YMCA Yagudan

This was a comedy about the formation of the first baseball team in Seoul, Korea at the turn of the century. The challenges posed by a stratified, Confucian society trying to deal with outside "modern" influences is reflected in the attitudes and the situations faced by the characters.

The main character, a classical scholar, accidentally discovers the foreign sport of baseball. Fascinated by his glimpses of the sport, he tries to find out more about it.

Told with humor against the backdrop of the opening days of the Japanese occupation, the varied backgrounds of the baseball team players, a female baseball "coach", revolutionaries, romance and an unexpected challenge by a foreign team are woven into the plot. In a very grim period in Korean history, the baseball team added a lighter note to people's lives.

I enjoyed this movie.

The time is 1905, a time when Korea was in the beginning of it's annexation by Imperial Japan. Resentment was high against the Japanese and into this Era came Korea's first Baseball team. The players for the YMCA Baseball team became a national sensation and Heroes for a country suffering under Imperialism.

Director Hyeon-seok Kim (Writer for "Joint Security Area" and "The Isle" amoung others) brings us a light comedy set in an Era that has spawned mostly very serious and grim films. It's a film that any Baseball genre fans will instantly recognize with elements from "The Bad News Bears" to "The Natural" (special note to fans in San Francisco, spot the reference to Pac Bell Park!) A group of ragtag beginners play hard and win, rising to take on the Empire of Japan in the inevitable Good vs. Evil showdown.

Kang-ho Song (Shiri, J.S.A., The Quiet Family) puts in another great performance this time in a comedic role as a kind of Babe Ruth of Korea, Lee Ho-chang. Lee has the classic struggle between fulfilling his father's wishes to be a scholar and pursuing his passion for baseball. There's also a light love interest between him and Min Jeong-rim (played by Hye-su Kim) which leads to a hilarious mixup with a love poem and a will.

All in all, an enjoyable film without too many serious pretentions. Fans of Sports Comedies/Baseball Genre films will be very pleased.