The South Korean sports comedy film “Dream,” which premiered on Netflix and was originally titled “Deurim,” tells the tale of how the South Korean football team made their debut at the Homeless World Cup. It was directed by Byeong-heon Lee. Professional soccer player Yoon Hong-Dae experiences a PR nightmare as a result of his incident with a reporter. He finds himself teaching a motley crew of homeless players after being forced by his agency to coach Korea’s amateur team for the upcoming Homeless World Cup. Lee So-Min, a budding but weary filmmaker, stages and documents their development in a documentary.
The movie tells the lighthearted and entertaining story of an unlikely team working together to establish their value on a global scale. It emphasises themes of cooperation and perseverance, much like any sports movie would. But the movie effortlessly stands apart from its competitors by focusing the plot on persons who are homeless and highlighting their tales. Viewers may be curious as to the authenticity of “Dream,” which is based on an international football match. Let’s investigate!
Is Dream a True Story?
Dream is inspired by a true story to some extent. It dramatises Korea’s first-ever involvement in the 2010 World Cup for the Homeless. As a result, the movie, which was written by Mohammed Abdullah and director Byeong-heon Lee, shows a genuine story with some additions. ‘Extreme Job’ director Lee, who is most known for this project, had been interested in portraying this tale for almost ten years. The filmmaker apparently became interested in a documentary on The 2010 South Korean Team for the Homeless World Cup.
Given the significance of the story’s core, Lee decided to easily make a movie based on the same events. The sporting event was developed to fight homelessness and eliminate prejudice against the weak. This message spoke to Lee, who made an effort to include a comparable story in his movie while keeping a comic tone. The same enables “Dream” to transcend its social message and give audiences a genuine sense of humanity.
Lee used a recent historical sporting event as the inspiration for his movie, but he still had a lot of creative freedom while developing his cast and their plots. None of the characters are directly based on real-life individuals because the movie is a dramatisation rather than a biographical account. In this sense, all of the characters in “Dream” are made up, including Ji-eun Lee, also known as Lee So-Min from IU, and Coach Yoon Hong-Dae, played by Park Seo-joon. However, Lee and Abdullah did their fair share of research to create a realistic portrayal of the players, including In-Sun, Hwang-Dong, Hyo-Bong, and others, for the film.
The authors spoke with a number of homeless people to better understand their struggles and way of life before developing the characters. As a result, even if the characters were made up, reality nonetheless played a role in some of their stories. For instance, In-Sun and Beom-su sell “Big Issue” newspapers as a means of subsistence. Since the participants chosen to compete in the 2010 event were also paper vendors, the same detail is accurate to actual life. Several of the challenges that the players endure en route to the event also occurred in real life.
Due to insufficient sponsorship, the squad almost missed the chance to compete in the Homeless World Cup in the movie. Similar challenges were encountered by the actual team when trying to raise money to compete internationally. This portion of the movie underscores the problems important organisations confront with actual financial discrepancies. Additionally, each character in the film has a sympathetic past and finds some sort of resolution by the end.
Regardless of its usefulness, the film’s captivating tale is made possible by each character having a well-rounded arc that seems satisfying and authentic. As an alternative, the movie has important falsehoods, such as the tournament being held in Budapest rather than Rio de Janeiro. However, it is understandable that the same is likely a result of the production’s filming challenges during the pandemic. Another obvious change to the plot that the movie makes is through Hong-Dae’s character. In truth, the team for the competition was never coached by a professional football player who had fallen from grace.
Instead, Hong-Dae’s role identifies the movie’s use of a well-known sport-genre cliche to enhance the entertainment value of its story. In the end, the movie makes significant artistic licence while taking clear inspiration from actual events. In a conversation on the film’s veracity, Lee stated, “I want to stress my objective wasn’t to criticise anyone outright. “What we portrayed in the movie is true to life. People behave in that way. It’s an unavoidable reality. As a filmmaker, I suppose I tried to present these tales as they were and are. What the viewers think of them is up to them.
However, the real documentary filmmakers and the original players who took part in the 2010 tournament gave ‘Dream’ high reviews and praised it for connecting with their personal experiences. As a result, despite not precisely basing its elements on real individuals and events, the movie is successful in portraying a true story about a real-life occurrence.
