PUNCH is a feel-good, knockout of a film (part of Dallas International Film Festival)

      Punch is an uplifting drama-comedy that delivers a promise to its audience; these characters are so likable, you’ll crave more. The film is about a lonely and somewhat bitter teenager, Wan-deuk (Ah In Yoo), who comes to terms with his quirky family, and finds an outlet for his anger issues with kickboxing. His father and uncle are penniless street performers, trying to support his son with his proud cabaret act. His pushy high school sociology teacher and neighbor, Dong-joo, is equally as rebellious, and takes an interest in Wan-deuks trials and tribulations. He suggests that he take up kickboxing, and he provides him with an opportunity to reunite him with his estranged mother.     

      Wan-deuk’s narrative voice-over expresses his out-of-place feelings in society—his father is a hunchback, his mother is Filipino, and he comes from poverty. Wisely, the film isn’t about kickboxing, but more humanistic, how a teenager has to accept the family he has. If this was an American blockbuster, filmmakers would ineptly glorify the “kickboxing” element, but Korean director, Han Lee, stresses the touching and funny interactions in Wan-deuk’s neighborhood. I felt as though I walked into the colorful social environment of director Scorsese’s portrait of Little Italy; the domestic drama and lively attitude of an old neighborhood.
      Wan-deuk’s neighbors bicker and start mayhem with one another, but the filmmakers give you a feeling that these characters know one another very well. The quarrels bring a sense of unity to their living environment. As the narrative progresses, Wan-deuk gradually accepts both the mother who abandoned him and the awkward reality of his poor, yet one-hundred percent loving family. The audience roots for the troubled teen, not to excel in contact sports, but to build pride within his social unit. Punch has a mainstream-like happy ending, but it can’t hurt to raise your spirits.

*** (out of four)