A mash-up of cheerleading and soccer tropes, Victory is like a shiny, bright beach toy that breaks the first time you use it. The opening-night presentation at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, it has enough hit tunes and dance routines for K-pop fans, as well as some melodrama for their parents.
Most of all, Victory is a showcase for Lee Hye-ri, the South Korean superstar known more familiarly as just “Hyeri.” A member of the Girl’s Day band, Hyeri forged a career on Korean TV as an adorable little sister or the “cute girl next door.” That led to modeling and social media, where she has millions of followers.
In Victory, she’s Pil-Sun, a misfit and outsider. With her bulky clothes and ratty hair, she’s almost afraid to be pretty. Branded a troublemaker at her high school In Geoje, an island off the southern coast of Korea, Pil-Sun and her best friend Mina (Park Se-Wan) have been forced to repeat a year after a nightclub brawl. That doesn’t stop them from smoking and practicing dance routines in the school restroom, no matter how many times they are caught and disciplined.
Searching for rehearsal space, the two discover a loophole: if they form a cheerleading team, they can earn the backing of the school. Coincidentally, Se-Hyun (Jo A-Ram), a champion cheerleader at a rival school, has just transferred to Geoje. Pil-Sun and Mina recruit six other students, including the daughter of a taekwondo instructor, an AV nerd, a scary girl with sunglasses whose dances resemble fits, and other thinly-sketched but reasonably funny types. Pil-Sun and Mina are into free-form hip hop, while Se-Hyun is a strict traditionalist. That conflict erupts in the team’s first performance at a soccer match, the routines turning to disarray before a mocking audience in the stands.
The cheerleaders’ hapless performance matches that of the soccer team: perennial underdogs. Their coach’s motto is “It’s okay to lose.” But Se-Hyun’s brother and new transfer, Dong-Hyun, a star at his previous school, inspires his teammates to work harder. By practicing at store openings, dockyard demonstrations, and assisted-living homes, the cheerleaders not only improve, but bond as friends. At the same time, the soccer team starts winning. Then a death at the docks causes everything to fall apart.
If you’ve seen a sports film before, you know things will eventually work out. Victory achieves its happy ending through some far-fetched plot twists, including a potential suicide and girl-band auditions in Seoul, but the overall sunny outlook here is hard to resist.
That’s largely due to Hyeri, a performer who is irresistible even at her most manipulative. She and Mina perform a couple of phenomenal dance sequences, one of which extends across the entire floor of the high school. Hyeri anchors the cheerleading routines with frightening assurance, hitting each beat with a dazzling smile.
She’s equally good at dramatic scenes, aggressively countering Kim’s attempt to flirt with her just like Barbara Stanwyck manhandling Henry Fonda. During a scene in which her father (played by Hyun Bong-sik) talks about his past, the camera pulls in slowly to an exceptional closeup of her tearful face. Another extended take follows her across a Seoul rooftop, finding her face in a close-up profile as she contemplates a doubtful future.
Still, it’s hard to point to anything original in Victory‘s storyline, other than the movie’s casual cruelty and distinct class divisions. Pil-Sun’s father is routinely humiliated in public by his boss, while Pil-Sun is subjected to repeated disciplinary blows at the principal’s office. Think John Hughes with more punishment. Making his directing debut, Park Beom-su hints at Geoje’s status as a backwater town that everyone tries to leave, but frankly doesn’t pursue any one plot line with much conviction. There’s always another dance routine to another Korean pop chestnut around the corner.
Because Victory is set in 1999, it’s easy to get lost in a welter of 20-year-old K-pop references. It’s just as easy to be swept along by Hyeri’s amazing confidence.
Victory world premiered at the 2024 New York Asian Film Festival.
The post NYAFF Review: Park Beom-su’s Victory Gives a Winning Showcase to Lee Hye-ri first appeared on The Film Stage.
