3 out of 5

Director: Kim Ji-Woon

While thematically this is one of the more focused Ji-Woon flicks I’ve seen thus far, that also removes the ponderous nature that seems to define his style and thus limits the overall effect of ‘The Foul King,’ though its moments of action and elements that do expand upon its potentially simple wrestler-movie palette hint at where Kim’s career would go.

Im Dae-ho is late to work and generally failing at life.  His boss (at the bank, hated job of choice in Asian countries) is an alpha male who likes to put Dae-ho in a headlock.  Dae-ho passes by a joint claiming to train wrestlers and really – really just wants to know how to escape from a headlock.  For which he’s kicked out because come on, this is a serious business.  But our small wrestling joint, in a struggle for cash, needs to hire on a new act that will wow the crowd, someone who will be known for entertainment, not skill – and who will be willing to throw a match with superstar something something X (sorry, my Korean memory don’t work too well) and so Dae-ho’s enthusiasm, and unawareness of how much he’s going to get knocked around, make him a shoe-in for the role.

What follows will be recognizable as a fish-out-of-water comedy to American audiences.  Dae-ho mixes up fake props with real ones, can’t stand up on the train after training too hard, and dreams of success as a superstar wrestler… but still gets crumbled by his boss, because he still can’t quite successfully break the headlock without cheating.  There we get some of the familiar Ji-Woon layers, and while the mixing of wrestling confidence and real world confidence is an easy enough theme for these types of films – and the moral lessons blah blah blah that come with it – the way which Dae-ho still passively gets inspired by his quitting co-workers or can only lust after a lady of choice while wearing his wrestling mask dance with some headier stuff that sort of gets tossed away in moments of slapstick.  An attempt to tie these themes together at the tail end of the movie sort of ruins a bittersweet happy/sad comedic/violent ending, again curbing something contemplative with a pratfall.  As with The Good The Bad…, I think this movie will reward rewatches, when you’re more accepting of where the line is blurred between comedy and otherwise: Dae-ho, played by Song Kang-ho, is given an almost permanent look of aloofness that makes all of the scenes feel comical, and there are times when blood spurts from a wound and you worry someone has lost an eye or is dead but, nah, it’s just a scratch.  But a first viewing leans toward this being primarily a slapstick film, a tribute, perhaps, to a ‘childish’ wrestling love of Ji-Woon’s, or something similar, and a mostly straightforward parable around maturity and the roadblocks that come with that.