YMCA Baseball Team
YMCA Baseball Team
Three figures serve as central characters, driving the formation of a baseball team, its games, and personal conflicts. Baseball games expand into symbolic confrontations representing a crisis of national sovereignty. The work combines fictional central characters and events with actual organizations and the era.
OVERALL TRUTH BASIS · Fact-based dramatization
The work takes inspiration from the real Hwangseong YMCA baseball team and the early history of baseball in Korea, but cinematically reconstructs its central characters, romance, and the course of its games.
Hwangseong YMCA Baseball Team and Early Baseball in Korea, 1905
In 1905, American missionary Philip L. Gillett promoted baseball through the YMCA, and organized baseball activities developed around the Hwangseong YMCA.
Eulsa Treaty
An agreement forced on the Korean Empire by Japan on November 17, 1905, depriving it of its diplomatic rights and providing the basis for the establishment of a Resident-General's Office.
FACT / FICTION
Verification 8
Fact / Fiction verification
8 recordsYMCA Baseball Team is a 2002 South Korean film directed by Kim Hyun-seok, with a runtime of 104 minutes.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- —
- Verified record
- The director, year, and runtime can be confirmed in the KOFIC KoBiz film database.
View 1 sources
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
Regarding the origins of baseball in Korea, the KBO records that American missionary Gillett first introduced baseball to Korea in 1905.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- The film uses the spread of baseball through the YMCA in 1905 as its historical setting.
- Verified record
- The KBO Online Museum's account of the origins of Korean baseball supports this.
View 1 sources
- 한국야구의 기원KBO 한국야구위원회 온라인뮤지엄 · Official record · Grade AOpen source →
The Hwangseong Young Men's Christian Association was founded in Seoul in 1903, and Gillett was sent to Korea in 1901 as its founding secretary.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- The YMCA provides the institutional setting for the baseball team in the film.
- Verified record
- The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture records the founding date and Gillett's dispatch to Korea.
View 1 sources
- 황성기독교청년회한국민족문화대백과사전 · Encyclopedia · Grade AOpen source →
The Hwangseong YMCA baseball team, which inspired the film, is a symbolic team in the early history of organized baseball in Korea.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- The film develops its story as that of “Joseon’s first baseball team.”
- Verified record
- KBO historical materials, reports from the time of the film's release, and the KOFIC introduction present the Hwangseong YMCA and its 1905 baseball team as the work's historical basis.
View 3 sources
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
- 한국야구의 기원KBO 한국야구위원회 온라인뮤지엄 · Official record · Grade AOpen source →
- 새영화/명필름, YMCA 야구단경기일보 · Contemporary news · Grade BOpen source →
The main characters, including Lee Ho-chang, Min Jeong-rim, and Oh Dae-hyeon, are difficult to regard as direct portrayals of the biographies of specific, confirmed historical players.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- The three appear as central characters who drive the formation of the baseball team, its games, and personal conflicts.
- Verified record
- Official film information presents them as characters in the film, but no direct correspondences with the same individuals can be confirmed in KBO or Encyclopedia of Korean Culture records on early baseball and the YMCA.
View 3 sources
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
- 한국야구의 기원KBO 한국야구위원회 온라인뮤지엄 · Official record · Grade AOpen source →
- 황성기독교청년회한국민족문화대백과사전 · Encyclopedia · Grade AOpen source →
The film's 1905 setting coincides with a period when the sovereignty of the Korean Empire was being severely infringed upon.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- The film places the baseball team's activities alongside the crisis over national sovereignty.
- Verified record
- The official KOFIC synopsis also describes competition among the great powers for control of Korea and the loss of sovereignty as the work's setting in the early 20th century.
View 1 sources
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
The depiction of the baseball match against the Japanese side as the climax of a national confrontation is best understood as a dramatic device built on historical facts about the spread of baseball.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- The baseball game is expanded into a symbolic confrontation amid the crisis over national sovereignty.
- Verified record
- ICA/LKFF describes the work as a comedic reinterpretation of the true story of the Hwangseong YMCA baseball team and explains the game against the Japanese army team as a symbolic setting for the crisis over sovereignty.
View 2 sources
- YMCA Baseball TeamInstitute of Contemporary Arts / London Korean Film Festival · Other · Grade BOpen source →
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
The film is not a documentary that reproduces the actual history of early baseball and the YMCA exactly; instead, it condenses and turns into a narrative the historical setting around 1905.
On screen · Verified record
- On screen
- It combines central characters and events created for the story with real organizations and the period.
- Verified record
- The distinction between actual institutional and biographical records and the story in the film can be seen by comparing the historical records of the KBO and the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture with the film's official synopsis.
View 4 sources
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
- 한국야구의 기원KBO 한국야구위원회 온라인뮤지엄 · Official record · Grade AOpen source →
- 황성기독교청년회한국민족문화대백과사전 · Encyclopedia · Grade AOpen source →
- YMCA Baseball TeamInstitute of Contemporary Arts / London Korean Film Festival · Other · Grade BOpen source →
CHARACTER ↔ PERSON
Characters and real people
민정림
Fictional character오대현
Fictional character이호창
Fictional characterOther related people
Philip L. Gillett
Missionary · YMCA founding secretary · Promoter of physical educationSources used
- YMCA Baseball Team (2002)KOFIC KoBiz · Specialist database · Grade BOpen source →
- 한국야구의 기원KBO 한국야구위원회 온라인뮤지엄 · Official record · Grade AOpen source →
- 황성기독교청년회한국민족문화대백과사전 · Encyclopedia · Grade AOpen source →
- 새영화/명필름, YMCA 야구단경기일보 · Contemporary news · Grade BOpen source →
- YMCA Baseball TeamInstitute of Contemporary Arts / London Korean Film Festival · Other · Grade BOpen source →