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Boxer Gang Tae-shik (Choi Min-sik) was a silver medalist in the
All-Asian Championship in 1990... but this was long ago, since then his
brother Won-tae (Lim Won-hie) has borrowed and wasted most of his
money in some crooked deals, he has trusted the wrong people and now owes
gangsters money, and his wife (Seo Hye-rin) has thrown him out. Now it's
2005, and Tae-shik is offering his services as a human punching ball to
passers-by ... and his health starts failing.
Yoo Sang-hwan (Seung-beom
Ryu) meanwhile is a small time crook, who risks way to much for
way too little loot, and who soon enough ends up in jail ... where he at
first fails to adjust ... but then he finds boxing as a way to channel his
anger, and soon he gets prettty good, and the head of prison allows him to
join the lightweight championship.
Tae-shik's life seems to be going in a downward spiral, and soon he is
on the best way to become a reguklar, drunk hobo ... until he sees a
poster ad announcing the lightweight championship ... and he sees this as
an opportunity to redeem himself. So he forces his brother Won-tae to get
him admitted to the championship, and settles a few scores with a few
gangsters who have wronged him.
At the championship, both Tae-shik and Sang-hwan fight their way
through to the final, and in the end, in a violent bout, they fight it
out.
Ultimately, Sang-hwan wins by a hair (according to the judges), but
Tae-shik, who has won back his self esteem and pride, seems to emerge from
this fight as a moral winner as well ...
One thing up front: The Korean Raging Bull this is not, way too
much kitsch is thrown into the film (there are subplots about both
Tae-shik's son and Sang-hwan's dying grandma [Na Mun-hee]) and some of the
story seems to be way too unrealistic to ring true. Still, the film's two
seperate stories are cleverly interwoven - where Tae-shik's story is way
more interesting, Sang-hwan's tale is a bit reminiscent of the Rocky
series even - and the film does its best to entertain throughout ... in
which it succeeds.
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find Crying Fist at adultvideouniverse.com
