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Table tennis player Hyun Jung-Hwa (Ha Ji-Won ) wins silver medals, but always comes up short in the gold medal matches against a rival Chinese table tennis player. One month prior to the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Hyun Jung-Hwa hears that a single Korean table tennis will be formed from South and North Korea. The South Korean players and its coach oppose the idea. Despite the opposition, the united Korean table tennis team is formed.
jiwon lover May 18 2012 4:57 am i think acting ha ji won and bae doo na in this movie so wonderful.
Ki May 10 2012 7:38 am With the first time pairing of popular Korean actresses Ha Ji-Won and Bae Doo-Na, the movie "As One" should grab the attention of lot of people. The movie follows in the footsteps of such based-on-a-true-story sports films like "Forever The Moment" and "Take Off," both films were also box-office hits and critical favorites. Personally, I eagerly went into the film with an extra large box of caramel popcorn (it gets addictive here in Korea) and the hopes of experiencing 2 hours of high adrenaline drama.
Set in the year 1991, "As One" follows two rival Korean table tennis players. Hyun Jung-Hwa (Ha Ji-Won) is the top South Korean table tennis player and Lee Boon-Hee (Bae Doo-Na) is the top North Korean table tennis player. Both players and their respective teams learn that Korea will field for the first time a "united" table tennis team at the upcoming World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. Initially, players on both sides are against the idea and when they begin their joint training sessions they quickly realize that there are also lots of cultural differences between them. Can the Korean team even get along to compete against the world's best?
As much as "As One" follows in the paths of "Forever the Moment" and "Take Off," I actually thought more of the 2002 Japanese film "Ping Pong" directed by Fumihiko Sori. I'll say when I first watched Fumihiko Sori's "Ping Pong" I was drawn in by the story immediately and amazed by the ping pong action. Unfortunately, I didn't have the same type of reaction with "As One." I can't quite put my finger on why, but in "As One" you could tell that the women were not really playing their table tennis matches and just mimicking the motions, with later CGI effects adding the ball movement. This was more noticeable for me while watching Ha Ji-Won playing her matches. Yet, the table tennis matches isn't the movie's downfall. In fact, after the first few matches I thought less about the "realism" and enjoyed the drama theater provided by the matches.
The movie's actual downfall resides everywhere outside of the actual table tennis matches. The staff made a horrible decision in steering the film to a constant flow of forced wishy-washy melodrama. It got so bad, that by the time the scene with the South Korean team kneeling down in front of the training center rolled around I wanted to throw my caramel popcorn at the screen. Unfortunately, I ate all the popcorn by then. The movie just throws scene after scene of these types of corny moments to elicit emotions from the audition. It's like being forced fed 10 plates of cheap American style Chinese food at a $7.99 all you can eat buffet joint somewhere in Midwest America - when you're not even hungry. The logic behind this is even more surprising, when you consider the actual real life events has more than enough drama to conjure up mountains of emotions from the audience if they're just not forced fed all the excessive crud.
Making matters worse for the film, the acting is about as subpar as the script. Outside of actress Bae Doo-Na, who does a fine job, there's just not a lot to get excited by the performances. The supporting cast dials up the worst comic book like characterizations of good and evil. As an example, it was just laughable to watch Park Jung-Hak (the bad guy in "Bedevilled") portray this comic book like Satan version of a North Korean official. On the South Korea side, an emotional "teary" scene featuring Park Cheol-Min just made me want to vomit. And there's tons more like this. Ha Ji-Won did better than the supporting cast, but her heavier emotional scenes seemed to bear the same type of inauthentic moments as her action scenes.
You can quickly tell "As One" is a movie made to sell gazillions of tickets and smash every box office record known to mankind. To do this, the filmmakers probably felt they had to appeal to everyone: from hipsters in Hongdae, to the rice farmers out in the provinces, to the 5-year-olds who might nag their parents to take them to the cinema. This forced fed one-size-fits-all-approach brings down the film in a spectacularly horrid manner, with the final result a film that could very well make you upchuck whatever you had for lunch. A better title for the film might be "As If."
Gtangerine Apr 10 2012 2:46 am All I can say about this film, with only it’s trailer being released is WOW. Ha Ji Won and Bae Doo Na are outstanding in playing their respective *roles. I hope to watch it even if I am not in Korea!
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