As One

As One

Released: May 3, 2012

Directed By: Moon Hyun-Sung

As One (Ko-ri-a) is film that tells the story from the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. The film is based on the Unified Korea table tennis championship. For the first time, North and South Korea came to together and competed as one against other countries. After the Korea Air flight that was bombed in 1987, North and South Korea came together to discuss the Korean Peninsula about decreasing the tensions. The unification of one team, was created during this discussion.

The film captured the tensions of both sides pretty nicely. It seemed to show the typical feelings of how people would react if they were teaming up with North Korea (which in any cases may bring some form of back lash). The beginning of the film started slowly since as a viewer, we were seeing North and South trying to be friendly with one another. With ups and downs, eventually friendships begin to form and by the end of the film, as a viewer we may grow attach to the North Korean table tennis players like the South Korean table tennis players.

The cinematography of the film was good in some areas at times when following the motion of the table tennis ball.When Korea played against China in the doubles, they slowed down the video. The background became black (crowd disappeared), and the main focus on Korea and China players. This was a really nice edit from the fast pace environment to a slow motion environment. Once Korea won the match, the black screen vanished and the crowd reappeared. I really enjoyed this moment of the film because being able to capture each swing of the paddle and see the ball was a nice break from the all out motion in previous clips.