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.