An eleven-year-old, a father, and a job with a kettle

The notes come back to a film from 2007, Fly, Heo Dong-gu, which the writer had first watched in a thinner way, as a simple story of good and bad. This time they want to think again about the rights and schooling of a child they describe as having a physical disability, and about how the people around him see him. The lead, they write, is Heo Dong-gu, an eleven-year-old elementary student with an IQ of 60.

His father, Heo Jin-gyu, wants him at least to finish elementary school, so Dong-gu attends an ordinary school. The film, the notes say, opens on the job he likes and does best: water monitor, fetching water in a kettle and pouring it for the other children. He spills, and his work is clumsy, but he looks genuinely happy. At first the writer, they admit, could not understand why the father would insist on graduation even if it caused trouble for others.

Jun-tae, a frog, and a baseball bunt

Dong-gu’s deskmate is Jun-tae, better off and a model student, but born with a weak heart, and quietly left out. That is why, the notes write, he keeps being paired with Dong-gu. Dong-gu likes him and follows him; Jun-tae finds this uncomfortable and brushes him off. To play a trick, Jun-tae slips a frog into the kettle Dong-gu has filled. There is a great commotion, and the principal and the homeroom teacher press Jin-gyu to send his son to a special school. After the incident, a new student, Jeongsu, arrives, and Dong-gu is jealous when a water cooler seems to take his job away.

Then Dong-gu spots a kettle the baseball club uses on the field. Because he volunteers for the water job nobody else wants, Coach Kwon, short of players, takes him onto the team. In a gym class the teacher tells frail Jun-tae not to run; Dong-gu runs the extra lap, Jun-tae feels remorse, and the two grow closer. The principal later tells Coach Kwon to disband a club that is not winning, and hangs a last hope on Dong-gu. Dong-gu cannot grasp even the basic rules, and closes his eyes when the ball comes, so they work on bunts, leaning on how fast he can run. In the last game, trailing, Dong-gu comes to bat; the coach expects to lose, but Jun-tae alone encourages him, and a successful bunt, the notes write, turns the game.

A move, a hard classroom scene, and a look back in 2018

Meanwhile Jin-gyu is worn down by stomach pain and a night-time trip to the emergency room. He cannot get a loan, and he does not want to move or sell the shop, because it took Dong-gu years to learn the present route to school. The notes say he even harms his own health, hoping insurance money from a cancer diagnosis might spare them the move; the tests, fortunately, do not find cancer, but they move anyway, to a quieter place where Dong-gu can still get to school, and the film ends on a happy note the writer calls a cliché, though it still brings tears.

The scene that left the writer cold is from exam week: the homeroom teacher hints that Dong-gu should stay home, fearing the class average will fall. The writer first blamed the teacher, then decided the deeper problem was a system that had not built a curriculum in which such a child could study with classmates. The film came out in 2007; looking back, the notes say that by 2018 welfare and public attitudes had improved a good deal, though much still needed to change. A man in a chicken shop tells Jin-gyu that sport also takes brains, and that Dong-gu will not play baseball well; Jin-gyu answers that his son can do it. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes’ reading of the 2007 film Fly, Heo Dong-gu, including the 2018 remark on attitudes and welfare

Last updated: 14 November 2026