I’d been wanting to see this movie for a while but surprisingly had a hard time finding it, despite the fact it came out just a few years ago. This is a Korean film based on the true events of Gam Sa-yong, a ateelworker who tried out for and made the Sammi Superstars — one of the original Korean Baseball Organization franchises.

During the transformation of Korean baseball from sandlots to organized professional baseball it wasn’t uncommon for people working for the sponsoring companies to actually play on the team. The KBO promoted this idea and even instituted a quota rule, but the quality of the players was quickly found to be too low and the rule was done away with. Of course today, with most players in the KBO making six-figure salaries, the concept is unheard of.

I’m not going to tell you this is the greatest baseball movie of all time. As is the case in a lot of mainstream Korean films, the setting is often made to look like a tampon commercial. The sky is bright even when it rains, poor neighborhoods are made to look poor, yet somehow pristine — things of that nature. There’s an element of slapstick comedy annoyed me, and oh yeah, they use a cover of Twisted Sister’s “We’re not going to take it,” throughout the movie.

Still, there are several reasons to watch:

• The scene where Gam gets the news he made the team is great. It’’s announced over the company’s PA during the morning announcements (still very common in Korean companies) and all his co-workers go crazy
• The low-key but spirited pageantry of the first KBO season, which includes all the old uniforms (most of these teams are no longer in existence) and players doing a lot of in-person events to promote the fledgling league
• Gam’s funny relationship with his mother from whom he initially hides the fact he’s playing professional baseball because she thinks baseball is no way to make a living. This sentiment was also very common in the early days of American baseball
• The ending is atypical and good

I hesitate somewhat in doing this, but because I think it’s going to be very difficult for people to get a hold of this movie, so I’m going to provide a link to a torrent site that’s hosting it. I went ahead and downloaded it to check the quality and it’s a very clean Quicktime single file with embedded English subtitles. You have to register on the site, but it takes just a minute.

It did get a small release in Japan two years after it came out in Korea, so it’s possible you could find it on DVD over there. It’s already out of print in Korea.