Director Lee Seung-hoon and cast discuss upcoming underdog sports drama
Korea dominates plenty of global stages. Its pop stars sell out stadiums worldwide, its esports gamers rake in championship titles, and its filmmakers collect awards at major festivals. But on the track, it's an entirely different story. Case in point: Not a single Korean sprinter has met Olympic qualifying standards for the 100-meter in the past two cycles (the 2020 threshold sat at 10.05 seconds).
Into that void comes "Run to You," loosely adapting the story of Kim Kuk-young, Korea's national record holder, who clocked 10.07 seconds in 2017. He remains the last Korean to compete in the Olympic 100-meter at the Rio Games in 2016.
"Run to You" follows Goo-yeong (Ha Seok-jin), a veteran sprinter forever stuck 0.02 seconds short of international qualification. His path collides with Seung-yeol (Lee Shin-young), a soccer washout-turned-track hopeful who brings more goofball energy than technique to the sport.
At Friday's press screening at Lotte Cinema World Tower in Seoul, rookie director Lee Seung-hoon recalled stumbling onto his inspiration at a local track meet. "This sprinter absolutely destroyed the competition, finished first by a mile," he said. "Then he starts tearing at his hair, completely devastated. Turns out he'd missed the world championship qualifying time by hundredths of a second.
"That image stuck with me — winning but still losing."
Ha Seok-jin returns to the screen after nine years away. "I've never been fast," he said about preparing for the role. "At 42, I'm learning to sprint for the first time. The younger cast would show up fresh the next morning, while I'm limping around. That struggle became part of finding the character."
Lee Shin-young, who plays the upstart challenger, shared his own reality check: "I thought I was pretty quick from my school days. Then I met Seo-bin (Yoon Seo-bin, who plays rival sprinter Geun-jae) and got humbled real fast."
The film clocks in at just over 90 minutes but feels much longer, packed with every feel-good sports movie gimmick you'd expect. Lee manages the vibe well enough — the sun-drenched training montages, teenage hijinks, triumphant crescendos backed by occasionally syrupy orchestral swells — but the seams show in the storytelling. Goo-yeong and Seung-yeol's narratives run side by side like athletes in separate lanes who forgot they're in the same race. They take forever to converge and never quite mesh by the end.
Those seeking lighter pleasures might find solace in Twice's Dahyun, who features prominently as the sharp-edged Ji-eun. This marks her second feature after March's "You Are the Apple of My Eye," though this one was filmed first. Dahyun delivers the requisite charm in both school uniforms and running gear, providing welcome distractions when the plot has nothing of substance to offer.
"Ji-eun finds pure happiness when she's running," Dahyun explained. "That feeling when you're exhausted but your heart's still pounding — that's her joy." She explained how she drew from personal experience as a K-pop idol to bring the character's struggles to life: "I had an ankle injury that forced me to stop performing. I understand that frustration when your body won't cooperate."
It's not a perfect film, far from it, but something about chasing one's impossible dreams seems to have struck a chord with everyone involved. Ha turned reflective about his career: "Sometimes you're working and think, 'Why am I doing this?' Then you remember, 'Oh right, I loved this.' That's what we're getting at here."
For director Lee, the point was never about winning. "It's incredibly difficult to break the 10.05-second mark here. But there's beauty in that pursuit, even in failure."
"Results don't matter as much as finding that heartbeat again, that excitement. If 'Run to You' helps anyone rediscover that feeling, we've done our job."
"Run to You" hits theaters Wednesday.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
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