I’d been wanting to see Slam Dunk for a while, but I figured that if I put it off any longer, it might leave theaters, so I hurried to Dongtan Megabox to catch it.
I wasn’t really expecting to be moved by it. I enjoyed the original comic, but it was just one of the many comics I read at the time. It was fun, but beyond that, my memory of it is hazy. I don’t remember much of the story.
But it turned out to be a far better film than I expected. It doesn’t merely transplant the comic into movie form. It builds a new story out of the main storyline. The original manga is barely referenced, and from beginning to end the film stays focused on the game against Sannoh. Instead, each character’s past is woven into the match, and it was fascinating to watch their frustrations, wounds, and moments of overcoming them all pile up into each pass and each shot.
In fact, life is like that. Every day, small experiences, memories, and emotions accumulate to build your own personality and history, and it’s the chunks that eventually determine your future course. From this perspective, Kang Baek-ho’s line, “When is your time of glory? I am now.” Previously, I understood it to mean, “The present is more important than any future moment, so I will give it my all right now,” but now I hear it as, “I will build a better tomorrow by accumulating today’s experiences and victories.”
If we think of life in terms of striving and achievement, then the small victories of everyday life can never be taken lightly. What people often call a “habit of winning” really does matter. On the surface, Slam Dunk may look like a simple sports comic, but if you look more closely, it is a story about the worries and trials involved in becoming yourself, and about building the habits that allow you to overcome them. Even a prodigy like Jung Woo-sung gets scratched up and grows stronger in the process of healing. A hard worker like Song Tae-sub moves toward his goal by reading the words written on his palm, using that small habit to erase his anxiety and steady his mind.
Most of life is probably not lived as one of the ten players sprinting across the court drenched in sweat, but as a substitute watching from the bench, or simply as one of the people cheering from the stands. Extraordinary moments in life do not come very often. Even so, everyone has their own moment of being the protagonist. There are moments that still shine when you look back over the course of your life from afar, and those moments make you who you are today. If I let those memories slip away too easily, I might no longer be myself.