Baseball Girl: Not a Hit

The trope is probably as old as sports movies themselves. An underdog overcomes insurmountable odds with a combination of talent and grit. The problem with Choi Yun-tae's Baseball Girl is it doesn't really highlight the talent of its star athlete -- pitcher Joo Soo-in (Lee Joo-young) -- or reveal a perseverance that's especially impressive: She snubs a teacher (Lee Chae-eun) in an amateur league, leaves the gym when a reporter approaches, and keeps trying to perfect a fast ball that's admittedly sub-par.

Once her new coach Choi Jin-tae (Lee Joon-hyuk), a former baseball player who failed to make it in the majors, takes an interest in her, the story gets marginally better. But Baseball Girl oddly never takes off in part because it lacks any love for the actually sport. We rarely see Soo-in in action during a game. Her training sequences are far from impressive. I, for one, kept thinking she needs to get a haircut to get her bangs out of her eyes as much as she needs to perfect her knuckleball. Teammate Lee Jeung-ho (Kwak Dong-yeon) may see potential. I saw someone who was delusional, selfish, petulant, and mean as well as insecure and undermined by sexism and an unhappy family. Of course, I want to see a woman win in a man's world. I'm just not that excited by this one signing a semi-pro contract.

Road to Boston: A Run for Independence

For those who mistakenly believe that once Japan was pushed out of Korea, then South Korea immediately became an internationally recognized sovereign nation, writer-director Kang Je-kyu's Road to Boston may serve as a rousing corrective. The time is the late 1940s. Gold medal marathoner Son Kee-jeong (Ha Jung-woo) is an alcoholic nursing the pain caused by his crowning achievement being credited to the nation that once occupied his homeland. His buddy, bronze medalist Nam Seung-Ryong (Bae Sung-woo), is a running coach hoping to reassert Korea's place on the global stage. The two decide to team up to gain promising athlete Seo Yoon-bok (Yim Si-wan) a spot in the upcoming Olympics, only to find out that first their country must qualify via a sanctioned meet.

The good news is that the Boston Marathon is right around the corner. The bad news is that the American military, South Korea's latest occupier, is largely standing in the way. While the U.S. may not be as overtly oppressive as Japan was, Road to Boston does remind you that imperalism and colonialism come in many insidious forms. So does the underdog story. And this beauteous biopic recounting Seo's unlikely rise as a competitor of global ranking may have you shedding tears of appreciation by the final race. There's something truly heartwarming too in the mutual support club that can exist among "rival" runners, a bond that extends across oceans and languages. Shout out to American silver medalist John Kelly (Jesse Marshall).

Long Live the Island Frogs: The Sporting Life

On the surface, Long Live the Island Frogs is about a pair of dedicated, well-meaning teachers — married Mrs. Kim (Kim Seon-hui) and her blackbelt husband Mr. Gwon (Shin Il-ryong) — who come to a tiny fishing village on an isolated island in order to change the lives of poor, rural children through the power of education. But unlike the couple foregrounded in Shin Sang-ok's stirring Evergreen Tree, director Jung Jin-woo's married instructors are more committed to imparting basketball skills than grammar, history, and mathematics. As the movie progresses, we witness a real devotion to getting sports equipment, not books and school supplies. Even a recently acquired television set (the only one in town) is exclusively used for watching games and learning strategy.

I, like many others however, enjoy a good sports movie so watching these young boys and girls run drills in the mud, perfect their layups, and compete in hard-earned uniforms likely moved me more than any spelling bee could. (The basketball footage is incredibly exciting!) The film has plenty of subplots too, like the young boy who struggles to overcome the physical setbacks brought about by polio, and the reunion of the ferryman and his wife (who abandoned their son for a job in Seoul a few years ago). The up-and-coming team's national recognition leads to a shift in community priorities, from getting drunk to building a dock. If athletics can make that happen as effectively as scholarly pursuits can, I'm all for it.

The Match: The King Mustn't Die

You may think you've seen this set-up before, although the framing activity undoubtedly differed. In this case, it's the boardgame Go. Newly crowned world champion Cho Hun-hyun (Lee Byung-hun) brings child prodigy Lee Chang-ho (Kim Kang-hoon) into his home where he undergoes a belittling training regimen and becomes a part of the family -- even referring to Cho's wife (Moon Jeong-Hee) as "Auntie." The grown-up Lee (Yoo Ah-in) becomes the rival of Cho, eventually beating him repeatedly. But it's here where writer-director Kim Hyeong-ju's double-biopic The Match distinguishes itself from the pack.

For whereas the above narrative arc would usually complete such a movie, this specific storyline is finished around the midway point of the movie. So what happens next? Cho has to refind his sense of purpose and emerge as a challenger for the man he schooled to be his primary competitor. I can't help but think this movie somehow reflects an older generation's unwillingness to cede ground to the younger. Or is that we simply want to stay in the game even if we're not getting all the trophies? Whatever. The Match is a compelling sports movie in which the playing field is the size of a chessboard.

Dream: Soccer's High Kicks

Sports movies are generally about underdogs. Director/co-writer Lee Byeong-heon knows that and then lays it on thick with Dream. The story of an amateur team composed of homeless men who are all underdogs, this feel-good flick offers a rags-to-riches scenario to the nth degree. And the uplift isn't restricted to the players either. The coach (Park Seo-joon) is a pro with an image issue (and a mother who's a fugitive); the documentarian (Lee Ji-eun) shooting this against-the-odds tale is a filmmaker whose own career has hit rock bottom.

The question is not what do these people have working against them. Because the answer to that one is everything. Including no sponsors, a acutely felt social stigma, a divorce, old age, unemployment, and the sexual assault of one athlete's girlfriend. Somehow the real dilemma is can the coach resist the temptation of money and take his team to victory. Not ultimate victory. Maybe just one victory? Without help from the Brazilians? How about a tie? Or one point? Well, this movie is called Dream so let's go for something big! Like gay rights. I mean, why not?

Split: Bowling for Debtors

Everyone owes something — usually lots and lots of money — in Choi Kook-hee's diverting bowling dramedy Split. The one-time Wednesday Nights league champeen (Yoo Ji-tae) is constantly racking up debts with his competitively disastrous gutter balls. The alley inheritress a.k.a. Split's spitfire love interest (Son Ye-jin) is saddled with extortion-level interest payments caused by her regretful use of the family business as collateral. Even the movie's quirky, somewhere-on-the-spectrum, potentially future lord-of-the-lanes (an excellent Lee Da-Wit) eventually owes his manipulative patron-funders around $20 for a birthday bus trip to visit the current home of his estranged mother and the mausoleum housing his deceased grandmother (who was quite a bowler herself in the city back in the day).

But by the end, Split also owes us, the audience, a few things, too, like that big important game that could go either way and is finally tipped towards victory thanks to the the young bowler's prowess and unusual methods; a romance-solidifying kiss — doesn't have to be post-coital — between the leading man and his pimping promoter; a scene in which the managress sees how bad life would be working as a hostess at the local coffee bar; a pile of Christmas presents that allow one neglected adult to heal his wounds with some help from Santa; and a drunk scene in which the same young man engages in forbidden behavior. The omission of all these scenes is perplexing because the movie actually feels like its building towards them at different times. Which isn't to say this movie is striking out. More that, it's leaves behind too many lone pins that are the marks of a less-than-perfect score.

On the Green Carpet: Don't Leave Us, Coach!

What's the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a North Korean athlete? Winning the World Cup as a team? Taking home a medal at the Olympics as an individual? Playing in a good-will-ambassador basketball game with the United States initiated (then derailed) by Dennis Rodman? Nope! The top honor would be to perform in front of the "great leader" and to receive his praise. As such, this laurel is actually available to a wider array of athletes than those other options. But just like the Olympics or the World Cup or any other international sporting event, the expectations are going to be high. This isn't amateur hour or your local talent show, even if the audience is not the world (or even televised). Everyone is expected to push themselves to the limit even if that means doing a dozen more round-offs in a gymnastic routine, even if you're just a talented elementary school student who is one of hundreds performing in a giant stadium amid fireworks and flags.

The self-sacrificing, eternally single assistant coach who more or less runs the children's athletic club very much understands this as he bullhorns his way through the practices for an upcoming May Day celebration intended to honor Kim Jong-il. He makes the kids do prolonged headstands and drills them, lovingly, in an elaborate, physically demanding sequence meant to symbolize the stars of the universe revolving around the sun. If the science behind that idea sounds a bit off, well, so are the politics. And anyway, this is actually a love story between the assistant coach (who's mother died when he was a mere boy) and his new boss, the vice-chair of athletics (who was his gymnastics partner when they were children and somehow never knew about the untimely death of her partner's mom!). Their eventual pairing off seems predestined more than romantic. Like many North Korean love stories, co-directors Jon Kwang-il and Rim Chang-bom's On the Green Carpet keeps the heat low and the shared dogma high. If there's a gay subtext here about the bachelor coach, it's pretty buried.

A Family Basketball Team: My Worst Nightmare as a Comedy

Until yesterday, I would've insisted that movies involving Satanic possession were the scariest ones out there. How little did I know! For neither The Exorcist nor The Evil Dead came even close to preparing me for the hellish nightmare portrayed in Chon Chong-pal's A Family Basketball Team. This truly twisted sitcom concerns a young, female musician who marries into a family of athletes who somehow brainwash her into loving b-ball and leaving her piano playing behind. She's not the only one indoctrinated into this cult of unending fitness. The family intellectual, a nerdy engineer, goes from outsider to coach as he comes to realize that nothing could be more worthy of his time than reading old basketball magazines and then coming up with new plays and well-conceived strategies.

As someone who sees sports and art, more often than not, as enemies — the first cultivating a pack mentality; the latter, internal reflection — I was infuriated by this North Korean propaganda film extolling the virtues of basketball as the ultimate form of team-building and selflessness. Never mind all the bullying that takes place (especially by the family patriarch). Never mind the inability of any of the athletes to accept any viewpoint but their own (or the cowardice of the outsiders to hold their own). Never mind that none of the actors look like athletes. Placing the action in a world of ugly wallpaper and forced gaiety, the sinister truth is apparent: A world without art is a world without beauty or wit, even if a woman gets to be the captain of the team.

The sad part is I actually like sports movies as a rule. But if you're looking for a recommendation in this regard, try A Barefoot Dream (about soccer), Lifting King Kong (about weightlifting), or Crying Fist (about boxing). If it's basketball or nothing, then there's always the documentary Dennis Rodman's Big Bang in PyongYang. My nutshell review: It's only January but A Basketball Family Team may still end up being my least favorite movie of the year.

Centre Forward: Team Spirit, Party Unity

Do they make TV movies in North Korea? It sure feels like it from the hour-long Centre Forward, a black-and-white sports flick from co-directors Kim Kil-in and Pak Chong-song. I mean it can't be just slogans and speeches and statistics and anthems all day long, can it? And what else would the patriotic mothers watch on their televisions if not a locally broadcast soccer match as the athletes — their sons, of course — prepare to take on the world? Sure, they might catch a sweatily rehearsed, smilingly executed dance performance featuring one of their daughters (which they delightedly do) but nothing beats gathering with the other soccer moms for an afternoon game in front of the telly. And yes, granny knows all the lingo. Sports are a national past time in the Hermit Nation, too!

And what of the team itself? Will rookie player In-son (Kim Choi) get in good enough shape to start again after a disastrous first showing? Will his dorm mate and longtime veteran Chol-gyu (Choi Chang-su) commit himself to the rigorous training regimen or rest on his laurels? Will the coach (Pak Tae-su) inspire the players to push themselves past previous limits and commit to party loyalty? There's a wonderfully sadistic training scene in which In-son kicks balls even as his body collapses under the glaring arena lights at night but much of Centre Forward is mundane and less intense. Despite its shortcomings, the movie nevertheless has a rousing game at the end in which the old guard steps back at half time so that the new guard can take the field and win the game. You know victory is a given but it's hard not to get caught up in the spirit of it anyway. Score! Score! Score!

Where to Watch: You'd be surprised how many North Korean movies are on YouTube!

Grand Prix: Horsing Around

Little did I know but there's a special place called Jeju Island where all the Korean horseback riders whose lives have been hurt or harmed, ruined or ravaged by those big, beautiful beasts go to ride, romance, and recover. On this bucolic isle, during one recent cinematic escapade, we get to meet a small, representative sample of those on the mend: a female jockey (Kim Tae-hee) who fell off her saddle during a race and a male jockey (Yang Dong-kun) who blames himself for his best friend's death on the racetrack. We also get to meet a little girl (Park Sa-rang) who was orphaned when a stallion ran away in a storm (long story), a cranky old neighbor (Ko Du-shim) who lost her leg in a stable fire, and a blacksmith (Park Geun-hyeong) who specializes in horseshoes and pointlessly stabs his own leg. What's that, you ask. Well, you know how horses are about their legs? Exactly. And he's in this argument where he's making a point so...

Does this all make you want to visit Jeju Island? Before you answer, let me add that the island is graced with rolling green hills and two impossibly sexy, young men. (The one — played by Song Jae-rim — who lives at your accommodations has gorgeous long hair.) Both men will flirt with you but only one will be able to reconnect your dislocated shoulder, give you two four-leaf clovers, and steal your heart. Does this wondrous world of Yang Yun-ho's Grand Prix sound too good to be true? I'd have to agree with you there. It's a happiness that feels far from real. Trophy ahead.

Anyway, there are just as many reasons to leave the enchanted isle as well. You've got a feel-good sisterhood of fellow jockeys who want you to win the big race. You've got a lovingly crabby mom who runs a little cafe where the food is getting worse every year. You've got a gambling addiction that finds the perfect outlet at the track. (Put a dollar down on Tamra.) Just remember when you leave the island, the bad people will cheat you and undermine you and act like martyrs even though they're the ones causing all the pain. Stay strong. Stay in the race. And never give up on love.

A Barefoot Dream: Rallying for Sports Movies

You don't have to enjoy watching sports (I don't) to enjoy sports movies (I do) because, at the root, the sports movie is generally about overcoming adversity be it, class, disabilities, self-esteem, loneliness, oppression... It's a rare sports movie that isn't tackling a few of these issues on its way to the winners' circle. Think about it! In Marathon, a young man with autism finds meaning (and a friend) via running; in Punch Lady, a survivor of domestic abuse learns to fight back; even in the great horror pic The Host there's a sports movie subplot about an Olympic archer who learns not to crumble under pressure. These are satisfying movies, one and all. Keep thinking about it and you'll see that team sports tend to lead to even more uplifting experiences on the big screen: In YMCA Baseball, some scrappy Korean athletes defeat their Japanese counterparts on the diamond; in Glove, teenagers with hearing impairments bond to form a baseball team worth cheering for; and Lifting King Kong, young teen girls living in poverty discover their self worth via weightlifting. (I know, I know but tell me you don't think weightlifting is a team sport after you've watched Lifting King Kong.)

That the latter three are all based on real-life stories, makes them all the more heartwarming. The latest flick to join this list of ripped-from-the-sports-pages tearjerkers is A Barefoot Dream. Kim Tae-gyun's feel-good flick concerns a soccer team in war-torn East Timor, that's coached by a former middling if professional soccer player (Park Hee-soon) from South Korea. The boys (all poor, often parent-less) and their unlikely mentor bond and go on to compete in an international youth league's championship in Hiroshima. How far they go seems like a movie fantasy until you learn that their victories were real. The acting is not particularly good but considering the actual story of human triumph against the odds, it's hard to grumble about such things as that.

Korean Kickboxing: Someone's Got a Cousin Who Owns a Camera

Is this a documentary on a lesser-known martial art from Korea? An introductory tutorial intended for self-styled mixed martial artist wannabes eager to expand their fight vocabulary? An infomercial for the heretofore unknown Chung Moo Academy? I couldn't honestly tell you. For this hour-long video has few answers for inquiring minds and feels more like what happens when an inexperienced editor is tasked with crafting a narrative from hours of not-particularly-well-planned footage. And so, you don't learn much about the history of the sport (a mix of western boxing and Tae Kwon Do) or about the gym's resident champ (except that his toughest challenge is cutting weight) or the proper form for various moves or the intensity of the training regimen (which includes the cartwheel) or whether the few women athletes in class ever get to compete. And while some very basic details are revealed about the Academy whereabouts, you don't leave feeling that you know its owner's personal philosophy, the dojo's significance, or even the sport's national popularity.

What you do get is one very prolonged shot of two glistening, fairly silent young men demonstrating Korean kickboxing while wearing the official uniform — basically baggy, flared short shorts that resemble cos-play outfits for men who want to look like babies. Additionally there is a repeated shot of a drop of sweat falling off the tip of a woman's nose; endless, vaguely instructional title cards that tell the viewer to "keep moving" and "develop reflexes"; a host of low-grade special effects intended to add drama via slo-mo vocals and creepy negatives; and the increasing use of prolonged blackouts between sequences which suggests that the creatives hired for this production had a time limit they had to hit in their deliverables. Clocking in at a little over an hour, the running time appears to be the one place that Korean Kickboxing has gone beyond what was initially expected.

Marathon: Track and Feel Good

I don't know much about autism. and after watching Marathon, like one of those disease-of-the-week movies I used to watch as a kid, I can safely say, I still don't. Chung Yoon-chul's well-intentioned drama — based on a real story, of course — has fashioned its central character (played with unquestionable commitment by Cho Seung-woo) as if he were the offspring of a nerdy 6-year-old and a rundown computer. The portrait feels overly simplistic: He acts petulant, he spits out random data, he craves structure, he pretty much only thinks of himself, he follows commands -- like when he run 100 laps until he collapses, without thinking, or when he learns to keep his farts outside the apartment. But it all feels more like a performance than a condition. That's frankly not enough.

If you're anything like me, you'll never buy into the struggle of the self-sacrificing mother (Kim Mi-suk) who teaches him to count change, to keep a colorful diary, to repeat catchphrases. You'll never believe the conversion of his coach (Lee Gi-yeong) who goes from resentful has-been runner to championing drinking buddy either. But you still get that the mom's got a rough life and that the coach would be happier if he just connected with someone. Yes, the movie glosses over why the father (Ahn Nae-sang) moved out and how the younger brother (Baek Seong-hyeon) could benefit from a little more parental love. But we actually don't need those details. This is by-the-book storytelling. We can fill in those particulars easily ourselves.

And so while you might argue that Marathon is skimping on certain clinical details, it's also not burdening us with subplots we already understand the complexities of. It also doesn't throw in an unnecessary romance, or an unreasonable gold medal or a devastating sucker punch. Marathon is ultimately a feel-good movie. When the central character finally learns how to smile, we smile along with him. Yes, his smile is forced. Well, so is ours. But "fake it until you make it" is an approach than can get you through many a tough day.

For the Emperor: Nothing to Learn from Beautiful Bashings

How does violence affect the brain? Well, the first time I saw the prolonged, audio-enhanced knifing sequence in For the Emperor, during which our antihero Lee Hwan (Li Min-ki) and his fellow thugs stab away in a shadowy hallway packed to the gills with rival gangsters, I flinched repeatedly. When the scene was repeated (I'm assuming, unchanged) after we'd learned the sad story of Lee's downfall from pro baseball player to pro kneecap basher, I barely winced at all. This does not bode well when you consider all the murder and mayhem we choose to watch and re-watch in movies, TV series and video games. Within two hours I'd already become pretty much inured to all those knives puncturing bodies to a Foley soundtrack.

Not that the butchery ever feels totally real in For the Emperor. The merciless, long, lean killing machine that is the mop-headed, dead-eyed Lee Hwan is a sinewy cartoon of cruelty. He doesn't respect elder mafiosos Jung Sang-ha (Park Soong-woong) and Han-Deuk (Kim Jong-goo) so much as he's intent on learning their ways so he can take their place. His prostitute lover Madame Cha (Lee Tae-im) is more reward than relationship. It's as if Lee has viewed this movie more times than we have. He's absorbed director Park Sang-jun's message entirely: Violence pays! But whose message is it? Maybe comic book artist Kim Seong-dong on whose work the movie is based...

I've never thought graphic novels had very deep truths to tell. Even those I've enjoyed — Nick Abadzis Laika, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood — felt like children books for adults, and were nothing to rival a novel like Lee Chang-rae's A Gesture life or an autobiography like Cullen Thomas' Brother One Cell. Is it that drawn pictures can't speak as powerfully as words? And is there anything to be learned from the orgy of blood that sometimes erupts in For the Emperor? Or should we be chastened for finding it entertaining? Probably the latter. So how to explain I like this movie nonetheless? Shame on me!

Fighter in the Wind: Korean Karate to Bust a Gut

Much is made of the difference between laughing with and and laughing at. I, for one, have gotten much pleasure from both. And really, is it so terrible to laugh at when the cause of the laughter is melodramatic acting, ludicrous dialogue, lachrymose gestures, symbolic shadow-play, ridiculously ritualized foreplay, heavy metal hairdos, battling facial expressions and a main character who comes across like a science experiment for which a Neanderthal brain was genetically cloned then lodged into the body of a Korean martial artist stuck in Japan? Aren't I allowed to laugh at Fighter in the Wind and not feel bad about it? Can't I go so far as to recommend it as an unintentional comedy without coming across as mean?

What's not so funny is that Fighter in the Wind is based on a true story. (Or at least a novel inspired by a true story.) There really was a guy named Choi (Yang Dong-kun) who came to Japan from Korea in order to join the airforce then went on to found one of the leading karate styles in the world. (His book What Is Karate was a bestseller in the U.S. in the '60s!) But Fighter in the Wind isn't that interested in sticking to the facts. This version of Choi falls in love with a geisha (Aya Hirayama), not the daughter of his landlady, and trains in the woods Rocky IV-style (with no mention of the Japanese sponsor who made the retreat possible and encouraged him to shave off his eyebrow).

I'm particularly bummed that the bit about the eyebrow didn't make it into the movie. But credit writer-director Yang Yun-ho for setting part of the action in a circus, having a black-clad antagonist (Park Seong-min) with one eye, and a workout buddy (Jung Doo-hong) with a hook for a hand. Historical accuracy isn't the point here. And with easily over a dozen fight sequences, you're unlikely to get bored either. You could call it a Grindhouse Classic.

Lifting King Kong: Feel-Good Girl Power in Spandex

I was ready to yawn, to gag, to roll my eyes, to multitask on my iPhone, to vacuum, to fall asleep and upon waking again to basically loathe Lifting King Kong. You see, this feel-good sports pic has such emotive acting and such an obvious narrative arc that I was sure I was going to be bored (i.e., feel bad) despite the movie's best intentions. Well girlfriend! I was wrong. Here's how the movie defeated the skeptical me. (Why do I keep thinking I won't like movies about athletes when I so often do?!)

The first surprise is that Lifting King Kong focuses on a sport that's rarely the center of a movie: Weightlifting. The sport is one in which individual athletes compete against their own best efforts instead of other teams. So while there's a ragtag group at the center of Lifting King Kong, there's not a team in the conventional sense. The second surprise is that Lifting King Kong not only spotlights an atypical sport but it also features the women who practice it. No. Not women. Teen girls. Outcasts who take up the sport because they've got no families, no futures, no friends. You could subtitle this movie "From Pity Party to Pumping Iron." The third surprise is that the fat girl (Lee Hyeon-kyeong) who poops on herself actually gets the cute boy (Ahn Yong-joo).

So 40 minutes in, I went from sneering to cheering as the various budding athletes -- orphan/Olympian-to-be Young-ja (Jo An) among them, progressed from junior high chumps to high school champs. That their devoted coach (Lee Beom-su) is a seriously injured former bronze medalist who appears to be wearing a fat suit for part of the movie as a way to bond with his mentees only allows you to tear up more as the girls develop muscles as well as self-respect and inner strength. The acting doesn't get any better mind you but this one will trigger the waterworks nonetheless. Kleenex required, for sure.

And before you write the movie off as preposterous, you should know that Lifting King Kong is based on a true story that's also pretty dramatic. In reality, Jeong In-yeong -- SPOILER ALERT! who also died of a heart attack -- coached a girls weightlifting team to a record number of medals and went on to also discover the flyweight Olympic Medalist Jeon Byeong-gwan who won a Silver in Seoul and a Gold in Barcelona. I can see why writer-director Park Geon-yong and his writing collaborators Jeong Ik-hwan and Bae Se-yeong decided to combine all the stories into one. The truth is always a bit messy.

Fists of Legend: Their Friendship Has a Fighting Chance

Fists of Legend has a great central premise -- a reality show in which middle-aged men fight each other and professional mixed martial artists in an attempt to reclaim the "legendary" status they once had as teens. Some win; most get their asses whupped. It's a concept so good that you'd think the movie was based on an already-existing, internationally franchised TV series. Au contraire, the screenplay is based on a popular Korean webtoon. Such humble beginnings! Perhaps a reality TV series lies ahead? Let the network bidding wars begin... In the meantime, actors Hwang Jeong-min, Yu Jun-sang and Yun Jae-moon bring a certain reality to the pseudo-sports event -- and the back stories that lead to the squared circle -- with naturalistic performances weighted by the disappointment that comes from being halfway through a life that you're only experiencing halfway.

Hwang's character is the owner of an unsuccessful noodle shop; Yu plays an overlooked publicist for a construction company; Yun, a tattooed ex-con. Way back in the day, they were The Three Musketeers -- one an Olympian contender; another the toughest kid at school; the final, the toughest kid at that school's rival. The only one in their crowd to have succeeded -- the fourth musketeer played by Jung Woong-in -- has evolved from spoiled rich kid to unscrupulous business magnate whose abuse of wealth and power has only gotten worse over time.

Bullied by a television producer (Lee Yu-won) who should be someone's love interest but isn't, the three non-rich, now-estranged friends are recruited for a mega-match of middle-aged mixed martial artistry that promises $200,000 for the winner (and ratings galore for the struggling producer). Through a series of flashbacks -- ironically, better acted than the present-day scenes -- you learn why the friendships fell apart and see what dreams were crushed along the way. The takeaway? Big-eared Hwang and his pouty young counterpart Park Jung-min were the coolest then and now. But does the most likable character win? This is a Korean movie after all. You'll have to watch it to see.

Punch: Family Drama Just for Kicks

I'm predisposed to like a coming-of-age movie like Lee Han's Punch. Wan-deuk's father (Park Su-young) is a hunchbacked dwarf who likes to dance; his uncle (Kim Young-jae), a man-child who acts like a 10-year-old; his mother (Jasmine), a Filipino waitress with self-esteem issues; his homeroom teacher (Kim Yun-seok), a tough-love, community activist with a drinking problem. Growing up poor, or at best financially challenged, I too was surrounded by my own quirky extended family who, though not as colorful on the surface, were actually weird enough in their own ways for the circus-realist Punch to resonate with me on a very personal level. So much so that I'm now sitting here wondering if I'd be happier -- or at least more grounded -- today as an adult if someone had encouraged me to take martial arts to get out all my teenage frustrations when I too was 17. You could say that's why my father got me to join the Northwood High wrestling team when I was a sophomore but I didn't want to grapple so much as strike. I think, like Wan-deuk (Yoo Ah-in), I would've found greater satisfaction in kickboxing as a way to channel the rage that comes with feeling like an oddball -- Correction: Of being an oddball -- at a time when conformity is at its most crushing.

Playing the central soul-searcher, Yoo does a great job conveying his character's bewilderment at the inconsistencies of the grown-up world while discovering his own insistence to take a path not entirely delineated by those around him. (Which isn't to say he's above accepting a little guidance on occasion.) Alternately tremulous and slack-jawed, his every-teen isn't smarter than his elders; he's just electrically aware of each individualized reality. It's as if Lee and his screenwriter Kim Dong-woo aren't waxing nostalgic about adolescence as "the time before hypocrisy" so much as they're acknowledging it as an earlier time as violently chaotic as adulthood. It's an awareness available to re-experience at any time. I left Punch reconnected to mine.

Glove: Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Even If I'm Bored by Organized Sports)

Saturday afternoons growing up, my brother and I would often argue about what to watch on TV. He wanted to watch the Redskins or the Bullets; I wanted to watch Julie Andrews or Bette Davis. My father would pretend to mediate while actually explaining to me why the game was more important: It was in real time whereas the movie was not. (Please note: This was before DVRs and DVDs so it's not like I could watch Star! later that day!) Today, I'm wondering... If there'd been sports movies on Saturday afternoons, could we have found a happy medium? Would matinees of Remember the Titans have made us a happier family?

Glove, Kang Woo-suk's winning baseball pic about a hotheaded professional pitcher (Jeong Jae-yeong) who gets stuck coaching a scrappy team at a high school for the hearing impaired, has drama both on the diamond and off. That means for the one who wants richly told stories (me), you've got a romance between the pitcher and the assistant coach (Yoo Sun), a bromance between the pitcher and his chubby agent (Jo Jin-woong), and some big brotherly love between the pitcher and the team's star player (Jang Ki-beom). For the one who just wants to see an athletic competition (my brother), you've got a handful of games with unpredictable outcomes and an amusing training montage. And despite his preference for sporting events over movies, I doubt my brother would be able to stop the waterworks when Glove gets soft and mushy.

Hey bros out there, you don't have to be a sports fanatic to appreciate the laudable teamwork in Glove. Aside from the aforementioned actors, fine work is done by Kang Shin-il as an indefatigable vice-principal, Kim Mi-kyeong as a pragmatic head mistress nun, and Kim Hye-song as the catcher whose mitted hand is punished by fast balls. While the rest of the young cast is more green than gold, they get the job done while looking uniformly adorable. Shout out to Kim Ki-beom for a homerun script.

Punch Lady: Domestic Violence Becomes a Martial Arts Match

Personally, I was hardly expecting Punch Lady, a movie about an abused wife who challenges her homicidal/pro martial-artist husband to fight in the ring, to be a laugh-out-loud comedy. And yet that's really what Kyang Hyo-jin's movie is. Which isn't to say the violent scenes in which mousy Ha-eun (To Ji-won) gets pummeled by her psychotic spouse Joo-chang (Park Sang-uk) aren't horrific. They are. As is the climactic face-off during which the two throw punches/kicks in a packed arena broadcasting nationwide. But what transpires between is loaded with silly bits that never feel inappropriate, a miracle of sorts to be honest. How'd that happen?

Part of Punch Lady's ability to stay funny so much of the time can be attributed to the central theme being neither revenge nor justice. Kyang's screenplay is really about self-discovery instead. Which isn't the same as self-transformation by the way. Again, unexpectedly, Ha-eun doesn't change from timid housewife to unstoppable fighting machine. When she enters the ring, she still flinches whenever her husband approaches. All she has are a few key moves fueled by rage. There's actually an amazing moment mid-fight when she stops just to let out a few blood-curdling screams. These are the screams of a woman furious at being treated as less than human, as being part of a legacy of abuse that dates back to her mother (who was beat by her father) and now could continue through her daughter (already a target for Joo-chang's abuse).

Ha-eun's screams jar you back to the larger reality in which women can often be treated as second-class citizens and in which spousal abuse remains a topic people still don't like to talk about first- or second-hand. You could call Punch Lady a feminist comedy if you wanted to but I'm not so sure whether it holds up on that count. Her coach Soo-hyeon (Son Hyeon-ju) is positioned as a romantic figure because he wants to be her protector, even as his mock mastery of moves is simply his mimickry of what he learned the night before at a nearby gym. Enlightened as I might be and try as I might, I couldn't resist cackling at that first training montage which isn't a feel-good, get-tough sweatfest so much as it's a comical sendup of the masochism of pushing yourself to the limit and the sadism that accompanies helping someone else do the same. And only a misogynist wouldn't love her triumphant punches in the final round.