Champion

This film stands out as one of the best I've ever seen, blending motivational and inspirational themes with deep social and dramatic elements. Its strength lies not just in its compelling narrative and rich character development, but also in its respectful approach to storytelling. Notably, it maintains a high moral standard by completely avoiding any explicit or unethical scenes, setting a commendable example of how powerful cinema can be when it focuses on uplifting and thought-provoking content. This combination makes it a unique and unforgettable experience that resonates on multiple levels.

The only people who hate on this are jaded cynics and Americans with tunnel vision who compare it to "Over The Top", as if it were just a cheap knock-off of that. But it clearly isn't. It's more like a hommage that doesn't take itself too seriously. I would describe it as a wholesome, charming, light-hearted comedy with some emotional elements and a bunch of funny characters. If you want some light entertainment, you can definitely give it a watch.

It's no over the top. It needs a better campier soundtrack to do that.

Hard to really do an interesting sports movie in arm wrestling. I'm not putting down the sport just pointing out how hard from a cinematic point it is to do.

That's what it took more than 30' years after Stallone's try to attempted it again.

A hart warming story that's about Arm wrestling actually reminds me more of Jean Claude Van Damme's lionhart (which is about street fighting)

Mark is a Korean born American who goes back to his home country to try to regain his success as a Arm Wrestler. Along the way he retraces the family he lost.

Overall, a hart warming story you should watch as that, cause it's not the best sports movie. I don't feel the inspiration when they do the arm wrestling montage, it just was not working but the story on family is good.

Dong-seok is a great actor in Korea, he's very talented and extremely versatile to play any role in any kind of genre movie. His performances so far never disappointed me. This time he played Ma Mark, a nobody bouncer, security guard in US, but later he was fooled by Jin-Ki, played by Kwon Yul (an actor his face looked pathetically reformed by plastic surgeries), who fooled him to return to Korean to compete arm wrestling, but mostly for Jin-Ki's own illegal gambling bets.

Dong-seok did a great job to play that superior arm wrestling guy. His natural performance was absolutely realistically believable, while Kwon Yul was forced to play a clown-like con-artist. Kwon Yul looked pretty cool when he wore dark sun glasses, but once he took it off, his bloated plastic surgery puffy face was so obviously starting to coming apart. His performance in this movie's early half was extremely overacted, sometimes more like a jerk, but luckily, the later half part changed him into a normal person with a heart.

Korean movies, even they actually were serious dramas, used to put many clown-like cartoon characters to turned them into what they thought as Comedy, but most of the time, they just turned into disgusting Farce, and ruined everything. It's a very stupid Korean movie-making habitual irresistible syndrome, unnecessarily made lot of characters look like stupid jerks, ridiculous clowns and pathetic morons. They always thought "Farce" is "Comedy", they just couldn't distinguish the differences.

There're many violent scenes in this movie, but they were neutralized by two cute kids. They both looked pretty normal and likable, I really wish they would not need plastic surgeries like most Koreans when they grow up.

Ma Dong-seok plays the arm wrestling hero, Mark. In real life he loves the Sylvester Stallone 1987 arm wrestling film, "Over The Top" so he's most likely very happy to have made his own. He happens to be one of the very top South Korean actors and once again he shows us here just why!

I quite enjoyed the 1987 film but I honestly feel that Ma Dong-seok out classed Stallone's film and, the entire film is superb. There are several story's going on within the film itself but neither takes precedent over another but, it does allow for the other actors in the film to shine outstandingly. There are 2 young children in this story and as per usual they outdo all the other actors; especially the young girl, Ye-Rin Ok. Asian children are 99% of the time brilliant little actors (forever stealing the limelight...lol), but this young lady is so very, very good and absolutely adorably cute. Put it this way. She is better than even Hannah Dakota Fanning was at the same age, 7, when she appeared in the2001 film, "I Am Sam".

Lovely film and well worth the watch; unless you're a one track mind for certain film types kind of person!