Won Il was set to be a champion swimmer but he quit and lost his passion for swimming. However after being expelled from school he is forced to join a sports college where he meets Woo Sang a serious swimmer who's headed for the Olympics. The two had met before as children at a competition, now the two form a strange friendship based on rivalry.
Simultaneously, there's the Jung Eun sub-plot. Jung Eun is Won Il's childhood friend and she quickly attracts Woo Sang's interest. Also, she's in band. So whilst Won Il and Woo Sang are competing in their swimming competitions Jung Eun is busy at some kind of battle of the bands thing. It's hard to tell really because they do NOT give her enough attention. Basically Jung Eun is an object of romantic interest and since she's being played by SNSD's Yuri, they decided to make her sing.
Exactly what happens in this movie? I'm not too sure. There is no clear development from the beginning to the middle to the end. Just all of a sudden Won Il likes swimming and Woo Sang becomes friendly. No development just spontaneous change of character! Also there are so many things left unexplained, like sure, we know that Won Il's dad is dead... But how did he die? We know that Won Il isn't living with his mum... But why are they living apart? There's so much left unsaid that I don't understand how they made it into a full length movie!
I could see the film trying to touch on some pretty important themes, they just tried a bit too hard. For example, they mention the risk of injury and how damaging it can be to one's sporting career, but they never explore it in depth. They talk about the negative side of competition and about bullying but we never see these negatives resolved. There's definitely some potential in there somewhere, but alas, it is not more than a diamond in the rough. Maybe not even a diamond actually, more like a diamante in the rough!
The pacing of the movie was terrible! They miss some important moments of plot and character development in favour of some unnecessary violence. Instead of seeing the cute moments where Won Il begins to fall for Jung Eun we see prolonged training montages. Whats more, their chronology is totally out of whack! I couldn't for the life of me work out the character relationships because they weren't explained until half way through the film! Worse still is the shameful amount of fanservice! I'm often quite partial to a bit of fanservice but when you're making a film about swimming you don't need to try to put fanservice in and yet the directors thought we needed a shower scene for the lads to discuss each other's genitalia! Having said that, the fanservice was probably the best thing in the movie!
The OST felt like it was trying too hard as well. It was like the pieces had no real heart in them, the composer just assumed that if they used piano and violins they would automatically sound emotional. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that, it instead sounds horrifically cliche! Then there's Jung Eun's "band songs" which are awkwardly placed into the movie.... Not the most musical stuff I've ever heard. I like SNSD but their voices never stand out as soloists to me. But nice try Yuri!
In conclusion, I spent half the film trying to work out what it was about and there were some incredibly awkward bits. Even at the end of the film there were a lot of things left unexplained and yet it felt like it went on for ages!! Basically, it's a rubbish film and if you want to watch something about swimming I'd point you in the direction of Free!, a series that actually has a story!
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