Say you, say me part 2: Rikidozan

When I see professional wrestling on TV, I still see, after almost two decades, the flashiness, the electricity in the air, the soap opera style sketches. I was a fan for a long time; as kids and teens we lapped up the suspense and the matches and cheered our favorite wrestlers on.

In Japan, professional wrestling (contracted into "purores") is considered as a more serious sport. Wrestlers are treated more like sports athletes than entertainers. One even got into the Japanese Government, no less wearing his trademark mask.

The man who almost single-handedly brought pro wrestling to Japan was a man called Rikidozan. How interesting it is to note that Rikidozan, a man who is considered a national hero in Japan is actually from Korea.

Rikidozan the movie is a biopic, but it does try well to get out of the pitfalls that other movies of its type suffer. We see Rikidozan as a man beset by faults, but striving for a place in the world. Or perhaps we can say that all he wants is a world where he won't be judged because of his race or creed.

Some of the more enjoyable scenes in the movie occur when Riki fights his first match in Japan. At the time Japan was a wreck after losing WWII, most importantly with respect to morale. I noticed that the announcers talked about the match in this way: they didn't refer to Rikidozan "beating up Mr. this and that," but rather of Rikidozan "defeating America." It was a great source of pride for the Japanese people, giving them something to hold on, something with which to save face, for a country obsessed with saving face and personal honor.

No, Rikidozan was not a perfect person. His love story with his wife Aya, portrayed by Japanese actress Miki Nakatani (Chaos, Ring 2) may be a bit underplayed but it works, for what it's worth.

I am now in the opinion that Sol Kyung-gu is in the top tier of actors in Korea, if not Asia, if not the world. He gives the character Rikidozan life, a marked contrast from his roles as a mentally impaired person in Oasis or as a suicidal man in Peppermint Candy. His usage of Japanese is quite good from my reckoning, and I probably wouldn't have known that he was a Korean actor had I not known.

In the end, Rikidozan was a good effort. It may not have been a perfect film, but it competently shows the quest of a man whose only wish was to be able to smile as much as he wanted.