Review: The King of Pigs, 2011

Unusually, there were three animations showing in the theater last year: Leafie, A Hen into the Wild, Green Days and The King of Pigs. Those are all the excellent animations.

The King of Pigs is a terrible and horrible animation. Many times I had goose bumps while I was watching it. Why? The memory of school was not warm and cozy for the age of 30 - 40s in Korea. The generation went through violence, repression, submission by teachers, classmates or senior students. The King of Pigs deals with the dark side of the school life. There are three kinds of hell for men in Korea: School, Army and Company.

Director Sang-ho YEON made several short animations, and it is his first long feature animated film. When I looked at the ending credits, I could find familiar names from the independent film industry. It is such an achievement of them! The film was awarded at the Busan film Festival last year and invited from the Cannes this year.

The opening starts with the scene; Kyung-min Killed his wife. He becomes bankrupt and all his possessions are attached "lawful seizure". He made a call to Jong-suk, a school friend 15 years ago.

Jong-suk is a ghost biography writer, socially naught, useless and unvisible. A publisher pushes him contemptuously to write it more interesting.

Receiving a call, Jong-suk meets Kyung-min. They begins talking about their school life.

Flashback to the past. Kyung-min and Jong-suk were bullied by classmates, who had rich parents and were even good at school. They were sort of rulers.

However. a savior rescued them, Chul. He beat them up and became a hero of Kyung-min and Jong-suk. Chul said, not to be like a pig, we should be more vicious than they are.

Bullies asked seniors to beat him. Chul took out a knife to stand up. A teacher showed up, and Chul was suspended from school.

Chul planed to suicide himself in front of all students, saying the bullies will not forget about it forever. It was a kind of revenge.

Chul killed himself. However, Kyung-min says Chul asked him to shout before he jumped out. Chul changed his mind, not killing himself and just pretending it. Chul wanted to come back to school and be a normal life. Kyung-min could not shout out, and confessed that he saw a shadow pushing Chul in the back.

The shadow was Jong-suk. Kyung-min kept it secret because Jong-suk did it for themselves. Jong-suk crys out that Chul must have remained as their hero.