As One (2012) on Netflix
North Korea's Ri Bun-hui and South Korea's Hyun Jung-hwa are rivals on opposite teams. A North-South summit puts them on one Korean team for the world table tennis championships in Chiba.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/101,427 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
In autumn 1990 at the Asian Games in Beijing, North Korea's Ri Bun-hui plays South Korea's Hyun Jung-hwa in the women's table tennis competition, and China's Deng Yaping beats Jung-hwa to the gold. Six months afterward in Busan, Jung-hwa trains for the world championships in Chiba while caring for her father in a hospital, and her country expects a gold medal from her. After a North-South summit, the two teams are merged into one Korea under a unification flag, with the North Korean Jo Nam-poong as chief trainer. In Chiba, quarrels break out between the two suspicious sides. Jung-hwa shares a room with Choi Yeon-jung, and Bun-hui rooms with Yu Sun-bok, whose nerves trouble her at competition.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about As One (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The tournament games were shot at Andong University's indoor stadium, where a July heatwave combined with the lighting pushed the temperature above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Slips and falls caused constant minor injuries, so physiotherapists stood by on set.
- Because the actors could only imitate the sport rather than play at world-champion level, the table tennis competition scenes were filmed with no ball at all; the ball was added afterwards by computer.
- Bae Doona trained so hard for her role as North Korea's Ri Bun-hui that she lost toenails, and had to readjust to a left-handed playing style. Unable to contact or meet the real Ri Bun-hui, she relied on videos and tutoring instead.
- The scene near the end of As One in which Hyun Jung-hwa gives Ri Bun-hui a ring as a farewell gift was real: Hyun gave Ri a ring engraved with both their names on their last day in Japan, saying she wanted to be remembered.
- The actresses began training four months before principal photography, and Choi Yoon-young, Oh Jung-se and other cast members trained together for seven months in total. The effort meant there were no body doubles in the tournament shots.
- Ha Ji-won was real-life champion Hyun Jung-hwa's first choice to play her on screen, and studied Hyun's speech and body language during training to copy her playing habits.
- Director Moon Hyun-sung had every actor playing a North Korean role take speech lessons, honing even the regional differences between Ri Bun-hui's Pyongyang accent and Yu Sun-bok's Hamgyong accent.
