[KS] Cheering and sports

Reeder Charles kimcheegi at hotmail.com
Fri Jan 2 13:23:55 EST 2004


"Sunjoo Kim" wrote: 
>Can anyone tell if any part of this movie is based on a true story?   
>Are there any newspaper articles on the introduction of baseball or 
>any other sports around this time and Korean responses to them? 

Dear Sunjoo Kim, 

There are two good reviews in english of the film in question. The first 
comes from a forum in Darcy Paquet's excellent Korean Film website 
Koreanfilm.org <http://www.koreanfilm.org/>. A forum member going by the 
nickname "Q"  reviews the subtitled DVD version of YMCA Baseball Team here: 


http://www.koreanfilm.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID2/357.html

"Q" writes:

"4. I don't think Min Yeong-hwan really had a daughter who was involved in 
creating the YMCA baseball team, but his suicide is a historical fact. Min 
was King Kojong's military aide-de-camp at that time. He did kill himself 
to protest the Protectorate Treaty (called Ulsa Treaty in the movie), by 
which Japan had the control of the Korean government. His death was 
followed by suicides of Cho Pyeog-se, Hong Man-sik, Yi Sang-cheol and other 
prominent elite members."

He goes on:

"6. The filmmakers have obviously researched the actual Hwangseong 
s[h]inmun reports on the YMCA baseball team, (They deserve praise!) and the 
movie features authentic recreations of the Hwangseong s[h]inmun reportage. 
That's the newspaper Ho-chang's father gives him to read, indicating that 
the father's stubborn conservatism was actually a facade. Still, the 
newspaper was moderate in terms of its position on modernization and 
Westernization, compared to the Tongnip s[h]inmun (Independence Newspaper), 
with which it shared some staff and writers, so it makes sense that a 
yangban landlord with a base in the countryside like Ho-chang's father 
would approach the Hwangseong sinmun first than the latter."

Anthony Leong over at Mediacircus.net 
<http://www.mediacircus.net/ymca.html> also does an excellent job at 
reviewing the film within its historical context.

YMCA Baseball Team Movie Review
Movie Review by Anthony Leong © Copyright 
2003:<http://www.mediacircus.net/ymca.html>

"....The introduction of baseball and the formation of the first team, the 
YMCA Baseball Team, occurred as Korea increasingly fell under the political 
influence of Japan, which had been aggressively expanding its empire since 
the late 1800s. In 1905, King Kojong was coerced into accepting the Ulsa 
Treaty, which turned the Korean nation into a protectorate of Japan and set 
the stage for complete annexation in 1910. During this bleak period, one of 
the few rays of hope and sources of national pride for the Korean people 
was their winning YMCA Baseball Team. After reading about the exploits of 
Korea's first baseball team, "Joint Security Area (Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok 
JSA)" scribe Kim Hyun-seok was inspired to make "YMCA Baseball Team (YMCA 
Yagudan)""

The Hwangseong Shinmun 황성신문(皇城新聞)<http://hyangto.pe.kr/L7-H32.htm> 
was real, and according to Andrew C. Nahm's "A History of the Korean 
People" (p. 196) was a Nationalist paper that grew out of the renaming of 
the Kyongsong Shinmun in September of 1898.

Hope this helps,
Charlie,
The KimcheeGI

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