South Korean independent film “Sprinter” tells the parallel stories of three different sprinters competing for the national team selection for each own desperate reason. Although their individual stories may feel rather plain and generic, the movie juggles these three different narratives well enough to generate enough emotional/dramatic resonance to hold our attention, and we come to care about their final results even though we do not root for all of them.

The first story belongs to Hyeon-soo (Park Sung-il), a thirtysomething sprinter who still does not quit despite having been clearly away from the prime period of his athletic career. As reflected by a number of awards in his residence, there was a time when he dominated over many competitions, but he is now much older than many of his younger competitors, and he is reminded again and again of his physical disadvantages whenever he trains himself alone without much support or promotion.

At least, Hyeon-soo has a wife who understands him well as a fellow athlete who probably had her own days of glory in the past. Even though he did not ask for anything from her at all, she is quite willing to help his latest attempt for the national team selection, and Hyeon-soo eventually comes to realize how fortunate he is to have such a supportive wife like her. Once he accepts her sincere help and support, his wife, who has incidentally worked as a physical training instructor at a local health club, pushes him harder and harder day by day, and he finds himself becoming more prepared and galvanized for what may be the last shot for his increasingly dwindling athletic career.

The second story revolves around the dynamic relationship between a high school sprinter named Joon-seo (Lim Ji-ho) and his school coach. When Joon-seo’s coach notifies that his sprint team will be soon disassembled due to not showing any good result recently, Joon-seo pleads to his coach to give him the last chance to compete for the national team selection, and the coach becomes quite conflicted for an understandable reason. He has been eager to get promoted from a temporary coach to a full-time teacher, and now he finally gets the chance for that, but then he must give up his team as well as Joon-seo instead.

Nevertheless, the coach cannot possibly ignore the plea from his top sprinter, and Joon-seo soon readies himself a lot for giving his best shot for the national team selection. After all, he is not particularly interested in studying hard enough to get enrolled in some nice college later, and he really believes that going all the way for his athletic career is the only option for his future, though the coach later reminds him of harsh reality out there as a person who was once a promising professional sprinter many years ago.

To their surprise, Joon-seo comes to show a much better result than expected in the preliminary race, and that puts his coach in a more difficult position than before. He is officially not allowed to coach Joon-seo now, so he begins to overlook Joon-seo deliberately, and it does not take much time for Joon-seo to see what his coach has not told him yet. Although what happens next between them will not surprise you much, I must say it is a little touching to see how the coach chooses to do what will be probably the best for Joon-seo in the end.

If Hyeon-soo and Joon-seo respectively represent past and future in the film, Jeong-ho (Song Duk-ho) represent present as a promising twentysomething athlete who is apparently in the middle of the prime of his athletic career. When he goes through a routine training session along with several other young athletes, he looks quite confident and invincible to say the least, and he is certainly expected to be on the top of the upcoming national team selection.

However, not so surprisingly, there is something Jeong-ho has been hiding from others including his coach. We see him casually buying some steroid from a drug dealer, and he is not so daunted at all even when his longtime doping is eventually exposed to his coach, who certainly becomes quite furious but is more concerned about protecting his reputation. After all, any kind of doping scandal will invariably damage his coaching career, and he willingly covers up everything while also putting Jeong-ho on suspension for a while.

Just because he needs the first gold medal for his athletic career, Jeong-ho subsequenty asks his coach to give him another chance, and the coach does not have much problem with that. As a matter of fact, he can actually pull some strings if Jeong-ho gets caught for doping later, and that is the main reason why Jeong-ho dared to request for the second chance from his coach.

The three individual stories of the movie eventually converge on the expected finale, but director/writer Choi Seung-yeun’s screenplay wisely does not overplay as calmly doling out the final results for each of its three main characters. Park Sung-il, Lim Ji-ho, and Song Duk-ho are solid in their respective roles, and Gong Min-jung, Jeon Shin-hwan, and Choi Jun-hyuck are effective in their equally crucial parts.

On the whole, “Sprinter” is a simple but engaging mix of sports and character drama. I must point out that the third story is relatively superficial compared to the other two stories, but they are still effective together as an interesting triptych which raises some important questions about effort and result, and you may reflect on these questions for a while after it is over.