Scout (DVD) (Korea Version) DVD Region 3

The film starts with Ho Chang (the ever-likeable Lim Chang Jung, also in Miracle On 1st Street and Underground Rendezvous), an ex-pitcher turned university baseball scout, being sent to Gwangju to try and steal up and coming star Sun Dong Yeol from under the nose of a rival team. While sneaking around and trying to secure the elusive lad's signature by any means necessary, he just happens to run into his first love Sae Young (Uhm Ji Won, recently in Traces Of Love and Mutt Boy), who left him without explanation many years ago during college. As he tries to rekindle their romance, a task made more difficult by the presence of a gangster called Gon Tae who is equally desperate to win her heart, Sun Dong Yeol remains just out of reach. Unfortunately, just as all finally seems to be coming together, violence erupts on the streets of the city, pushing Ho Chang into making a fateful and life changing decision.

Playing out romantic comedy and the story of an initially selfish man learning life lessons against as incendiary a backdrop as the Gwangju uprising is a brave and interesting move, though director Kim manages to pull it off with surprising effectiveness and subtlety. This is in part down to the fact that the film has a well-written cast of sympathetic and charismatic characters. Whereas in Korean comedies the protagonist is quite often a rather anarchic and wacky figure, prone to pratfalls and face pulling, Ho Chang is a very human and generally quite decent man. As a result the viewer comes quite naturally to root for him in his two quests, and the inevitable choice that he has to make between his dream and his woman is a genuinely affecting one. It also helps that his relationship with Sae Young is built up in a gradual and believable manner, without ever resorting to too much in the way of melodrama. The other relationships in the film are similarly well developed, and the proceedings do have a very positive and upbeat feel, making Ho Chang's personal growth all the more rewarding.

The film is also pleasantly amusing, with Kim working plenty of good-natured humour, though without undermining his characters or pushing things into the realm of farce. Their is a fair bit of scheming and trickery as Ho Chang attempts to lure Sun Dong Yeol to his cause, though he never goes too far, and again there is a certain humility and lack of malice in his efforts. Of course there is a reasonable amount of slapstick, but this is also handled with relatively good taste, and is all the funnier for it.

Things do inevitably get more serious as the film progresses, both emotionally and with events in the town taking centre stage, though Kim manages the transition from comedy to drama without missing a step, mainly since due to the fact that for most of the running time he allows an awareness of the coming storm to build quietly and unobtrusively in the background. As such, when violence does finally intrude it comes as quite a shock to the viewer, and the ensuing sense of outrage and confusion is arguably just as effective as it is in the more obvious and overblown May 18. Thankfully, Kim holds his nerve and allows the film to come to a natural and suitably bittersweet conclusion, and does so with pleasingly little preaching or cliche heroism.

It is exactly this small scale and modest approach that makes Scout such a pleasure to watch. Amusing, moving and above all warmly human in its concerns, it engages and entertains throughout, and should be enjoyed by all viewers, whether they be interested in baseball, politics, or just in seeing a good old fashioned story of one man's journey to emotional maturity.

by James Mudge - BeyondHollywood.com