crazy about this one. Not because I’m a Canadian who feels the need to be protective of his national sport but mainly because of the distracting nature of the actor playing the coach.
SA: Who’s that?
PM: 오달수. He’s in seemingly half the Korean movies you’re like to see. He and 유해진, those two are in damn near everything. The problem is 오달수 would be charged with sexually harassing several women in 2018. He first denied these claims, then apologized and then was let off. And I’ve seen him in other things since, he’s even in the second season of Squid Game, but to see him coaching a women’s hockey team is just icky. All kinds of wrong. In fact, let’s take this opportunity to move on.
Glove
SA: And now we move onto my next film. Glove, a 2011 baseball film starring Jung Jae-Young as a suspended baseball player who gets a job coaching hearing impaired boys at a rural catholic high school in the Cheongju area. That’s in the northern middle part of the country about an hour north of Daejeon.
PM: There’s some truth to this movie, isn’t there?
SA: Yes, as there actually was, or maybe still is, a baseball team there. It inspired the director Kang Woo-suk of Moss fame to make a film about the team.
PM: Yeah, that’s right! I read in the Joongang daily that he wanted to change genres because his previous films were brutal thrillers.
SA: We could all use a change in styles from time to time. Anyway, the main plot of the movie is that Kim Sang-Nam has fallen out of love of baseball, but by seeing the boys’ passion, he learns to love the sport again. I think the plot kinda went sideways in some ways because the start of the movie made it seem that if he completed a season coaching the team, the league would automatically reinstate him. But as we learn from his agent, the league’s teams and KBO office all wanted to drop him because of fan outrage anyway. So did he coach this team for nothing?
PM: It doesn’t seem like it. Anything you do with kids is worthwhile, unless it's those dreadful 2-a-day Oklahoma drills.
SA: Those are legally considered child abuse in the European Union. Anyway, Coach Kim is tasked with preparing the team for their first win at the national baseball tournament and it’s their first time. He has a LOT of unresolved trauma from playing baseball which he kinda forces onto the boys so they realize that playing in the tournament is not going to be easy or safe.
PM: Naturally, baseball can be a dirty sport! But there was some charm in the movie, wasn’t there?
SA: Of course, though at times it fell flat. I liked the scene when the principal nun made the coaches think about what the boys’ lives would be like without a good education but Coach Nam made her realize that their boys’ aren’t going to do well without a way to ‘relate’ with hearing people. The idea is that playing baseball will make the boys seem less ‘different’ to others.
I didn’t like the scene in which the tall kid Jeong-Nam’s (I think) mom was yelling at him to stop playing baseball because she didn’t want him to be like the other deaf boys and he could pretend to be normal. Problem is, everyone always learns soon enough and I feel like in real life, she would’ve known that.
PM: And was there a romance? What am I saying?! OF COURSE there was a romance!
SA: They weren’t emphasized because Coach Nam the music teacher really didn’t like Coach Kim at first because he was too grumpy and felt like the boys weren’t good enough to even play league baseball. But at the very end the relationship felt inevitable but shoehorned. There was another scene where one of the infielders pledged to a cute girl that he would win for her. But other than that there wasn’t much romance.
Conclusion
SA: So, before we finish, let’s talk a little about what we’d like to see in hypothetical Korean sports movies in the future.
PM: Good idea. I’d like to see something like Dodgeball. A comedy sports movie if for no other reason than to dispense with all that damn crying.
SA: Do you think a parody of sports movies would go over well here?
PM: It’s hard to say. Just because it’s something I might find funny doesn’t mean - or, indeed, that many in our culture would find funny - doesn’t mean the majority of Koreans would. That said, may I pitch you an idea?
SA: Sure but keep in mind I’m no movie exec.
PM: Not yet at any rate.
SA: One day.
PM: All right. Here it is: 피구, a sort of sequel to Dodgeball. Shay is a young college dodgeball star who gets an offer to play pro in the Korean Pigu League. She shows up only to discover that the Korean game is wildly different from the American rules she grew up on and becomes the laughing stock of the league when it becomes clear she can’t adapt. She clashes with her crusty old coach and his son the assistant coach, who is tasked with helping her out. Then love begins to blossom between them.
SA: Plenty of cinematic cliches but where’s the comedy?
PM: Well, Koreans may just get a kick out of seeing a young American suck something awful.
SA: Is that it?
PM: Oh and there’s a goofy sidekick who befriends Shay. She’s the only one who believes in her.
SA: Another cliche! You really packed ‘em in!
PM: I do my best. So, what about you, Mr S? What would you like to see in a future Korean sports movie? And do you have any cliche-ridden ideas of your own?
SA: A while ago we talked about the documentary series and our ideas for a 30 for SamShip. While I like sports dramas, I’m more interested in documentaries. Sports crime documentaries especially. You can get a sense of the backstory a bit more from the doc than you can from a drama because those need to be jazzed up for the audience.
Paul’s Court Interview Pt2
PM: You got another text message during the show again.
SA: Yup. Is it from our advertisers? I hope so.
PM: I really wanted to get one. Running a podcast is an expensive business.
SA: Nope- it’s the chief justice again. (excited voice) Time for round 2!
PM: FUkkkkk! (groan) Why can’t they ask all those know-it-all opinion writers at the Korea Times?!
SA: They all failed the interview.
PM: I wanna say I’m surprised but…
SA: Alright, here we go again. Start the comedic music! (music start) A football star is suing the KFA because they banned him from the league due to match-fixing charges in China. He wants reinstatement and-
PM: What is his player rating on EA?
SA: 72.
PM: Shooting?
SA: 61:
PM: Guilty.
SA: Technically the correct word is Denied but guilty is fine too. Next case is an appeal of a suspension from the KBO on grounds that the league’s punishment for gambling is unconstitutional.
PM: Who got suspended?
SA: Two Doosan minor leaguers.
PM: Guilty.
SA: But-
PM: Guilty. Not changing my mind.
SA: Correct. Next case is an appeal by a draft dodger who ate too much to get out of the military. He and his friend-
PM: Guilty, but conviction overturned if they beat Joey Chestnut in a kimchi eating contest.
SA: That’s…acceptable. Last case is an appeal by a K-pop management company that lost twice against a girl group who left-
PM: How good are they at singing?
SA: Two M.net awards and a Golden Disc for best album in ‘23.
PM: That’s it? Hmmm a tough one. Which clan is the company owner from?
SA: Andong Kims.
PM: Appeal Denied. They got too much power.
SA: Incorrect.
PM: WHAT?! What madness is this?!
SA: You know 25% of the nation’s GDP is based around KPOP! Without those slavery contracts, how will the industry survive?!
PM: Oh so I’m supposed to be OK with musical sharecropping now?
SA: Well that’s the way the court works. Anyway 3 out of 4 is not bad. You get to go onto the next round.
PM: (groan) Jesus H. Just tell them I hate kimchi or something. That should disqualify me.
SA: You wish. According to the test, you’ll either need to be caught at the DMZ with 42 kilos of plutonium, or 42 kilos or more of cocaine in a Secho-dong elementary AND music hagwon. Wow that’s an oddly specific requirement.
PM: Great, so I have to reenact the plot of cocaine bear to get out of this?!
Ending
SA: Thanks for tuning in today! We hoped you learned something new about Korean sports!
PM: I certainly did! Please share this podcast with your friends & family, anyone you think would be interested in irreverent takes on Korean Sports.
SA: Especially give this to rookies. They need alllll the help they can get.
PM: Don’t forget to rate our podcast 5 stars of course. But don’t do it if you don’t like us.
SA: You can email the show at hwatingsportspodcast at gmail.com or leave a comment on our various podcast sites. Hate mail will be read aloud on special episodes and ruthlessly mocked.
PM: Fan mail will be mocked but in a more wholesome way.
SA: Our next episode will be on the 28th of Feb and we’re talking about more sports movies!
PM: This time, it’s our ideas for an ESPN-style documentary series. 30 for SamShip!
SA: Speaking of cultures, we’d like to give a shoutout to our listeners in Hong Kong!
PM: Home of the Feng Shui Cannons on the HSBC building! It’s their number 1 attraction *joke sting*.
SA: Music notes like the opening song thanks to DumiAFava. Cover art thanks to our live-in cycling expert James! Until next time, Korean sports fans!
PM: Guests of the Hwa-ting sports podcast dine at any number of E-Mart locations around Korea. Have you arrived here broke and your boss is unwilling to give you an advance to tide you over? Then pay your local E-Mart grocery store a visit to fill up on samples. Old ladies are currently frying up pans of dumplings, sausages and mystery meats while cereals, yogurt and sliced up bananas are also on offer. Wash it all down with a dixie cup of instant coffee. Not yet full? Then go round the store to grab seconds! (Note: Contrary to popular belief, E-Mart does not hand out samples of steak. We’re not goddam Costco!)
Notes: