Maljukgeori janhoksa (2004)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Ha Yu

Writer:

Ha Yu (writer)

Release Date:

16 January 2004 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

By "Fist of Fury", Kim Hyun-Soo (Sang-Woo Kwone) addicted to Bruce Lee. Year 1978. Hyun-Soo moved to KangNam...

Plot Keywords:

Once Upon A Time In The Title

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Sang-woo Kwone	...	Hyeon-su
Jeong-jin Lee	...	Woo-shik
Ga-in Han	...	Eun-ju
Hyo-jun Park	...	Hamburger
Won-kwon Kim	...	Jiksae
Jong-hyeok Lee	...	Jong-hun
Dong-won Seo	...	Seong-hun
Byeong-chun Kim
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bu-seon Kim
Han-seok Yang

Also Known As:

The Spirit of Jeet Kune Do (South Korea) (USA)
Maljuk (South Korea)
Maljuk1978 (Hong Kong: English title) (informal short title)
Once Up on a Time in High School (International: English title) (long title)
Once Upon a Time in High School (DVD title)

Runtime:

South Korea:116 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:15 | Japan:PG-12 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:15

Company:

Sidus Pictures

Violence Begets Violence

Once Upon a Time in High School is poet-director Yu Ha's third feature and this time he chooses to tread a very different territory than his previous works, exploring the culture of violence in Corea via the lens of high school during the 1970s.

The story concerns a recent transferee to a new high school, Hyunsu, who quickly makes friends with the class tough guys. Complications arise when his crush and his new best friend end up liking each other. Add this to rivalries, belligerent teachers, administrators and a general culture of violence and you have a setup for enormous amounts of frustration and violence begetting more violence. Oh, and Bruce Lee. Not the actual Bruce Lee, but there's quite a bit of Bruce Lee in this film, as his star was bright at the time.

The story has several threads, but because it's so well weaved together, you never really get lost and although towards the end of the film, most of the plot elements vanish, I think it works well in this film, showing how a system of violence slowly drags its victims into reproducing that same violence, causing everything else to be lost. And yet, while the film criticizes the violence, it also seems to be glorifying the violence at the same time, which you can see in a number of rather impressive fight sequences (including two crazy rooftop rumbles). Clearly this is a complicated, but still nostalgic look back at the days of high school.

One thing that really impressed me was Kwon Sang Woo's performance as Hyunsu, especially that he handled a great deal of the stunts and fighting himself. But, he also did really well portraying a rather meek character and I liked his chemistry with his cohort, Wooshik, played by Lee Jungjin. In fact, most of the players do a pretty decent job with their roles. The setting is well articulated, the period dress is great and the technical aspects of the film are top notch.

I have to say this is a worthwhile film to watch, both for the seemingly honest look at a violent time in Corean history that still hasn't worked its way out of the culture, but also for its exploration of its impact on the people. The thing I like about Yu's films are that, despite their often critical gaze, is that they at the same time have some sort of respect as well. Once Upon a Time in High School is a decent watch. Martial combat lovers get that, ladies at least get some eye candy and in all that is still a rather decent story about the hardships of high school, first love and the difficulties faced in friendship. 8/10.