Fists Of Legend (2013)

Dir: Kang Woo-Suk

Middle aged widower Lim Deok-Kyu (Hwang Jung-Min SHIRI) is down on his luck. The noodle shop he owns, named after his daughter Soo-Bin, is failing. His daughter gets into fights at school and acts like a brat at home. When Hong (Lee Yo-Won ATTACK THE GAS STATION), the producer of a mixed martial arts television programme called Legendary Fighter, gives him a call requesting that he appear on the show, Deok-Kyu jumps at the chance to earn 20 million Won and save his restaurant.

Deok-Kyu at his noodle shop

Legendary Fighter accepts only amateur fighters; retail workers, cooks, salarymen, the unemployed and the like and tests them by putting them in a ring with a middle weight mixed martial arts champion. If the contestants can survive two minutes they are entered into the tournament and have a shot at winning the prize money. Many of the applicants are fat, out of shape and their former glory of being an action man a figment of their imagination. Not Deok-Kyu. He's a one time Olympic boxing hopeful who's skills of yesterday return to him after a few punches to his face and kicks to his legs. Deok-Kyu wins his first tournament and becomes a popular television pop star. Celebrity that drives his noodle business through the roof.

Deok-Kyu's past comes back to haunt him starting with the first match. He's reunited with his group of friends from the class of '88. A time when Chow Yun-Fat and Ti Lung captured the young men's imaginations and one's fists were used to prove manliness. Two of the lost, former friends also agree to be contestants on the programme. As they interact outside the ring, we learn what set them on the paths that changed them all.

Class of '88

The Korean FISTS OF LEGEND packs a lot of emotion into its two and a half hour run time. There's comedy, even a goofball character who claims to be a former spy, 80's sentimentality and nostalgia, plenty of action in the ring, family melodrama and shocking confessions. I didn't connect with any of the characters, even the lead Deok-Kyu who comes across as more of a mope than anything else, so the scenes outside the ring came across as maudlin. The fight scenes are nicely done; a good combination of amateur fighting without looking clumsy and gripping choreography.

Deok-Kyu and former friend Jae-Seok square off

** 1/2 out of ****