Dwaeji-ui Wang

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Synonyms: The King of the Pigs

Japanese: 돼지의 왕

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Nov 3, 2011

Producers: Studio Dadashow

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: None found, add some

Source: Unknown

Genres: Drama, Suspense

Theme: Psychological

Duration: 1 hr. 36 min.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 6.61¹ (scored by 2,518 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #6820²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #7319

Members: 7,244

Favorites: 28

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Synopsis

After his business goes bankrupt, 30-something Kyung-Min (Oh Jung-Se) kills his wife impulsively. Hiding his anger, he seeks out his former middle school classmate Jong-Suk (Yang Ik-June). Jong-Suk now works as a ghostwriter for an autobiography, but he dreams of writing his own novel. For the first time in 15 years, they meet. Kyung-Min and Jong-Suk both hide their own current situations and begin to talk about their middle school days.

At their middle school, they were classified by their wealth and grades. Kyung-Min and Jong-Suk were at the bottom. They were called pigs. They were bullied by a ruling class called dogs. When they were called pigs, they got angry but couldn't do anything against the dogs. Then a king of pigs appears—Chul (Kim Hye-Na). Kyung-Min and Jong-Suk became to rely on Chul-Yi.

Now, leading Jong-Suk to their middle school grounds, Kyung-Min discloses the shocking truth to Jong-Suk of what happened 15 years ago.

(Source: Asian Media Wiki)

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Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

Kim, Chul

Main

Hwang, Kyung-min

Main

Jung, Jong-suk

Main

Staff

Yeon, Sang-ho

Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, Screenplay, Editing, Character Design, Original Creator, Background Art

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Ending Theme

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Reviews

Oct 7, 2012

dracos9000

Recommended

What can I say? This was a very interesting anime, but many people may not be able to stomach the reality of what this anime represents. Too many people are put off by this because of its brutality but this is what human nature can and sometimes becomes. The anime is vile because humans can be vile we all have the potential to become monsters if the right circumstances are met. If you can understand that is what makes us human then you should be able to enjoy this anime.

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Aug 6, 2021

usernamesarehard

Mixed Feelings

So first things first, The King of Pigs is not a happy or uplifting movie. At all. It's relentlessly violent, has almost no morally good characters, and offers no salvation or reprieve from the suffering that takes place. With that said, is The King of Pigs still worthwhile? Well... it's not that easy.

Overall, The King of Pigs is a story about class struggle, and how dehumanising and inescapable class discrimination is.The story is largely told through violent altercations in a middle school between the rich kids, the "Dogs," and the poor ones, the "Pigs." The most similar example I can think of to this film ... would be 2019's Joker, which engages with a similar message of "The world is fucked and the only thing you can do is get violent and show people that you're not someone to be messed with." Except King of Pigs is even more fatalistic than that, and shows that people who act out like that only end up getting punished and that the situation only ends up getting worse than it was before. The only successful rebellion against the system anyone is able to make in this story is a self-destructive show of defiance that ultimately ends up changing nothing. The film portrays the process of the "Pigs" getting bullied, lashing out in anger, and then being punished for it as an endless cycle with no solution.

And if that wasn't depressing enough, there are almost no characters in this film that are portrayed as good or likable people. The "Dogs" are all complete assholes who enjoy tormenting those with less power than them, the main cast are prone to outbursts of anger and violence, and the movie starts off with the aftermath of one of them having recently murdered his wife for unexplained reasons, even the adults in the side cast are portrayed as caring about money above all else and exerting what little power they have over those with less than them. Furthermore, there's almost nothing in the way of healthy relationships either. The friendship between the two leads is tenuous at best, and their mutual admiration of Chul Kim is greatly tested by the later events of the story. Even the familial relationships they all have feel notably loveless. No one in this movie is a good person, and no one really likes anyone else. The prevailing emotions in this film are bitterness and anger and hatred.

On a lighter note, let's talk about the visuals! ...They're not very good. The character designs are horrendously ugly which is probably by design, but also the animation feels noticeably cheap, like they're trying to keep the number of actual frames of animation as low as possible. Movement is stiff, frame rates are low, and it's these elements along with the almost complete lack of lip sync to the dialogue that make it feel somewhat like an amateur production. The film also uses CGI models for its characters any time there's a mid shot or a long shot, and those models DO NOT blend in with the backgrounds in any way. It's not all bad though, as the usage of 3D backgrounds in some parts look pretty neat, and there are some pretty inspired artistic shots that use light and shadow to great effect.

The King of Pigs is a bitter, angry and miserable movie, but is it good? It's definitely not enjoyable or likable in any way, but I can't help but respect how relentless it is in its portrayal of its message, how it doesn't try to sugarcoat things for the sake of the viewer. I'm normally not a fan of stories such as this, as they often just feel like doom and gloom and violence for its own sake, but this movie actually feels like they're being put to use to show the injustices of inequality. I still can't call myself a fan since I prefer stories to have at least some measure of levity amidst all the despair, but I do think there is something to take away from this.

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Oct 3, 2012

geroshabu

Not Recommended

I kind of know that there's a problem when I catch myself sitting through a film and feeling worn out and put off by its rampant misanthropy. "The King of Pigs" is likely one of the worst and most tiresome offenders I have ever encountered along these lines. It's all pretty damned vile no matter which way you approach it. I feel hesitant to even write about this, as I'd rather not provide some sort of morbid and unintentional recommendation for the dishearteningly large number of people out there who will seek out anything which is decidedly "EXTREME" in content. I can't stand the prevalent ... attitude that this alone somehow denotes worth or is reason enough to spark an interest. Perhaps you can identify yourself among this crowd as you are reading this, at which point I would encourage you to grow up and mature past this phase as soon as possible, although I also realize how ineffective any such appeals will be. "The King of Pigs" seems best suited for this intellectually and emotionally stunted sort of audience and... not much of anyone else, really. There is an unflinchingly gratuitous scene of fatal and repeated animal abuse which is dragged out for all its worth, reaching the artistic equivalent of any and all trashy teenage gore blogs. I have absolutely nothing against extreme storytelling or explicit content, but there is little more that I despise than such distinctions being used as an illusory crutch in place of any actual depth, originality, or purpose.

"The King of Pigs" is a South Korean CGI feature with highly inconsistent production values, but in all honesty, that's not something that I actually hold against it. It doesn't seek to be a glossy anime-style production, so it mostly avoids the inherent pitfalls to the approach suffered from works like the recent "Berserk" films. If anything, the aesthetic is more along the lines of animated art house successes such as "Waltz with Bashir," or even the rotoscoped Linklater films (albeit with far less technical care and certainly weaker scripts to build upon). I tried hard to justify "Pigs'" content for the duration of the film, as there are occasional flourishes which did appeal to me, but at a certain point, it just becomes an exhausting and monotonous drag.

The film opens with a static shot of a freshly strangled woman, her murderous husband serving as one half of its thematic focus. The other lead is then introduced as an unsuccessful ghostwriter, venting his frustrations through the seemingly routine emotional and physical abuse of his girlfriend. Things only go downhill from there, too. After the former calls upon his similarly abject childhood friend for the first time since their first year of middle school, they recall the traumatizing events that we're led to believe shaped the course of their lives. There's no real message to any of the film aside from the fact that people are awful by nature and that's that. The bullying the young men experience is increasingly cruel and difficult to watch, and like everything else in the film, is as such for the sake of being cruel and difficult to watch.

I think that the most irreconcilable turn the film makes is its apparent and absolute exoneration of the evils both men would later perpetuate on the grounds of their soiled childhoods. In this regard, the film veers from being merely un-enjoyable and celebratory in its grimness into territory which is nothing short of morally irresponsible. Violence begets violence, thus effectively removing any responsibility from the destructive men themselves. In school, the boys rally around a third figure, one who lashes back at their tormentors in ways which grow increasingly gruesome as the running time wears on. In case you haven't yet caught on, that really is the entire modus operandi at play here. I understand that such things are widely open to interpretation, but I would argue that the film's treatment of this backlash is one which not only condones but celebrates the notion of harsh retributive violence.

As I stated, I wanted for a long time (far longer than it deserved) to like this movie, to find something which would justify all of my stated misgivings. Unfortunately, it didn't want to give me much to work with on that quest. There is simply nothing about the story that feels particularly necessary. I think it's important to reinforce just how much this movie revels in its own ugliness. It stops trying to do much of anything else pretty early on.

Admittedly, there are a few well-devised plot twists and turns, jumping back and forth chronologically as it does between the aforementioned childhood recollections and scenes of the two men drinking and then wandering the same locations as adults. It's not an incompetent film, merely a wildly misguided one whose lofty and undeserved self-assurance permeates most every frame. The closing moment alone instantly became one of the most heavy-handed and indulgent bull**** turns I've ever seen a movie take, and let it be known that I have a remarkably high tolerance for heavy-handed and indulgent bull**** movies. Is it art? Yeah, sure, whatever, I don't care, but I certainly don't think it's particularly good or worthwhile art. I regret giving it the benefit of a doubt for even a minute, as well as allowing it to occupy my evening. It's pretty rare that I see something and feel compelled to so immediately broadcast my distaste for it, but it's also pretty rare that I see films as all-around horrid as "The King of Pigs."

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Dwaeji-ui Wang

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