This is probably the best film I’ve ever seen that begins with a hashtag. Here’s the deal right up front…this is a Bad News Bears film in which the “Bears” play exactly one official game in the film and lose 73-5. That score is equally and ridiculously lopsided as it suggests. As the film never evolves past a brief montage segment, it’s like cutting off Bad News Bears while Kelly Leak is still riding a Harley.
What’s striking about this would-be formulaic sports film is how much the script off-roads for no discernable reason. From the very beginning, our would-be heroes neither know nor care about handball. Masao (Seishirô Katô) only cares about Instagram likes. This is the guy we’re gonna root for? A selfie hound? A guy who doesn’t even care about the sport we’re going to want him to excel at? It’s a little easier to get into the (typical Hollywood) angsty wallflower who decorates her room with cheerleading paraphernalia, ya know? At least that person has an idea of what they want.
After releasing several re-filtered classics on Instagram, Masao has something happen that never happens … one random shot of him in a semi-action handball pose gets 50+ likes. Feeding his ego, Masao and his bud (Kotaro Daigo) start feeding the monster, adding the tag #HandballStrive to summon an imaginary world of their collective successes and failures on the handball court. I can but guess this serves to collect attention from the nearly dozens of handball enthusiasts world-wide who have nothing better to do than root for a team that doesn’t exist being played by boys who are about as athletic as seaslugs.
The boys even garner a dancing fan, a “hype moocher” if you will. And then, finally, they realize somewhere along the line that it would behoove them to, you know, maybe at least learn how the game of handball is played.
Team handball is an Olympic sport, believe it or not. I cannot name a single country that boasts team handball feats. Having never
seen the sport outside the Olympics, I was hoping to learn something about it or at least get lost in the artificial enthusiasm of the screen. No such luck. And, of course, team handball will never have great popularity because soccer, lacrosse, and ice hockey already exist … which are all essentially the same sport with an increased difficulty factor.
#HandballStrive is cute, and I kind of liked the players, but there is nothing to this script. The film could end at any point in the narrative and you’d say, “yeah, ok.” Which, I will add, it effectively does. I will have to wait for the next film about handball to learn more [read: anything] about the sport or see if it will attract genuine action or romance or humor or any of those things you might want to see in a film.
A cute Asian septet of boyhood
Decides handball is theirs, understood?
Check out their press!
It’s like BTS
Except not Korean, not talented, and not good
Not Rated, 109 Minutes
Director: Daigo Matsui
Writer: Daigo Matsui, Dai Satô
Genre: Introduction to a sport we learn almost nothing about
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Somebody whose entire life depends on attention from Instagram
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Genuine athletes
