Ko-ri-a (2012)

"As One" is the cinematic retelling of the first ever post-war Unified Korea sports team, hastily formed to participate in the 41st World Table Tennis Championships in 1991. Following the ... See full summary »

Director:

Hyeon-seong Moon

Writers:

Yeong-ah Yoo (screenplay), Seong-hwi Kwon (screenplay)

Stars:

Ji-won Ha, Doona Bae, Ye-ri Han

Cast

Credited cast:
Ji-won Ha	...	Hyun Jung Hwa
Doona Bae	...	Li Bun Hui
Ye-ri Han	...	Soon-bok Yoo
Yoon Yeong Choi	...	Yeon-jeon Choi
Jong-Suk Lee	...	Choi, Kyung-Sub
Cheol-min Park	...	South Korea Head Coach
Eung-soo Kim	...	Jo Nam-Poong
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Woo-hee Cheon	...	Hyun Jung-Hwa's younger sister
Dong Hwan	...	China Assistant Coach
Liu Jang	...	Wang Ming
Jonghoon Jyung	...	China Head Coach
Jae-hwa Kim	...	Deng Yao Liang
Mike Meier	...	Foreign Table Tennis Umpire
Jeong-se Oh	...	Doo-man Oh
Cha-la Park	...	Jo Shu Ang

Storyline

"As One" is the cinematic retelling of the first ever post-war Unified Korea sports team, hastily formed to participate in the 41st World Table Tennis Championships in 1991. Following the North Korean mid-air bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987, a Summit was held between North and South Korea to defuse the extreme tension on the peninsula. The summit ended with the agreement to form a unified Korean sports team; and table tennis, being highly visible and world-class in both countries, was chosen as the symbolic unifier. Summarily, the first-ever unified North-South team under the simple aegis "KOREA" was formed to compete in the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. "As One" recounts these dramatic events where especially two world-class players who had only ever met across the table as die-hard opponents must suddenly become a true partners and teammates in time for the biggest stage of the World Championships. Putting aside their individual ambitions, these ...

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Plot Keywords:

one word title | based on true story

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Taglines:

The true story behind one gold medal will move your heart

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Genres:

Drama | Sport

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Details

Official Sites:

Official Blog Official site [jp]

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean Japanese

Release Date:

3 May 2012 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

As One

Company Credits

Production Co:

Tower Pictures, CJ Entertainment, Wellmade Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

User Reviews

Generic but still entertaining and has tear jerking moments

Now the plot and direction of this movie is pretty darn generic when it comes to sports/drama movies. But it's still a entertaining and tear jerking movie. Even if this movie goes in a very predictable direction, it just wasn't boring and is fun to watch most of the way through. The generic story of team members not getting along but putting there difference aside, become friends or at least respect each other and put there efforts to try and defeat there opponents team has been done many times. But it's the bond between the characters and because all the characters become so darn likable and cool by the end I ended up enjoying this generic flick. Now this is based on a true story but has kinda irrelevant subplots in it but it didn't get to the point where it got annoying or anything like that. Ha Ji-Won and Bae Doo-Na's characters are based on actual athletes and they make a dynamic team. They are both so cool and likable in this movie even if Ha Ji-Won's character in this can be a bit of a goody two shoes. The side characters was likable and was enjoyable to see on screen, especially Choi Yoon-Young. I don't know how much of this movie is CGI and real ping pong players taking the place of the actresses when it comes to the ping pong scenes. But everything was believable and I bought into these actresses really being professional ping pong players and it was just hot to see them play. Overall this is a exciting and entertaining sports/drama that is worth a watch despite the plot lacking invigorating elements.

7.2/10