Dae-Ho is a bumbling bank clerk who just can't get a break. The female co-worker he really likes won't give him a second look, but that's the least of his problems as he is constantly late to work and is failing miserably in meeting company goals. His boss has an interesting technique when it comes to dealing with such problems, as Dae-Ho discovers when he is accosted by his boss who puts him in a choking headlock. Accusing him of being weak and useless, Dae-Ho spends several futile and humiliating minutes attempting to escape from his grip. Dae-Ho is walking home one evening and passes an old gym, noticing a poster on the door he decides to investigate. It's a wrestling school, the poster enticing him with the claim “combat techniques – applicable to daily living!” and the seed of an idea is planted in his head. The browbeating continues the next day at work when he is once again late for work, and on his way home he decides to pay a visit to Jang's Pro-Wrestling Gymnasium. He meets the owner and head coach Jang in his office, adorned with pictures and trophies from his wrestling past. Dae-Ho realises that Jang was his favourite from when he was young, the masked wrestler Ultra Tiger Mask, the dirtiest wrestler in the game who would cheat in any way he could before defeating his opponent with the devastating Ultra Tiger Thunder Power Bomb. Dae-Ho wants to learn and despite his enthusiasm Jang sees only a skinny, wimpy bank clerk and won't take him seriously. The humiliation carries on when tries to stop a gang of youths from attacking someone, and ends up turning tail and running from them. He can't escape the effects of his shortcomings at home either, his father acts coldly and harshly towards him, it seems he just can't get a break. He's not even safe when he's asleep, his dream where he's a wrestling Elvis (!) goes well until his masked opponent is revealed as his boss, who gives him a sound thrashing.

However things change when the coach Jang is approached by a big time wrestling promoter who asks to produce a wrestler for him. The promoter has his big star Yubiho embarking on a Japanese tour soon and needs an opponent for a big match for a show that the Japanese representatives will be attending. He needs Jang to come up with a fun cheating character, like Ultra Tiger Mask, who will make a good heel (bad guy) opponent for the heroic Yubiho. With only two rather stupid pupils and his daughter at the school, Jang needs somebody to he can train quickly, so he turns to Dae-Ho to become his new cheating wrestler, Foul King. He starts his training in secret after work, everybody at the gym shows him the ropes (no pun intended) with varying degrees of success, not helped by Dae-Ho not being able to tell the difference between a real fork and the fake fork that he'll use during his matches. While still being bullied at work, Dae-Ho is revealing his secret alter-ego in his first ever wrestling match against one of his fellow pupils. His skills are negligible and it shows against his opponent, he scrambles around the ring with little idea of what to do, but his attempts at wrestling start to entertain the crowd and though problems arise due to his previously mentioned problem with forks, his match is a success and the big wrestling promoter gives Jang a script for the upcoming tag team match with Yubiho. Dae-Ho has a long way to go to improve not only his in-ring skills but also his career and his life in general, to become like his hero Ultra Tiger Mask.

Behold The Foul King, greatest wrestling movie ever! Its by no means perfect, but its head and shoulders above the rest, and is a great movie in its own right. It was the third highest grossing movie in South Korea in 2001 and its easy to see why, it's well written, well acted, and extremely entertaining. While wrestling fans will get a big kick out of the wrestling matches and training sessions during the film, the humour is very broad and mainly of a visual nature which shouldn't alienate the non-wrestling fans. Some scenes, such as Dae-Ho's in-ring debut and his wrestling dream are just hilarious and a great deal of good-natured fun. These aren't highly trained wrestlers going at it most of the time, but rather clueless buffoons who have only the vaguest of understanding as to how to wrestle, I guess Jang isn't a very good teacher. However I believe you need to know what you're doing in order to convincingly portray the opposite without hurting yourself, and the cast went through months of practice and training in order to be able to hold their own in the wrestling ring. Their efforts really paid off and it must be also noted that no stunt doubles were used. The film also benefits from a strong cast, Song Kang-Ho is excellent as Dae-Ho, emoting excellently and displaying some great delivery of lines and good comedic style that has you laughing at him but also caring about his character, he's a credit to the film and has a great supporting cast to back him up, who all benefit from the lively script.

The film isn't entirely comedic either, there is a great and more serious story in showing the development of Dae-Ho from an ineffectual weakling who is pushed around by just about everybody, into a stronger man with a purpose in life with much to prove to those around him. Indeed, the film does a great job of really developing an emotional connection between Dae-Ho and the viewer, which makes the final wrestling showdown at the climax of the film all the more compelling, and in itself was a fantastic and effective piece of storytelling, just like any truly great pro wrestling match. These well-realised moments of drama fit in perfectly with the comedy, giving you an extremely satisfying and emotional pay-off. Unfortunately there are also less useful moments of seriousness concerning a completely pointless subplot involving Dae-Ho's friend at the bank who is coerced by the nasty boss into initiating some shady dealings with some unscrupulous-looking men. This plot felt very out of place and added nothing to the plot, though it could have served as something to spur Dae-Ho on it just isn't written that way and fizzles out later in the film leaving no real impression, it just comes off as unnecessary and does detract a little from the main plot. There are also some areas of the plot (I'll leave it vague to avoid spoilers) that I felt could have been explored in more detail but that's being picky, and probably would have made the movie at least four hours long, which would have ruined the film's engaging pace.

All in all this is a very well made film featuring a strong (and very dedicated) cast and a well written, funny and engaging story. The broad visual the humour contained therein means there are few cultural barriers preventing viewers from getting the jokes (as was the case with Shaolin Soccer) and I do believe this would serve as a fine introduction to the world of Korean cinema, as well as being a greatly entertaining and rewarding movie in its own right. A new world heavyweight champion is crowned.

Dae-Ho is your completely average middle-class working man. He hates his job, his boss is a complete prick who enjoys putting his employees in headlocks, the ladies ignore him, and his dad thinks he's a failure. That all changes when Dae-Ho begins a secret life as a pro wrestler, donning the mantle of the legendary Foul King and becoming the most notorious rassler in all of Korea. In the ring, he finds his true calling, as well as people who begin to accept him for who he is. Unfortunately, "The Foul King" is just never as enjoyable as it could be.

There are certainly moments that had me rolling on the floor (such as when Dae-Ho begins wearing the Foul King's mask in public). But there's plenty of padding, usually involving Dae-Ho bumbling in front of his co-workers (including the gal he has a crush on) or as he tries to learn the ropes.

The film gets a much-needed boost of energy in the final 25 minutes or so when the Foul King heads into the ring for his greatest fight. Director Ji Woon Kim (who also wrote the movie) takes a page out of Guy Ritchie's playbook, using wild camerawork and filming to achieve the same effect as "Snatch"'s boxing scenes. It soon escalates into an all-out brawl, as the Foul King and his opponent take it outside of the ring for a real free-for-all that starts off hilarious and becomes a tab uncomfortable to watch.

Still, there are long stretches where the film just seems to be running on fumes. You wonder how long it's going to be before Dae-Ho finally starts acting on all of this inner strength his wrestling alter ego supposedly gives him. How long will it be before he starts to live up the Foul King's legend? How long will it be before he gives up on his snooty co-worker and hooks up with his coach's hot daughter?

Finally, there's the social commentary. The film takes what should be some subtle jabs at modern society and its tendency to marginalize those who don't fit in and gets a bit pedantic with them. After hearing Dae Ho's boss rant on and on about his uselessness, I was ready to get in line to pop the guy one.

All in all, "The Foul King" will probably frustrate most viewers, but they will find some comedic treasure amidst the flotsam and jetsam. They'll just have to be real patient.

One caveat, however. The version I watched didn't contain the original Korean soundtrack. Rather it came with Cantonese (starring Steven Chow) and Mandarin soundtracks. I'm not sure how much this affected my impression, but it has in the past ("Bichunmoo" being a shining example). I'd be interested in watching this with the original Korean soundtrack, if only to see if some of the comedy just didn't carry over. However, with a film like "The Foul King", which is largely physical comedy to begin with, I'm willing to wager I didn't miss too terribly much.

Dae-ho works a thankless job as a loan officer at a bank. His job is all the more thankless due to his tardiness, which he is punished for in the form of headlocks and berating from his mean boss. Dae-ho’s home life isn’t good either, whether it be crushes on co-workers who don’t notice him, being bullied by local teen punks, or having his father chide him for being a lazy, ambitionless twit. In the hope of finding a way to break his bosses headlocks, he visits a Tae Kwan Do teacher, who is of little help and curiously is wearing a neckbrace. After being suspended for the day because he showed up late again, he wanders into a run down gym advertising “WRESTLERS NEEDED. FREE UNIFORMS. COMBAT TECHNIQUIES FOR DAILY LIVING!” But, even there, the gym manager turns him down, commenting that his smaller, soft physique and goofy nature are no good for wrestling. Eventually, Dae-ho gets his break when a fight promoter makes an offer to the gym manager. It seems one of the big stars in Korean wrestling, Yubiho, needs one big match before he breaks into the Japanese leagues, so the fight promoter needs a new, dirty fighter, to fight in a pre-scripted match and make Yubiho look good. So, they start training the clueless Dae-ho (so clueless he thinks a crotch protector/cup is a facemask) the art of wrestling, or at the very least, cheating, since he will become the Foul King, a villainous wrestler who breaks the rules by employing forks, blinding powder, and such.

Foul King was a huge hit in Korea, one of the big box office films the year it was released. I wasn’t really too impressed with its simpleton makes good story. Its the kind of one-dimensional role a Splash or Big era Tom Hanks would be cast in, though its semi-brutality makes it less aggresively cute than a US crowd pleaser comedy. Its certainly a subject that has been done to death before, a picked on loser trying to make good, find that one talent he hasn’t discovered yet. After training, Dae-ho wears the mask as he confronts the bully punks and when he professes his crush on a co-worker, all illustrating how he finds himself, his confidence, through wrestling. In fact, as much of a dolt Dae-ho may be, like he may accidentally stab his wrestling buddy with a real fork instead of a fake one in his first match, Dae-ho does prove himself adept at wrestling. That’s where the struggle to take a fall comes into play. Which is odd because the film, on one hand, emphasizes that all the matches are pre-choreographed and then seems to ignore this fact when it comes to Dae-ho fighting Yubiho, acting like its a big deal to take a fall. It is like the film doesn’t know if wrestling is supposed to be legit of not. Likewise, the film has heart but it has its fare share with narrative holes and uneven storytelling; for instance, Dae-ho’s overnight success by becoming a known wrestler after only one small match in which he wears a different costume. It has some charming moments, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the likable retard. Lead actor Song Kang-Ho should be highly commended for his stunts, and the big finale is a 10+ minute long match that is highly entertaining...

"As far as rental videos are concerned, Koreans like action movies ? anything from Hollywood or Hong Kong," said Miss Min. "This year there were many good Korean films that attracted public attention, and 'The Foul King' was a success in both domestic and international markets." Most Koreans agree that the film's popularity comes from viewers being able to relate to the main character, Yim Dae-ho, played by Song Gang-Ho. "The main character represents the human being in all of us. I can really relate to him as a white-collar worker. We have little power and deep inside our hearts we want to be more," said Roh Young-yoo, a secretary.

"The Foul King" is about a timid and frustrated banker, Dae-ho, who leads a boring life and endures daily harassment at work. His boss, a power-obsessed bank manager, loves to physically humiliate Dae-ho by putting him in headlocks. He escapes his routine existence and finds passion in wrestling. Through constant discipline and training, he gains the self-confidence to cope with his personal and professional problems.

The film treats Dae-ho's transformation from a weak, shy man into a ruthless wrestler with plenty of humor. The movie contains few actual wrestling scenes, though it does boast a spectacular fight scene at the end.

Kim Ji-Wun made his directorial debut in 1998 with the hit, The Quiet Family. The talented cast of "The Foul King," his latest film, includes Jang Jin-Yeong, Park Sang-Myeon and of course Song Gang-Ho, who found stardom with his humorous and realistic portrayal of Dae-ho. The actor is known for his supporting roles in films such as "The Quiet Family" and Swiri.

Movies like Shiri, Nowhere to Hide, and the recent Joint Security Area have blown all other recent action films out of the water while twisted Korean horror films like Memento Mori and Tell Me Something do as much to revitalize the anemic horror film market (unless Valentine was your idea of quality horror) as the aforementioned action films did for their own genres. And then you have action-comedies like Attack the Gas Station that strike a perfect balance between thrills and laughs.

Throughout the world, Korean films are making waves, and the attention is very much deserved. Korea has one of the only domestic film markets that isn't completely dominated by American movies, where the domestic fare can actually nab the number one spot. When I was in Japan recently, there were only two Asian films playing amid an onslaught of big budget American crap -- the Japanese anime feature Metropolis and the Korean blockbuster Joint Security Area. Throughout Europe, Korean films are consistently garnering critical praise and awards.

And America, as usual, completely missed the boat. Just as this country caught on to Jackie Chan after every single country in the world already considered him old news, just as we started digging the Hong Kong new wave years after the tide went out, so too are we dragging our feet on catching onto the fact that the Koreans are kicking some serious cinematic ass right now. I guess the lack of attention to plots and logic in deference to advancing the technology of film presentation has paid off. Our Dolby 5.1 DSS home theaters cranked to eleven insure than we'll hear nothing but the mindless blather of the latest Michael Bay abomination. There's a reason that you can find more people reviewing the quality of a DVD than the quality of the film on the DVD.

Well, ya get what you deserve, and frankly, I'm never one to mourn the ignorance of the masses. It's their loss, and as long as countries like Hong Kong continue to bring cheap Korean film DVDs to me, I don't really need my own country getting involved. After all, we'd only edit out half the material, dub it, and replace the original score with a compilation of P. Diddy and Linkin Park songs. The less said about how we treat most Hong Kong films, the better.

The Foul King was box-office champ in Korea, and it's a great example of what's making these films so popular with everyone except the people who thought American Pie II was funniest shit they'd ever seen. Song Kang-ho stars as Dae-ho, a stressed-out loan officer who is plagued by two problems at work. First, he's one of the two worst employees in the whole bank. Second, his boss is an abusive, overbearing ass who likes to prove his points about the cutthroat nature of life by sneaking up on Dae-ho and slapping on a vicious headlock.

But our beleaguered hero's woes don't end there. The teenage thugs who hang out on his route back home enjoy beating him up and chasing him. His father constantly harasses him about being such a twit, and the co-worker upon whom he has a crush doesn't even realize he's alive, despite the fact he sits only a chair or two down from her. His only solace from the many trials of life comes in the form of watching professional wrestling.

Hoping to find a way of breaking his boss' headlock, Dae-ho seeks the advice of a tae kwan do expert, but the best the guy can do is brag about how a true master of tae kwan do would never get in such a predicament, but if he did, he'd just deliver a series of sweeping or over-the-head kicks to free himself. Dae-ho, of course, finds this advice of little help, especially since the master himself is incapable of actually performing any of these kicks.

When Dae-ho is thrown out of a meeting for trying to sneak in late, he wanders the streets and ends up outside a run-down gymnasium advertising that it will train professional wrestlers. Dae-ho is interested but too chicken to go in at first. Eventually, he works up the courage, or is at least overwhelming frustrated by his boss' headlocks, and he enters. The gym isn't much to look at, and neither are the only two students, both out of shape and about as graceful as two stoned orangutans attempting to perform an interpretational dance that captures the spirit of an exploding building. Only slightly more impressive is the gym's owner and primary coach, a down on his luck, out of shape has-been who, in his day, had been one of the most popular cheating heel wrestlers of all time, Ultra Tiger Mask. Age and bad financial decisions have not been kind to him, however, and he spends his days now slurping instant ramen and drinking cheap beer in the back of the gym.

Dae-ho, however, is undaunted by the ghetto nature of the gym, and begs the coach to take him on as a student, or at least teach him how to get out of a headlock. If he can just learn that, then he'll be able to best his boss, and surely things will turn around for him. The coach, however, is less than impressed with the clumsy, somewhat doughy young man and tells him to get lost. Dae-ho is heart-broken, but he's also undeterred.

When the coach gets a visit from a big-time promoter on the Korean pro wrestling circuit, things change. The big-time guy represents the hottest young prospect in Korea, Yubiho, who is looking to make a name for himself by breaking into the international big leagues via the Japanese pro wrestling scene. What Yubiho needs for an upcoming match is a good heel to play off of, a dastardly wrestler who specializes in cheating. The promoter gives the coach the script for the match and tell shim he better come up with someone. Knowing that his two current students, Taebaik and Odai are about as useful as a couple sacks of potatoes in the ring, he decided to give Dae-ho a try.

Unfortunately, Dae-ho isn't exactly an in-ring wonder, and they have little time to give him any formal training. The coach's drop-dead cute daughter, Min-young, is his principal teacher, which Dae-ho is skeptical of until she throws him to the ground and slaps an excruciating armbar on him. She does the best she can with him, and slowly but surely everyone realizes that Dae-ho's not half bad once he gets the hang of things, especially since his primary function will be to stumble around, cower, and cheat.

He makes his in-ring debut at a lo-fi indy event against one of the other students, and things go well up until the point Dae-ho, who is given the ring persona of The Foul King, accidentally grabs a real fork instead of the painted wooden prop fork he's supposed to use. He plunges the fork into his opponent's forehead, which promptly erupts in a shockingly gory spray of blood. The film shows that it was written by someone who was a wrestling fan, or at least knew enough about wrestling to site Abdullah the Butcher as the undisputed master of using forks in the ring.

All this is well and good, but Dae-ho is still unable to escape his boss' headlock, and he's still unable to attract the attention of his co-worker. He's also too much of a dolt to recognize the fact that his dream girl is Min-young. And yeah, his dad still picks on him. When Dae-ho discovers the coach's old Ultra Tiger Mask mask, he decides to adopt it as his own. Hoping that it will help him find the same courage outside the ring that he has inside, he dons the mask and hits the streets. His first stop is to soundly kick the asses of the young punks who picked on him earlier. Subsequent efforts to talk to his father while wearing the mask and to his co-worker Miss Jin don't go as well, as both people think he's crazy or drunk.

Complicating things is the fact that Dae-ho realizes that he's actually talented enough in the ring to be more than a cheating comedy wrestler. If he was given the chance to prove himself, he could really shine. His chance comes the night of his match against Yubiho, a lean, muscular high flyer. It's The Foul King's first match beyond the county fair indy circuit, and even though Yubiho wants to stick to a well-plotted script for the match, Dae-ho is determined to turn it into something more than a showcase for his opponent.

What's most striking about this film is that it is very conventional while at the same time being very subversive in how it handles the conventions. There are plenty of cliches here -- the young hero who is so blinded by his crush on an unobtainable and ultimately shallow woman that he fails to see the dream girl right under his nose, the washed up coach with one last shot at training someone for glory, the big final match. A brief description of The Foul King makes it sound very conventional indeed. But it's how it handles the conventions that really sets it apart. The film never really gives you the convenience of a nicely wrapped up closure of events. In the end, Dae-ho and Min-young still have not hooked up. His final match, while spectacular, goes the way of Rocky for him. And his final confrontation with his boss, while hilarious, is not exactly what Dae-ho was hoping for. In this way, the film manages to rise above conventions and deliver something fresh and consistently funny. You know what is supposed to happen in this sort of film, but you never know if what is supposed to happen is what will actually happen.

The characters are wonderful, as are the actors who play them. Song Kang-ho is impossible not to like and root for as the goofball loser Dae-ho, especially since he rarely gets what he wants. The supporting characters are well developed, with the abusive boss being the best. He's just over-the-top enough so that you really despise him, but he's not so cartoonish that he becomes simply laughable. He's just a dick, plain and simple, and a very believable one at that, which makes you cheer for Dae-ho all the harder. Min-young and the rest of the down-and-out indy wrestlers are great as well.

The movie is a perfect blend of romance, action, and comedy, with all three ingredients well prepared. This is one of the only slapstick films I've seen where slapstick comic violence results in very lifelike bloodshed. It's like watching an episode of the Three Stooges where Shemp would get stuck in the head with a fork, and instead of just yelling "Oww!" a splattering of blood would gush from the wound as he passed out and had to be hauled to the back. It's just another way the film manages to shock you by giving you something very run-of-the-mill but presenting it in a way that catches you completely off-guard.

Most of the action is, of course, in the ring. For the most part,t he wrestling is humorously bad, just as it is supposed to be. Odai and Taebaik look like every out of shape wrestler on the indy circuit who can't even be has-beens because there never were nor will be in the first place. Unlike American movies that focus on the world of professional wrestling, The Foul King is very accurate in its portrayal of the seedy, harsh, and often destitute lives most wrestlers endure. While certainly focusing on the comedic aspects of such a life, it never fails to treat the dedication of wrestlers and the wrestling business with anything but respect, which is a breath of fresh air. Wrestling in Korea is more like it is in Japan -- ie, far less antics and skits and far more technical wrestling -- but certain aspects of the indy circuit are the same no matter where you go.

The movie also treats the wrestling (and cinema) fans with respect. Despite the fact that even the lowliest country yokel (who I think might be me, actually) recognizes that wrestling is a scripted event (which is something different that being "fake," but I'm not really in the mood for that debate at the moment), the few American movies made regarding the subject still maintain kayfabe -- the illusion that pro wrestling is real, that the outcomes of matches are not predetermined. The Foul King acknowledges the fact that we're not complete dolts, and that exposing the fact that wrestling is scripted is hardly a shocking revelation.

At the same time, it deftly deals with the fact that being scripted and being trained doesn't mean the matches don't abuse the wrestlers. As pretty much anyone who has looked even slightly beyond the mainstream media condescension can tell you, wrestlers -- especially indy wrestlers -- bust their asses, and no matter how well you know how to take a bump, coming off the top rope onto a concrete floor hurts. It hurts a lot. We go into the match between The Foul King and Yubiho knowing it's scripted, like most any wrestling match is, but we also see, in a very accurate way, that the match still involves two dedicated workers getting the unholy hell beaten out of them. It's gritty, bloody, and very true to what lo-fi wrestling is like in real life.

You don't have to know a lot about the Korean independent wrestling circuit to enjoy this movie. In fact, a few bones are thrown the way of American wrestling fans. There's the aforementioned tribute to Abdullah the Butcher as well as a scene in which Dae-ho studies backdropping techniques by watching a match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker. In fact, not only do you not have to be well-versed with the ins and outs of small time wrestling promotions in Korea; you don't need to be a wrestling fan at all, though it helps. At the heart of the wrestling action are characters and situations to which anyone can relate.

The final match between Dae-ho as The Foul King and Yubiho is actually quite spectacular. Dae-ho pulls out all the stops and, while technically sticking to the general outline of the script, really forces himself and Yubiho to turn it up several notches. They deliver a veritable match of the year to everyone's surprise, going from comedy antics to high flying to brutal brawling and hardcore death match style abuse. In the end, The Foul King does his job, so to speak, but there's no doubt he's turned a few heads in doing so.

I know my head was turned by The Foul King. It's funny, touching, well-crafted, and even brutal at times. Song Kang-ho also refused to use stunt doubles for the wrestling matches, even though it would have been easy to do so since he wore a mask. Instead, he got a serious taste of method acting by going through wrestling training himself and learning to do some pretty high-risk style moves. That's the icing on the cake, really, as this movie, like a slew of other recent Korean hits, delivers everything I want in a movie that I'm not getting from anywhere else. It has warmth, charm, a bunch of wrestling, and most importantly, a well-written story populated by believable, sympathetic, well-constructed characters. It's a dynamite film that will please anyone looking for a fun time at the movies, and wrestling fans should be doubly impressed since the movie handles their often insulted and laughed at business with an understanding, respect, and energy that I don't think even wrestling promotions can muster these days.