A Tale of Legendary Libido

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Movie: A Tale of Legendary Libido
Hangul: Garujigi
Revised romanization: 가루지기
Director: Han-sol Shin
Writer: Dong-hyun Min, Han-sol Shin
Producer:
Cinematographer:
Release Date: April 30, 2008
Runtime: 120 min.
Studio: Prime Entertainment
Distributor: Showbox/Mediaplex
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea

Plot

Hidden in the ancient Korean folklore lies a tragic character with a massive inferiority complex. Byun’s problem stems from his seriously impaired libido, and to make matter worse, the entire village knows about it. But as fate would have it, he chance encounters a monk from the mountain and gains the ultimate male power of never-ending erection and arousal. Around this time all men are grouped and sent off to war and only Byun remains to satisfy the women of the village who are only happy to line up outside Byun’s home and quench their sexual desires and fantasies!

Cast

Trailer

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Film Festivals

2008 (12th) Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival - July 18-27 - Off the Fantastic

Comments

Comment #1
Ki Says:
Feb 11 2009 4:36 am

“A Tale of Legendary Libido” is based off the explicit 19th century folk song “Byeon Gang-soe Tale” and is preceded by a 1988 South Korean movie pf the same name (Korean title “Garojiki”). In the 2008 version, the man selected to play the super endowed Byeong Gang-so is the talented comedic actor Tae-gyu Bong. He’s already had a nice run of way better than expected Korean comedies with “Two Faces of My Girlfriend” and “How The Lack of Love Affects Two Men.” The question now is can Tae-gyu Bong pull out the hat trick and make his third successful comedy?

The movie is set several centuries back, during the Joseon Era. An elderly widow drinks alcohol by herself and laments about the lack of men in her village. She then tosses her shoe at a wooden statute and knocks off its phallic symbol like wooden nose. When the elderly lady picks up the fallen wooden nose, thunder suddenly erupts, smoke appears and then a throng of well endowed men appear ready to take the women then and there.

The nose gets passed around the village, becoming an increasing nuisance to the villagers. The village wise man then decides to place the wooden nose in a old wine bottle and bury for good in the forest.

Shortly afterwards we are then introduced to Byeon Gang-soe (Tae-gyu Bong), the meek village rice cake seller. Byeon is a morbid fellow, mainly due to his miniature private part which has become the source of many punchlines among the village ladies. Byeon’s life then takes a drastic turn, when the village wise man tries to help Byeon by informing him of the wine buried in the forest. The wise men stresses to Byeon to only take a sip of the potent concoction, but by the time those words come out, Byeon is long gone. After finding the buried wine, Byeon proceeds to gulp down the entire wine bottle. The tale of the Legendary Libido truly begins.

While the first half of “A Tale of Legendary of Libido” promises a fun sex-filled comedy (think Forbidden Quest meets Sex is Zero), once the premise behind the movie is revealed, the movie quickly falls apart. Whatever excitement the movie has built up in the first half, whithers away in the tiring second half. A continual dose of repetitious jokes centered around the same idea: little guy with no endurance suddenly gets his mojo times 10x, is virtually all that is offered for a plot. In theory this singular idea could offer fun, but in reality, the movie turns out a bit like the Gong Show minus any amusing performances.

Tae-gu Bong plays his character strictly in a sullen manner, which works in the first half, but with the lame second half script, becomes a further drag on an dry movie. Veteran actor Oh Dal-su is also (mis)cast as the rugged macho brother of Byeon. About the only performer able to muster any interest would be Su-kyeong Jeon as the always lustful bar owner (she at least belted a cool song on more than one occasion). Costume looked OK when done in a straightforward manner, but often looked ludicrous when tailored to arouse. Script feels like a complete hack job, running with the same joke for most of its runtime and then suddenly introducing a love triangle angle for no real good reason.

I’m sure there’s going to be another funny sex-comedy coming out of Korea soon and Tae-gyu Bong will make another funny comedy, but “A Tale of Legendary of Libido” just isn’t that movie. A lame script, repetitious jokes, and uninspiring acting is about all that “A Tale of Legendary of Libido” has to offer. There is more skin shown than your average commercial Korean comedy, but nothing to get excited about (it could probably squeak out a PG-13 rating in the U.S.). It turns out that the latest tale of the legendary libido is in actuality just a limp comedy needing to get itself up.