Crying Fist (Screen Daily review)
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 3:41 pmCrying Fist (Jumeoki Unda)
Lee Marshall in Cannes 14 June 2005
Dir: Ryoo Seung-wan. South Korea. 2005. 132mins.
One of no less than six South Korean features to be invited to Cannes this year, FIPRESCI prize-winner Crying Fist is a better film than its generally downbeat reviews at home might suggest. The latest addition to the boxing genre, Crying Fist is more conventional in one way than two other recent slugfest movies, Million Dollar Baby and Beautiful Boxer, in that its two heroes are both male and heterosexual.
What is unusual about actor-director Ryoo Seung-wan’s first foray outside straight Asian action is the way it allows the back story of the two characters to overwhelm what would otherwise be a fairly linear “seasoned old boxer versus angry young contender” fight pic. This makes for an overlong, structurally unbalanced movie – but also for a dual character study that is, paradoxically, at its best when it gets on with observing the lives of these two scarred heroes and doesn’t worry too much about the thematic parallels, or their final convergence.
The film had a strong run in South Korea, though overseas it is unlikely to match the territorial outreach of Oldboy, which introduced Western audiences to the bravura of one of this film’s co-stars, the ever-watchable Choi Min-sik.
Choi plays a former champion boxer, Gang Tae-shik, who is on the skids. His marriage is falling apart, he drinks too much, and he is in desperate financial straits. Magnificently washed-up, Tae-shik decides to make a living as a human punch-ball in a shopping mall – someone people can take their frustrations out on.
Meanwhile, rebel without a cause and small-time delinquent Yoo Sang-hwan is in conflict with the authorities, his family, and the world in general. He is a variation on the dysfunctional hero of Chang Dong-lee’s Oasis – a film in which director Ryoo had a small acting role. But Sang-hwan is an altogether sharper tool, whose bursts of violence stem not from social dyslexia but from an uncontainable anger with everyone and everything. Sentenced to prison for a brutal assault, Sang-hwan continues to play the hothead until he is nudged towards the prison boxing team, where he gradually learns to discipline his rage.
Both Tae-shik and Sang-hwan are shown to be selfishly absorbed in self-destruction, and both hurt their loved ones – Sang-hwan by refusing to see his father when he visits him in prison, and Tae-shik by taking his frustrations out on his ten-year-old son. It’s not until an hour and a quarter into the film that the big motivational magnet starts to pull our two heroes towards the Korean amateur boxing finals that will bring them together at last.
By this time, though, it has established its offbeat credentials firmly enough to ride out the scenes of the two men training and eliminating lesser rivals, which coast along on auto-pilot.
Visually the film matches Old Boy for edgy style. Some scenes – like the opening shot of Tae-shik touting for business, are shot with the colours just a little bleached out. Others go for a retro feel – like the split-screen shots of the two boxers in their respective corners of the ring.
Music veers from Cooder-like guitar twangs to the discofied Spaghetti Western breaks which accompany some of the film’s best sequences: the full-on boxing action stuff. The camera floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, and we feel every body blow, see every bead of sweat.
Production companies
Show East
Sio Film
Bravo Entertainment Production
International sales
Show East
Executive producer
Kim Dong-ju
Producer
Syd Lim
Screenplay
Ryoo Seung-wan
Jeon Cheol-hong
Cinematography
Cho Yong-kyu
Production design
Park Il-hyun
Editor
Nam Na-young
Music
Bang Jun-suk
Main cast
Choi Min-sik
Ryoo Seung-bum
Lim Won-hee
Chun Ho-jin
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews.asp
Lee Marshall in Cannes 14 June 2005
Dir: Ryoo Seung-wan. South Korea. 2005. 132mins.
One of no less than six South Korean features to be invited to Cannes this year, FIPRESCI prize-winner Crying Fist is a better film than its generally downbeat reviews at home might suggest. The latest addition to the boxing genre, Crying Fist is more conventional in one way than two other recent slugfest movies, Million Dollar Baby and Beautiful Boxer, in that its two heroes are both male and heterosexual.
What is unusual about actor-director Ryoo Seung-wan’s first foray outside straight Asian action is the way it allows the back story of the two characters to overwhelm what would otherwise be a fairly linear “seasoned old boxer versus angry young contender” fight pic. This makes for an overlong, structurally unbalanced movie – but also for a dual character study that is, paradoxically, at its best when it gets on with observing the lives of these two scarred heroes and doesn’t worry too much about the thematic parallels, or their final convergence.
The film had a strong run in South Korea, though overseas it is unlikely to match the territorial outreach of Oldboy, which introduced Western audiences to the bravura of one of this film’s co-stars, the ever-watchable Choi Min-sik.
Choi plays a former champion boxer, Gang Tae-shik, who is on the skids. His marriage is falling apart, he drinks too much, and he is in desperate financial straits. Magnificently washed-up, Tae-shik decides to make a living as a human punch-ball in a shopping mall – someone people can take their frustrations out on.
Meanwhile, rebel without a cause and small-time delinquent Yoo Sang-hwan is in conflict with the authorities, his family, and the world in general. He is a variation on the dysfunctional hero of Chang Dong-lee’s Oasis – a film in which director Ryoo had a small acting role. But Sang-hwan is an altogether sharper tool, whose bursts of violence stem not from social dyslexia but from an uncontainable anger with everyone and everything. Sentenced to prison for a brutal assault, Sang-hwan continues to play the hothead until he is nudged towards the prison boxing team, where he gradually learns to discipline his rage.
Both Tae-shik and Sang-hwan are shown to be selfishly absorbed in self-destruction, and both hurt their loved ones – Sang-hwan by refusing to see his father when he visits him in prison, and Tae-shik by taking his frustrations out on his ten-year-old son. It’s not until an hour and a quarter into the film that the big motivational magnet starts to pull our two heroes towards the Korean amateur boxing finals that will bring them together at last.
By this time, though, it has established its offbeat credentials firmly enough to ride out the scenes of the two men training and eliminating lesser rivals, which coast along on auto-pilot.
Visually the film matches Old Boy for edgy style. Some scenes – like the opening shot of Tae-shik touting for business, are shot with the colours just a little bleached out. Others go for a retro feel – like the split-screen shots of the two boxers in their respective corners of the ring.
Music veers from Cooder-like guitar twangs to the discofied Spaghetti Western breaks which accompany some of the film’s best sequences: the full-on boxing action stuff. The camera floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, and we feel every body blow, see every bead of sweat.
Production companies
Show East
Sio Film
Bravo Entertainment Production
International sales
Show East
Executive producer
Kim Dong-ju
Producer
Syd Lim
Screenplay
Ryoo Seung-wan
Jeon Cheol-hong
Cinematography
Cho Yong-kyu
Production design
Park Il-hyun
Editor
Nam Na-young
Music
Bang Jun-suk
Main cast
Choi Min-sik
Ryoo Seung-bum
Lim Won-hee
Chun Ho-jin
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews.asp
