Synopsis
According to the ancient Dangun myth, when a bear eats twenty cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort, it will transform into a human being. While it may have worked for Ungnyeo, the ancient bear of lore, it’s hard to believe such a thing could ever happen in real life. But when a pair of Asiatic Bear twins go missing, it suddenly starts to feel like anything is possible.
As property of the Pro-North Korean Institute of Technology, Woong Nam and Woong Buk, a set of Asiatic Bear twins, might have spent their entire lives confined to the institute, had they not decided to snack on a combination of garlic and mugwort which mysteriously transformed them into human babies. Realizing the bears were missing, Na Bok Cheon (Oh Dal Soo), one of the institute’s researchers, went searching for the bears. Finding one of the bear twins in a nearby cave, Bok Cheon takes the baby home and raises him as his own son. Sadly, Bok Cheon was never able to find the other bear cub-turned-baby. While Woong Nam (Park Sung Woong) grew up under the guidance and care of Bok Cheon, his brother, Woong Buk (Park Sung Woong), wasn’t so lucky.
Twenty-five years later, the brothers are reunited but their lives couldn’t have turned out more different. While Woong Nam works as a cop, Woong Buk has become the adoptive son of Lee Jeong Sik (Choi Min Soo), one of the country’s most notorious criminals. Born bears and raised as humans, are these twin brothers destined to be mortal enemies, or will their strange beginnings ultimately become the bond that brings them back together for good?
Based on the Dangun myth, “Bear Man” is a 2023 South Korean fantasy crime comedy film directed by Park Sung Kwang.
