Tag: Lee Chan-Hyeong

Victory (빅토리, Park Beom-su, 2024)

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At the end of Park Beom-su’s millennial coming-of-age drama Victory (빅토리) there’s a title card quoting scientific data that people perform better with encouragement. In order to get the headmaster to agree to their starting a cheerleading squad so they can use the clubroom for dance practice, the heroine comes up with a ruse that the moribund football team will play 50% better with the cheerleaders encouraging the crowd to shout their support. But of course it’s really the girls who prosper through a process of mutual encouragement and solidarity.

Set in a small town in 1999, the film’s heroines dream of becoming K-pop dancers in glamorous Seoul. Feisty Pin-sun (Lee Hye-ri) doesn’t see much of a future for herself in Geoje much to her father’s consternation and is forever asking to transfer to a high school in the capital though in truth all she wants to do is dance. The deputy-head seems to have it in for her, taking the clubroom away from them and belittling their dancing while Pil-sun and her best friend Mi-na (Park Se-wan) are older than the other kids having been forced to repeat a year after getting into a fight with a rival school at a disco. Cheerleading’s not something they had much interest in until meeting snooty new student Se-hyun (Jo Ah-ram) who’s moved to their rural backwater with her brother who has been lured their as a top scorer for the school’s football team by the football-crazy headmaster. 

The fortunes of the makeshift team are directly contrasted with the protestors at the shipyard where Pil-sun’s father works. Pil-sun’s father seems to be a man beaten down by life. He’s taken a managerial position but finds himself conflicted in the midst of a labour dispute with his bosses pressuring him to name the ringleaders of the strike so they can shut the protests down. Faced with unfair and exploitative conditions, the men are protesting for basic rights such as not being forced to work overtime  and weekends and having a right to time off. Pil-sun’s father may agree with them, but doesn’t want to risk his job and tries to placate both sides with a spinelessness that later appears cowardly to his daughter Pil-sun. Perhaps as a single-father, he’s mindful of the necessity of keeping his job but otherwise appears obsequious and willing to debase himself in the service of a quiet life. When Pil-sun is once again in trouble in school, her father drops to his knees and apologises much to Pil-sun’s embarrassment.

Yet like the shipyard workers, the girls fight in unity if in this case for cheerleading success. This is after all a synchronised sport that requires the team to act as one. Though they may not universally get on initially, interactions with the team help each to realise their special talents and give them additional confidence to dance their way into a future of their choosing. Meanwhile, they’re each faced with a millennial dread that now seems nostalgic in its references to Y2K and the end of the world. There may not be very much for them in this small town, but there is at least each other along with their burning desire to succeed. 

It’s this  infectious sense of determination that really does seem to improve the atmosphere in this gloomy environment, the protestors also joining in their routine while Pil-sun’s father eventually gains the courage to reassess his loyalties. They are each sustained by the community around them, supported and encouraged by their friends and comrades. The point is rammed home by the fact that Se-hyun’s striker brother Dong-hyun (Lee Chan-hyeong) turns out to be something of a disappointment, while goofy goalie Chi-hyung (Lee Jung-ha) proves unexpectedly reliable telling Pil-sun that he prefers to be the last line of defence rather than the pre-emptive strike as he proves by defending her when the gang is hassled by older kids from another school. With a series of knowing meta jokes (“Girls’ Generation.” “That sounds so dumb.”), Park piles on the sense of nostalgia for a perhaps more innocent turn-of-the century world but equally for the gentle days of youth as the teens dance their way through hardship and heartbreak bolstered by their unbreakable bonds and sense of hopeful determination for brighter futures that are theirs for the taking.

Victory screens Nov. 12 as part of this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Brave Citizen (용감한 시민, Park Jin-pyo, 2023) [Fantasia 2024]

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There’s an intentional irony in the mantra teacher Si-min (Shin Hae-Sun) is fond of repeating that “If you do nothing, nothing will happen,” in that on the one hand it means that until people decide to act a dissatisfying status quo will continue, but on the other it may also seem threatening implying that if only you keep quiet nothing will happen to you. The main thrust of Park Jin-pyo’s webtoon adaptation Brave Citizen (용감한 시민) does seem to be that abuses of power take place because so few people are willing to challenge them or indeed to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

That’s something Si-min discovers when a student comes to her and says he’s being harassed by notorious bully Su-kang (Lee Jun-Young). A former boxer/martial artist, Si-min is on a temp contract and evidently waited quite some time to be offered a position so takes it to heart when her boss, Mrs Lee (Cha Chung-Hwa), warns her not make waves and jeopardise her hopes of being hired full-time. Somewhat cynical she tries to talk herself out of standing up for him, talking herself into turning a blind eye to injustice as nothing to do with her but at the end of the day she isn’t someone who can just sit by and take it nor watch as others are harmed while Su-kang goes unchallenged. 

He’s unchallenged largely due to the socio-economic conditions of contemporary Korea in which the wealthy and well-connected are able to live above the law. When one of Su-kang’s victims tries to report him to the police, they are the ones who end up accused of making a false report while Su-kang gets off scot free because he counts judges and prosecutors among his relatives while his mother is a prominent lawyer. His family apparently also donate large amounts of money to the school, which has won a series of “anti-bullying awards,” which is why he can’t be expelled. Si-min’s predecessor took her own life because of Su-kang’s bullying while pretty much everyone is scared stiff of him.

It’s for these reasons that Si-min turns to violence in the hope of giving Su-kan a little “off-site education” and perhaps you can’t blame her when faced with such intransigence from compromised authority. Yet standing up for the students is also a way of learning to stand up for herself, not to succumb to turning a blind eye to injustice simply because it’s more convenient. It’s this wilful suppression of one’s rage towards the persistent injustices of society that ends up spreading them, a continuous chain of abuse in which people take out their frustrations on those unable to defend themselves like the drunk man who yells at Si-min in the street and comes to realise he’s picked on the wrong person. 

Then again, when questioned why he behaves this way Su-kang only answers that “it’s fun”. It’s difficult to believe he would be insecure in his status, yet he persistently mocks those he sees as socially inferior, “nobodies” and ”hobos”, as opposed to elites like himself. The suggestion is that he and his friends have become this way because of a lack of boundaries and a sense of invincibility, which is partly what annoys him so much about an intervention from an authoritarian figure such as Si-min over whom he has no authority because she has decided not to grant it to him. 

This might be what makes her a “brave citizen,” the name of an award granted to ordinary people working in favour of justice that her father had once won after otherwise ruining his life through unwisely guaranteeing a loan and being left on the hook for paying it back. Embracing the absurdity of the webtoon, Park goes big and bold painting the inequalities of the contemporary society in stark relief while injecting a sense of catharsis into Si-min’s attempts to smack some sense into the bullies while rediscovering her own desire to challenge injustice rather than remain complicit with it even if it is personally inconvenient. Her rebellion encourages others to do the same while robbing the bullies of their privileged position and exposing them to the consequences of their actions. Of course, fighting violence with violence may not be the best solution but does at least allow Si-min to make the most of what she has and to recover the self that had been beaten down and defeated but is now capable of fighting back both for herself and others.

Brave Citizen screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)