Based on a true story, Ko Bong-Soo's dramedy “Loser's Adventure” is here to tell you that you should forget about the popular saying that you can be whatever you want if you work hard for it. The film had its world premiere at the Jeonju International Film Festival in April 2017, but its actual success started almost a year later when Kim Choong-gil was was given the Buil Film Award for Best New Actor, and Ko Bong-Soo was nominated for Best Independent Film Director (Director's Cut Awards).
“Loser's Adventure” is Screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival
Three Deapong high-school youngsters gather together to fulfill their dream of becoming professional wrestlers, pushed by their wish to earn university scholarships and escape a drab life of low-skill workers in a small Korean community. Two of them come from broken families, and the third one is longing to leave the “Black Tigers” gang and reset his life. This doesn't go all too well, as the gang isn't ready to let him leave just like that. The biggest problem is that the high-school wrestling team was dissolved due to its pour results and the consequent unpopularity which cut off the financing. And the new candidates are also not the best. The former coach Sang-Gyoo (Ko Sung-Hwan) works as the buss driver, and it isn't easy to convince him to go back to his previous vocation. He does it eventually, only to find himself in the hamster wheel he had previously left to start anew.
The titular character is 18-year-old Choon-gil (Kim Chong-gil) who lives with his grumpy and unpleasant alcoholic father, a former wrestling champion who's now vehemently refusing to recognize the sport as worth an effort. Unemployed, but “full of wisdom” as to what his son should be, he is blaming everything on his former wife who took the runner. Even the daughter, who also escaped, was “influenced” by the devilish woman. The apartment is full of father's venom, empty Soju bottles and cigarette smoke. As the three boys come together, they clash immediately. The only connection is the realization they need to hold together to formally form the club, and try to win some medals.
Jin-Kwon (Baek Seung-hwan), the slimmest and tallest of them all does manual labor of worst kind while trying to cope with the sudden death of his father and his Filipino mother's wish to “go back home”. The least talented for wrestling of the three, he suffers an inner crisis of big proportions that almost trigger a major nervous breakdown.
As the initiator of the wrestling project, Choon-gil can't fathom that the chubbiest and laziest of them is the best sportsman. Ji-Hye (Yoon Ji-Hye) simply does everything with half an effort, used to fight from his previous gangster life.
There are more open hands flying to hit outside of the wrestling ring than in it. Lasting almost two hours, the film almost shouts for more editing, and it wouldn't harm it to be at least 15 minutes shorter.
The end, on the other hand is anything than the audience pleaser. It's not happy, but put the blame on the origins of the film.
