“Dream” (드림)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
Nov. 29, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Yoon Hong-dae (played by Park Seo-joon)
Lee So-min (played by Lee Ji-eun)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

Based on the real-life Homeless World Cup (which was held in September in Seoul), “Dream” offers a more cynical look than Great Britain’s “The Beautiful Game,” which shares the same topic.

Park Seo-joon stars as a problematic soccer star forced to coach a soccer team comprised of homeless players. Lee Ji-eun (better known as the K-pop star IU) portrays a documentarian who’s hired to concoct a feel-good documentary to bolster the athlete’s image.

Neither likes each other. And thankfully, this isn’t a cute film about how adversaries become lovers.

Instead, the true love story centers on characters who learn how to love themselves for who they are, rather than what they have. Will a film like this end homelessness anywhere? No. But perhaps depicting characters whose hardships aren’t the result of the drug-and-alcohol-abuse trope will help remind us that bad things can do happen to people not unlike ourselves.

While viewers won’t be surprised by what happens at the end of “Dream,” I enjoyed it for its ability to present humanity in a humorous way.

Release date: “Dream” was released in South Korea on April 26, 2023, opening at first place. The running time is 125 minutes. Directed by Lee Byeong-heon, who is known for the 2019 film “Extreme Job,” which is South Korea’s second highest-grossing movie. (Kim Han-min’s 2014 film “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” is No. 1.) I watched this on Netflix.

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