[HanCinema's Film Review] "Ingtoogi"

In the first place, "Ingtoogi" is literally about fights between Internet trolls. Like actual fisticuffs. In the second place, there is surprisingly little actual fighting in the movie. There's one at the beginning, and a sort of tournament at the end, and in the middle it's just a lot of training. Barely even anything that could really be called a sparring match. And as for why these guys are all fighting the first place...well...

Advertisement

I watched most of "Ingtoogi" with my face scrunched into this kind of quizzical expression. It's the kind of film that's obviously trying to make some sort of broader cultural philosophical point about something, but I don't have the slightest idea what it could be. Part of the problem is the main character Tae-sik (played by Um Tae-goo). He's an obvious cipher for the viewer, given his unusually normal looking physique and lack of clear personality traits. And yet Tae-sik also carries a knife with him constantly for no particularly good reason so…I don't know how to finish that sentence.

Equally perplexing is his co-lead Yeong-ja (played by Ryu Hye-young). She's a high school student atomweight kickboxer who also does weird Internet videos. Basically the nerd dream girl with the body to match- she looks more like a character from a tournament fighter video game than she does an actual high school athlete. What is the point of her character? To establish how actual high school student atomweight kickboxers aren't as friendly and popular in real life as they are in video games? That was the best I could come up with.

That's really the main aspect of "Ingtoogi" that has me at a loss. The movie constantly treats statements like this as if they're supposed to represent some sort of deep meaningful truth, but in presentation this just comes off like obvious stuff that everyone should already know. The proceedings are only rendered more confusing by the fact that barely anyone actually seems to understand that fighting is dangerous, even though at one point a character is hospitalized.

"Ingtoogi" is particularly weird in that it manages to inhabit both the real world and the fantasy world at the same time. The characters are obviously all normal people with strict human limits that can be exceeded. But they never react to any of these situations like a real person. Tae-sik and Yeong-ja kind of come off like aliens trying to act like humans based on what they've read on the Internet. Which is plausible, given the information we have regarding their social lives.

There is possibly an interesting movie in here somewhere. It's obvious the more I think about it that most of these subversive elements were probably deliberate, and that the lack of coherent logic in the exceptionally bizarre revenge fantasy ending is supposed to be emblematic of the lack of serious personal growth on the part of any of the characters. But honestly, I'm tired of trying to unpack it. Try to solve the riddle of "Ingtoogi" at your own peril. The best I can promise is that you'll probably laugh a few times.

Review by William Schwartz

"Ingtoogi" is directed by Eom Tae-hwa and features Um Tae-goo, Ryu Hye-young, Park Jong-hwan and Kim Jun-bae.

 

Available on DVD from YESASIA

DVD (En Sub)