The King of Pigs

Kyung-min is a businessman whose company has collapsed; after killing his wife he calls Jong-suk, a schoolfriend he has not seen for fifteen years. Jong-suk never became the writer he wanted to be, ghostwrites for a living and is beaten by his wife. The two meet and talk about middle school, and the film goes back there: a school split between the rich and the poor, where being beaten was as ordinary as break time. Only Kim Chul stood against it, and they called him the King of Pigs. The film describes violence as a system: those who are beaten want their turn to beat, and the hierarchy leaves nobody out. It offers no consolation at any point, and when what actually happened at that school emerges at the end, the present of both men falls into place. Yeon Sang-ho wrote and directed. The animation is deliberately coarse: limited movement, flat drawing, drained colour. The budget was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It screened at the Busan Film Festival on 8 October 2011 and took three prizes there including the NETPAC award, became the first Korean animation selected for Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2012, and was invited into competition at the 46th Annecy festival. Who it is for: anyone who likes animation for adults and the harsh strand of Korean cinema. Who it is not for: anyone with no tolerance for school violence or cruelty to animals. The film shows both directly and saves nobody.