‘THE KING OF JOGKU’. FILM REVIEW. 9TH LONDON KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL 2014.

by Adnan Kundi
November 16, 2014
in FILM FESTIVALS IN LONDON, FILM REVIEWS, KOREA, LONDON KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL
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A comedy film directed by Woo Moon-gi was full of laughter and light hearted jokes. Shown in the Busan International Film Festival Choice section of the 9^th London Korean Film Festival 2014, THE KING OF JOGKU opened to a good number of audiences while it had its European Premiere in London.

A typical South Korean comedy film, THE KING OF JOGKU had nothing new in context of its genre. The film was a good laugh with some amount of slap stick comedy, funny dialogues and extremely laughable characters. As South Korean comedy films are driven by women, and it’s always a woman involved in the background, compared to all that this film had something different to show. It mainly deals with sports. Jogku, a game that is similar to volleyball in which hands are used, this game is played using the feet and legs. A game quite popular among men who go for their army services is brought into highlight.

Romance is of course a very important element of every film, and it is also existent in this film. Well, in a way it is a woman driven comedy, but as I said, the focus is mainly on sports. Anyways, no film is complete without a female lead. The women are not shown as having sporty personalities, but are rather more driven towards their beauty and intellectuality.

The film revolves around a school boy, Man-seob who returns after completing his military services. Upon his return he finds out that a Jogku court has been removed. For the love of the game, he thus starts a campaign of regaining the lost sport of Jogku. Thus he goes through different challenges from the school students and the faculty in order to regain the Jogku court.