The Korean Connection
Series sponsored by
Korean Cinema’s Celluloid Fever: The 1970s
May 15 - 26
A Korean street fighter famed for slapping villains in the face with his foot takes one last job that blows everything up in the high-water mark of the tae kwon do action films Lee Doo-yong and Korean American star Han Yong-cheol.
A Korean street fighter famed for his lethal kicks decides to go straight for the woman he loves—then takes one last job that blows everything up—in 1930s Harbin. He discovers the gold carriage he’s agreed to rob belongs to his girlfriend’s brother, and guilt drives him to cripple his own leg and disappear into drink. Then the Japanese villain takes the gold, takes the girl, and our hero comes back—on a steel prosthetic—to destroy them all. This is the high-water mark of the six tae kwon do action films Lee Doo-yong and Korean American star Han Yong-cheol cranked out in 1974 alone, a collaboration built on one simple revelation: Han could slap villains in the face with his foot, left and right, at speed, and nobody in Korean cinema had ever seen anything like it. Hong Kong had the One-Armed Swordsman. Japan had Zatoichi. Korea answered with Han Yong-cheol’s right foot.
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