Release date: July 2009
It’s 1996 and the small Korean town of Muju hopes to host the Winter Olympics only to be turned down as there are no Korean teams in any of the official winter sports. A group of misfits are assembled to form a ski jump team—and they are a totally unlikable bunch. But they will prevail and go on to do Korea honor.
A jingoistic vehicle, this film. The film follows the typical underdog-makes-good line, which I was hoping to enjoy as I did Bend It Like Beckham or Bang the Drum Slowly or Like a Virgin <천하장사 마돈나>. For my tastes, Take Off's characters were so utterly unappealing that I really didn’t care what happened to them and I got tired of watching the film.
My take: DD
My take: DD
Bob, a Korean-American adoptee who will reluctantly become the team captain, is some sort of misfit, though the film never makes it clear why … maybe just being an adoptee makes one a misfit? The portrayal of the American ski jump team as a bunch of anti-Korean hoodlums and the repeated rulings against the Korean team by the International Olympic Committee would warm the heart of any anti-American, anti-foreign zealot. The film, in places, is also blatantly misogynist and racist.
Choi (Kim Dong-wuk / 김동욱) , the drug addict (and soon to be
Olympic athlete), sends his fellow workers away so he can
molest an unconscious female nightclub patron. Ha? Ho? Hee?
Bob (Ha Jeong-woo / 하정우), the Korean-American adoptee,
is embarrassed, and all the participants on the tv-show panel horrified,
when a photo of his sister with her husband and child are flashed on the
screen. Worst ultra-nationalist nightmare: a Korean female with
a black husband and a mixed-race child.
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