The King of Pigs (2011)

You won't be disappointed!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

I have been disappointed by some of the more recent Korean films that promise to lead the audience into deep dark psychological realms but deliver only rather trite and confusing plots even if the cinematography and acting were stunning.After being almost overwhelmed towards the conclusion of this animation, I believe that the spirit of Korean cinematic honesty, confrontation, complex psychegeography lives on in works like King of Pigs.I won't go into the story - the plot is straightforward enough: bullying, high school hell, the sickness of a society based on hierarchy and class, corruption of the system...but the delivery of the narrative gets under your skin in completely original, unexpected ways.The end twist is utter believable, and delivers a double whammy, so stay glued to your seat.I can't understand some of the low ratings, though many might find this very difficult to watch due to the horrors depicted. It wasn't an easy film to sit through, but it is worth every effort to do so.

This South Korean animation opens just after bankrupt businessman Kyung-min has murdered his wife, after showering he calls Jong-suk; an old friend he hadn't spoken to since they were in middle school together. They meet up for a drink and start reminiscing about their time at school. These weren't good times; the children of wealthy parents were allowed to lord it over the others with impunity and nobody did a thing about it… until one day when Kyung-min was being bullied a boy at the back of the class stood up and told the bully to stop. The bully hits him but unlike the others who just take it he fights back. This boy is Chul and he will change Jong-suk and Kyung-min forever. The violence doesn't stop but when the bullies who run the school try to put Chul in his place he just strikes back harder. Eventually Chul is expelled but that doesn't stop his determination to make sure those boys who seem the run the school will never look back on their school days with happiness.This may be an animated film but it certainly isn't for children; the violence may not be extreme but it is brutally believable. There are no truly sympathetic characters; we know Kyung-min has murdered his wife and see Jong-suk striking his in the opening scenes and following Chul's lead they stab and kill a cat during the prolonged flashback to their school days. The animation style also served to increase the sense of brutality; it had a deliberately ugly look unlike the western and most of the Japanese animation that I've seen. There is a constant feeling that things won't end well and indeed they don't but not in the way I'd expected.Overall I'd definitely recommend this film although I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again in a hurry as it is so downbeat. This belongs up there with 'Lord of the Flies' when it comes to stories about just how savage children can be.

The King of Pigs is certainly not an animated feature for kids. Despite the story being about the school life of a group of boys, this is a very bleak and disturbing story. It begins in the way that it means to go on with us being introduced to the two central characters. Both are now around the age of thirty, and both clearly have extreme issues. Jong-suk is a wife-beating journalist who has aspirations of becoming a novelist; while Kyung-min is a failed businessman who we are led to believe has murdered his wife just prior to the story beginning. The two men meet in a café and discuss their schooldays. They have never even spoken in fifteen years, since an incident at school. The rest of the story is told in flashback, returning to the men periodically and ending with them after a very surprising twist.The boys were the victims of systematic bullying. A hierarchal society existed where the weak were known as the pigs and the bullies, the dogs. The teachers actively encouraged the situation as a way of controlling the school in a brutal regimented manner. Only that it would have worked seamlessly was it not for a boy called Chul. This mysterious loner stood fearlessly up to the bullies and simply combated them with far greater levels of violence. He became the King of Pigs and was the saviour of the downtrodden. However, he had a real darkness within him, and a tragic family life. The film's trajectory hurtles towards a depressing conclusion.I found this South Korean animation very moving and involving. Unlike Japanese anime I have seen, this feature is not afraid to depict the characters with real Asian faces. The world the characters live in feels like a real South Korean place. This focus on realism is to the film's huge credit. This means that the carefully chosen fantasy moments that occur within the film have more impact, such as the dead cat that mocks the boys in hallucinations; it was an animal they brutally killed. It has to be said that The King of Pigs is a very dark and troubling story about bullying and the way it can shape lives forever. It's a cartoon that allows the viewer to think, it does not spell out the intricacies of its protagonist's inner minds. We are allowed to work out for ourselves much of what we see. It really is a cartoon that actually lives up to the adult label. Highly recommended.

Oh dear. Where do we begin? Probably by suggesting that if you are going to get your movie translated and sub-titled into English, you get a native English speaker to tidy up the final version. Sadly, the subtitles in the showing I saw often made very little sense grammatically. It was like a bad web site translation where a literal translation is made but the syntax and context are all wrong. The inability to pronounce and understand the letter "L" also creating the wrong words; "fresh" where the word "flesh" was needed. The few women characters in the film can only be described as completely neurotic, screeching banshees. The animation isn't great either but I'm not knowledgeable about this genre and perhaps this is Korean style. The row of twenty-something Koreans in front of me did say much of the bullying and pressure issues were well represented. They did also spend a lot of time laughing and one of them was on his mobile almost the whole time!I am cognizant that there must be incredible difficulties for Korean film-makers to overcome and I hope they get the help they need to produce meaningful product that can be recognized as such by their international audience.