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Movie Based on True Story of Korean Olympic Ski Jumping Team Takes Off

Sports films have been back in fashion ever since "The Foul King" scored big in 2000 with the story of a white collar salary man reborn as a pro-wrestler.
The trend continues, shedding light on previously unpopular sports.
And in 2009 it has culminated in yet another heart warming sports legend.
Based on a true story of ski jumpers rising from obscurity to challenge the Olympics, the title is "Take Off".
1996.
A national ski jump team is hastily scraped together as part of Korea's bid to host the Winter Olympic games.
In "Take Off", most of the screen time is spent on showing how a group of amateurs transforms into a national team worthy of their country.


[Interview : Kim Yong-hwa, Director of "Take Off"] "I would say it's a movie about five young men who are hardly ready to represent themselves, let alone their nation. But they end up gaining an insight into life, deeper than the excitement of sports".

To make the scenes just perfect, the actors lost 10 kilograms each and spent three months in a grueling training camp.

[Interview : Ha Jung-woo, Plays Bob in "Take Off"] "Three months of hard training. Of course, it's nothing compared to real athletes who have been training for over 10 years. But I think I really got a good idea of what ski jumping is like".

The climax of "Take Off" is the scene where they compete in the Olympics.
Special filming equipment was used to catch the minute changes in facial expression while rushing at speeds of 100 kilometers per hour.
And the cheering audience [Interview : Jang Seong-jin, CG Supervisor for "Take Off"] "If we go by the script, you're supposed to be seeing the Olympics in Nagano, Japan and the World Cup in Oberstdorf, Germany. But all the filming was done in Korea. We made an enormous set in Pyeongchang, without a real audience. The background and everything else was mixed in from footage from Europe and elsewhere. And that's how we created a whole new ski slope".

An emotional drama with results that no one could have expected.
This film has revived on screen the gush of the wind rushing against bare skin and that fleeting moment between earth and sky when these men soared, along with their dreams.
"Take Off" leads you into the exciting world of ski jumping, one of the original sports of the Winter Olympics.

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