| Once Upon a Time in High School | |||||||||||||
| Native Name: |
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| Director: | Yoo Ha | ||||||||||||
| Producer: | Cha Seung-jae No Jong-yoon | ||||||||||||
| Starring: | Kwon Sang-woo Lee Jung-jin Han Ga-in | ||||||||||||
| Music: | Kim Joon-seok | ||||||||||||
| Cinematography: | Choi Hyeon-gi | ||||||||||||
| Editing: | Park Gok-ji | ||||||||||||
| Studio: | Sidus FNH | ||||||||||||
| Distributor: | CJ Entertainment | ||||||||||||
| Country: | South Korea | ||||||||||||
| Runtime: | 116 minutes | ||||||||||||
| Language: | Korean | ||||||||||||
Once Upon a Time in High School: The Spirit of Jeet Kune Do (ko|말죽거리 잔혹사|'''''Cruel History of Maljuk Street''''') is a 2004 South Korean action drama film. The background of the film is set in a high school in South Korea, 1978. One of the filming locations was the present neighborhood of Yangjae-dong, Seocho District, Seoul.[1] [2]
Hyun-soo (Kwon Sang-woo), transfers to a school that is notorious for its poor outcomes and brutality. He joins a bottom-rank class and experiences violence by delinquents led by Jong-hoon (Lee Jong-hyuk), a stereotypical Korean bully. The teachers are depicted as authoritarian and brutal. On the bus, Hyun-soo sees and falls in love with Eun-joo (Han Ga-in). When schoolboys start teasing her, Hyun-soo takes the opportunity to gain her respect, even though it starts a riot. After the two are chased and caught in their hiding place, one of Hyun-soo's friends Kim Woo-sik (Lee Jung-jin), steps in and knocks out the attackers.
A love triangle is formed between Hyun-soo, Woo-sik, and Eun-joo. One day, Hyun-soo notices Woo-sik and Eun-joo arguing. Despite his only achievement being sharing an umbrella with her, he meets her on a rooftop that night and they bond with each other while Woo-sik jealously observes them in secret. One day Hyun-soo and Woo-sik get in a fight over Eun-joo and their friendship ends. Woo-sik then humiliates and beats up Ham Jye-bok or "Hamburger" (Park Hyo-jun) who sells pornography to other students. Woo-sik then loses an intense fight with Jong-hoon on the rooftop and leaves the school, presumably having dropped out.
Hyun-soo concludes that Eun-joo has left him for Woo-sik. Hyun-soo's father is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and an owner of a Tae Kwon Do gym; he treats his students kindly while treating his son poorly. When he discovers that Hyun-soo has been receiving poor grades, he beats him, refers to him as "surplus man" (a derogatory term for a person without a future), and kicks him out of his house permanently.
No longer able to put up with the conduct of Jong-hoon, his gang, nor the brutality and violence of teachers, Hyun-soo trains himself in Jeet Kune Do, inspired by his childhood hero Bruce Lee. One day, on the same rooftop where Woo-sik lost his fight with Jong-hoon, Hyun-soo uses nunchaku and his new-found expertise in Jeet Kune Do to grievously injure Jong-hoon and his gang mates. When authorities blame Hyun-soo, he lashes out. Smashing windows and throwing his nunchucks, he curses Korea's entire education system for being so corrupt and encouraging brutality.
Hyun-soo is expelled and sent to a public school. Jong-hoon's mother blames him for beating her son, forcing his father to apologize to her for his son's actions. Hyun-soo apologizes to his father about the incident and they eventually reconcile. His father tells him that he can always get a GED and asks if Bruce Lee went to college, knowing full well that he didn't and realizing that a good man isn't defined by a college education. By chance, he runs into Eun-joo. Hyun-soo later attends a movie with Ham Jye-bok and both goof off with mock martial arts over Bruce Lee vs Jackie Chan.
2004 Baeksang Arts Awards
2004 Blue Dragon Film Awards[3]
2004 Korean Film Awards