[KAVE=Choi Jae-hyuk Reporter] In the outskirts of Seoul, the noise coming from an old rooftop room is not organized music. It is rather close to the screams of a lost life. The movie begins with the lethargic and dry face of a man named 'Ilrok (Baek Seung-hwan)' whose every day is mundane. As he wears down like an unnamed part in his brother-in-law's factory, the word 'tomorrow' is not a hope but merely an extension of the boring repetition. Life is a grayness devoid of any expectations, that is it. Then one day, a friend from America, 'Yegun (Lee Woong-bin)', unexpectedly, really unexpectedly, comes to visit him. Yegun, who ambitiously opened a sandwich shop in Chicago only to fail spectacularly, suddenly suggests, "Let's enter a male quartet competition." Ilrok scoffs at the ridiculous idea, but in fact, he has no compelling reason to refuse or any exciting alternative plans. Thus begins the reckless and hopeless challenge of two surplus men.
However, a quartet cannot be performed alone or with just two people. They desperately need members to harmonize. The first member they find after much searching is a fishmonger named 'Daeyong (Shin Min-jae)'. Living every day soaked in the smell of fish in a corner of the market, he looks as exhausted as the fish eyes left over after cleaning, but his passion for singing is hotter than anyone else's. Although he suffers from severe stage fright. And the last member, 'Junse (Kim Chung-gil)', joins. He appears to be somewhat normal on the outside, but every time he opens his mouth, he strangely goes off track and has zero situational awareness. He joins the team with his ponytail swaying. The four men gathered like this form the team name 'Delta Boys'. Passing through alpha, beta, and gamma, they are the ambiguous fourth order, neither first, second, nor even third. To put it metaphorically, they are the most pathetic and loose 'losers' Avengers in the world.
The practice location is the cramped rooftop room of Ilrok. However, their practice is far from smooth. When it’s time to shout "Jericho, Jericho" and match the grand harmonies, they are busy slurping up instant noodles and pouring soju while blaming each other's patheticness. Daeyong is often late for practice due to the livelihood issue of not being able to leave his fish shop, and Yegun, filled with baseless confidence, bombards the members with nagging due to his 'leader syndrome'. Junse often gets scolded for trying to eat the lunch his wife lovingly packed for him all by himself. Their practice time is filled with more meaningless chatter than nutritious singing, and the chaos is filled with more shouting and accusations than beautiful harmonies.
The film relentlessly follows their daily lives like a documentary, sometimes like an observational reality show. Scenes of four adult men squished together in a cramped van, bickering like crumpled laundry, scenes of them washing each other's backs naked in a bathhouse, building a strange camaraderie, and scenes of them huddled together under a flapping plastic tarp on a rainy rooftop drinking makgeolli. In this process, the audience worries more about whether these misfits will get upset over trivial matters and not tear the team apart, and whether they will safely meet again tomorrow, rather than expecting their singing skills to improve and win first place in the competition.
One day, the date for the preliminary round of the competition approaches, and the team's conflicts reach a peak. The heavy gravity of reality that cannot be resolved with mere romance weighs them down. Daeyong's desperate situation, where his livelihood is threatened if he leaves the shop, Yegun's unilateral push without any sense of reality, and Ilrok, who cannot find his balance in between. The sharp question, "Do you really want to sing? Is this a joke?" hangs in the air. They gather again on the rooftop to ignite the passion that no one recognizes, perhaps for the last time in their lives, from the bottom of their lives. The accompaniment crackles from an old cassette player. Can the Delta Boys truly take the stage they dreamed of and break down the solid walls of 'Jericho'? Will their voices resonate as a single harmony in the world, or at least to each other?
Ultra-low-budget film... The quality of art cannot be bought with money
Director Go Bong-soo's 'Delta Boys' has left a distinct mark in the history of Korean independent cinema with the shocking fact that it was filmed with a production cost of only a few million won. This work breaks the stereotype that poor production conditions undermine the quality of the work and proves that it is possible to overcome the limits of capital with ideas and raw energy. This has had a decisive impact on expanding the diversity of production methods and distribution routes in the Korean independent film industry, providing young directors starting with low budgets with strong inspiration that 'I can do it too'. The film boldly discards the commercial film grammar of smooth lighting and elegant editing. What fills that void is the rough breath of handheld shots and the stubbornly raw long takes. This is partly due to budget constraints, but ultimately it becomes an aesthetic choice that most effectively conveys the pathetic and shabby daily lives of the four characters in Delta Boys and the air of that narrow and suffocating space. The audience feels as if they are squatting in the corner of that cramped rooftop room, watching them.
The greatest virtue and weapon of this work is the overwhelming naturalness of the actors that breaks down the boundary between 'acting' and 'reality'. Their long takes of arguments flow without commas or periods, intertwining and flowing, and the awkward silences, moments of being at a loss for words, and overlapping dialogues evoke a stronger and more instinctive laughter than highly calculated comedy. Their chatter is akin to a mud fight entangled with survival instincts and boredom. The conversations in 'Delta Boys' are the raw language of the common people around us, bouncing between survival, boredom, and vague hope, and are unrefined sincerity.
The film does not obsess over the result of 'success'. While typical music films provide catharsis to the audience with a wonderful performance after resolving the conflicts among the members, 'Delta Boys' loves and affirms the very disarray of that process. The song they sing with all their might, 'Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho', symbolizes strong power, victory, and miracles, but the Delta Boys singing it are infinitely weak and insignificant. This great irony resonates with the absurd struggle of humanity that French writer Albert Camus spoke of in 'The Myth of Sisyphus'. Like Sisyphus, who endlessly rolls a boulder uphill, they pour meaningless passion into a goal that is bound to collapse. However, the film finds paradoxical nobility and beauty in that meaninglessness.
In this way, 'Delta Boys' thoroughly rejects the 'melodrama' code that Korean commercial films necessarily require, inducing laughter and chuckles instead of tears, and maintaining an emotional distance from the audience, thus opening a new horizon of genuine empathy rather than simple pity. The audience feels a strange emotion from their serious expressions and sweat as they sing with all their might, rather than expecting their song to achieve perfect harmony. It is the beauty of dissonance created by imperfection that is more beautiful because it is not perfect.
Moreover, this film proves the cheerful energy that Korean independent films can possess. In a realm where heavy and serious themes and socially critical perspectives predominated, 'Delta Boys' poses a bold and cheerful question: "What's wrong with just doing what you want? So what if you're not good at it?" Wearing old training clothes with holes in the knees, messy hair, and slurping up unappetizing ramen, they joke, "We need at least one trophy," and "We're the best." This baseless optimism is not mere escapism but the only driving force that helps endure the filthy reality, as the film convincingly shows. 'Delta Boys' is a rough yet warm tribute to all adults who are unfinished youth or still drifting while being incomplete even after their youth has passed.
If you want to see a realistic K-movie
I absolutely do not recommend this movie to anyone expecting the glamorous spectacle of a blockbuster with hundreds of millions of won invested or a well-structured twist. For those who desire flashy visuals, sophisticated narratives, or neat conclusions, 'Delta Boys' may come across as a noise pollution that requires patience or as incoherent drunken ramblings.
However, I strongly recommend this movie to the 30-40 generation who feel like they are cars stopped on a congested road, or to those whose lives have become so dry that they can't even remember the last time they desperately wanted something that made their hearts race. Additionally, for cinephiles who are tired of the artificial emotions or melodrama of polished commercial films and long for raw stories that smell like real people, this movie will be an excellent antidote.
If you are deeply trapped in lethargy, not even excited about tomorrow's lunch menu, let alone grand dreams, do not hesitate to knock on Ilrok's rooftop room door. The lukewarm paper cup of soju and the offbeat song they offer may help you regain the 'courage to just go for it' and 'passion without reason' that you have long forgotten. After watching this movie, you might want to take out that old, tacky training outfit stuffed in your closet and stand in front of the mirror, striking a pose for no reason. Just like the Delta Boys, it's okay to be a little pathetic. So what if you're a bit lacking? We are all living today, bumping into our solid realities, trying to break down those 'Jericho' walls.
