The Strongman's Dream

A life of despair and hope, told in a refined madang-geuk style

Hwang Sok-yong’s short story The Strongman’s Dream had already been a celebrated stage hit in 1981 and 1984, directed by Im Jin-taek and starring Kim Myung-gon and Im Myung-gu.

Arirang’s 1987 version moved the story from the 1960s to the late 1980s, adding new scenes and substantially reworking others to create a fresh, timely piece. In this two-hander, Cho Hang-yong plays the strongman Cha Il-bong while Kim Myung-gon takes on every character he meets, portraying a life of setbacks and hope with humour.

Cha Il-bong, a powerful young man from a fishing village, loses both parents as a development boom kills the fish and empties his hometown, and he sets out for Seoul with big ambitions. But Seoul is a fierce struggle for survival. Hoping to win fame and fortune as a professional boxer, he instead drifts from bathhouse scrubber to porn actor to travelling medicine-seller performing feats of strength, until poverty drives away Ae-ja, the partner he met in his days as a bit-part film actor. Having fallen as low as he can go, he one day feels his body give way. With his once bull-like strength spent and only shattered hopes left, he sets out to rise again as the strongman he once was.

Praised for refining the rough madang-geuk form through sophisticated direction, the production engaged its audience directly and won an explosive response.