The Foul King

You gotta cheat to get ahead in Kim Jee-woon’s quirky sports comedy.

“You’re the foul king. All you do is cheat … and well!”

Im Dae-ho (Song Kang-ho) is a bank worker who doesn’t have a lot going on, and especially hates his job. His boss (Song Young-chang) has a habit of putting him in headlocks, and so to combat this Dae-ho decides to take up wrestling. The local gym happens to be run by the coach of Dae-ho’s favourite old wrestler, a character known for cheating called Ultra Tiger Mask. Meanwhile, the coach (Jang Hang-seon) has been tasked with providing a new wrestler for an upcoming match against Japanese hotshot Bee-ho (Kim Soo-ro), and he decides to train De-ho as the new Tiger Mask.

As a sports comedy The Foul King has all of the hallmarks and set-up its genre requires. Director Kim Jee-woon sticks close to the sports film formula here, which I suppose is the downside of always changing up his genres. He never gets to spend a lot of time in any one area to really experiment with the format. You’ll never be surprised watching The Foul King, but you’ll be charmed by Kim’s signature (albeit slightly downplayed) style of heightened reality.

As a storyteller, he’s able to get the best out of his actors and does a lot with little. Much of The Foul King’s appeal comes from its cast, and the way Kim directs his actors through short, funny scenes not unlike the way he did in The Quiet Family just one year prior. Song Kang-ho has always had a fair amount of range; Bong Joon-ho recognised his talent and has cast him in all manner of different roles, and I love what directors like Bong can bring out of Song, but Kim has a way of tapping into the loveable goofball that Song is basically born to play. With that energy, Song is able to carry a large chunk of the film by himself.

And while the film might be a touch formulaic, it doesn’t diminish that watching it is a good time overall. Dae-ho is a sympathetic lead, and his supporting cast – even the cartoonishly mean assistant manager – bring an upbeat energy that makes The Foul King a good time overall. This generally silly vibe is also what makes the fight scenes so much more intense. It is wrestling, so much of it is fake, but the performances allow the movie to show the physical strain that Dae-ho and his friends (especially long suffering best boy Dae-san (Lee Won-jong)) go through. The final battle between Dae-ho and Bee-ho feels so much more brutal because we know how vulnerable Dae-ho is.

In the end, The Foul King isn’t Kim Jee-woon at his best, nor at his biggest. It’s an early film that feels like one, but still manages to feel like the director we’ll get to love, just in a smaller package. It’s a sports film that checks off all the usual clichés, but with enough of its own unique flavour to promise not only a highly entertaining 2 hours, but also teases the little flourishes that the director will bring to all his films to come.

Verdict: It might be
not be the most original film I’ve ever seen but The Foul King is filled with enough of the director and lead’s
combined charm to keep it going through to the final bell.

 

Overall entertainment: 7.5/10
Violence: 4/10
Sex: 0/10
Wrestling: 7/10
Kicking: Not a problem that can’t be solved by kicking
Lessons learnt: You have to test your forks out first
HR departments: That bank really needs
one

 

The Foul King (2000)
Also known as: 반칙왕
Korean

Driector: Kim Jee-woon
Writer: Kim Jee-woon

 

Song Kang-ho – Im Dae-ho
Jang Jin-young – Jang Min-young
Park Sang-myun – Tae Baek-san
Lee Won-jong – Oh Dae-San
Jang Hang-sun – Jang Kwon-jang
Jung Woong-in – Duk-sik
Kim Su-ro – Yu Bee-ho
Song Young-chang – Assistant manager
Kim Ka-yeon – Ms Jo
Shin Goo – Dae-Ho’s father