Shark: The Beginning: Training Gloves

Bully culture is a real phenomenon. So how do you challenge it? Do you meet might with might? Punch back? Stab in the eye? Kick in the nuts? Or do you form an alliance with someone stronger? Ideally someone with a knockout right hook? The question becomes even more pressing if you find yourself in a juvenille detention center where over half the convicts are adults. (I guess sometimes "a crime is a crime, a punishment is a punishment.") Still, my heart goes out to Cha Wo-sol, the painfully shy nerd who finds himself behind bars after being provoked by a sadistic student. He's learned early on that "Retreat" is a strategy of limited value.

And so Wo-sol (Kim Min-suk) and Mixed Martial Arts loner Do-hyun (Wi Ha-joon) forge a friendship — by way of a physical training intensive — below the barbed wire and within the chained link fence. Both understand what it means to be dealt a bad hand in life. Wo-sol was a victim throughout school; Do-hyun was incarcerated after his mother and sister were killed and he murdered their assailants in revenge. Hence they're primed to bond over pushups, pull-ups, and sit-ups performed under a "don't try, do" ethos. It all leads up to the sweatjacket being shed to reveal the ripped torso underneath. That's the end of Part 1 at least.

Part 2 inevitably puts all the lessons to the test. In Chae Johnny's Shark: The Beginning, the path to redemption or revenge or self-actualization won't be easy. In other words, there will be blood. Blood spills from the lips, the nose, the knuckles, the forehead ... If you're doubting Wo-sol's chances, keep his mentor's comments in mind: "That's your talent. Persistence." And leopard print — no matter who (Jung Won-chang) wears it — is definitely not his kryptonite.