As One

As One (2012)

코리아

It wasn't gold that brought them together.

A unified team representing the two Koreas competed at the 1991 Chiba International Table Tennis Championships. It was the first such sport team since the division of the Korean peninsula. The unified team won the group competition event, beating the front runner, China.

Date of release
2012-05-03
TMDB
7.7 / 10 (53)
Runtime
2h 7m
Genres
Drama
Director
Moon Hyun-sung

Casting

Interesting facts

As One is a 2012 South Korean sports drama film starring Ha Ji-won and Bae Doona. It is a cinematic retelling of the first ever post-war Unified Korea sports team which won the women's team gold medal at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. Director Moon Hyun-sung used the foundation of true events to tell the story of a team that united a divided nation for the first time in its painful history.

Production

When director Kim Jee-woon first came to her about the idea for a film about the 1991 championships, South Korean table tennis legend and Olympic gold medalist Hyun Jung-hwa reportedly answered, "Why didn't you approach me sooner?"

Kim was originally slated to direct the feature, but was later replaced by Moon Hyun-sung. Moon Hyun-sung began his career in 2007 as the script supervisor for May 18, and then as an assistant director with Yoga. Making his feature debut with As One, Moon said he felt it was crucial that his own voice as a director didn't outshine the drama of the real-life story, so he let it unfold very naturally.

Because the tournament was a fairly recent event, the production received invaluable assistance from many of those who were actually present at the tournament, witnessing the events unfold, thus adding another layer of authenticity to the film.

Aside from the main cast, the production sought out many supporting roles and extras to play international-quality table tennis. From the Korea Table Tennis Association official players, where the real Hyun Jung-hwa is currently Executive Director, to current national table tennis players of Hungary and France, top athletes appeared throughout the film for added realism.

The actresses started their training four months prior to the start of principal shooting. This was Ha Ji-won's first time playing table tennis, while Bae Doona played some back in her primary school days. Choi Yoon-young, Oh Jung-se and other cast members also trained together for a total of seven months of intensive training. Because of the entire cast's efforts, there were no body doubles for the tournament shots.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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