The events that joined Ray Mancini and Duk Koo Kim from worlds apart to that fateful bright-afternoon Caesars Palace boxing ring nearly 45 years ago has haunted, inspired, and moved those who’ve delved deepest into the conflict.
For the film director and producer aiming to bring their “life’s work” of a biopic titled Boom to reality along with Mancini, all that’s needed is the actor who can master the starring role of Youngstown, Ohio’s “Boom Boom.”
The filmmakers’ consensus choice is Tom Holland, star of the expected summer blockbuster, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which opens in U.S. theaters Friday.
Holland has said on the podcast “On Purpose with Jay Shetty” that he’s a major boxing fan and would “love to be in a boxing movie, where the fighting is real.
“I love the sport and admire the athletes. I think they’re amazing… I love boxing movies. I’m a sucker for it.”
Yet, the effort to penetrate the Hollywood machine and effectively pitch the role to Holland has thus far failed to land.
“We did try to reach out to Tom Holland’s team and without even being able to hand over the script, the answer was no because, unless this is going to be one of those like blockbuster, tentpole movies, that’s not what the team is interested in… at least that was the initial response coming back from the agency,” director David Boo said.
“We’re fully confident that if it is actually up to Tom Holland, who would read the script and see what this story could be, he would definitely want to make it.”
Before giving up hope, Boo and producer Sean Frankenheimer are opting to “send a flare up,” to let Holland know he is the runaway No. 1 choice for a film that will be made regardless.
Boo said he has already received a verbal agreement from acclaimed South Korean actor Byun Yo-han (Mr. Sunshine, Hansan: Rising Dragon, and the forthcoming Tazza 4: The Song of Beelzebub) to play Kim.
“A biopic is only as good as the person sitting in that seat. We’ve got [Yo-han] for [Kim]. For Ray, that role is paramount to everything, and we’re looking for a guy to slide into Ray’s skin the way Jamie Foxx did in Ray, the way Joaquin Phoenix did in Walk the Line,” Frankenheimer said.
“Ray and [Holland] share a lot of physical characteristics. There’s no question about his talent. We love Tom, and… he’s outwardly said he wants to do a boxing film, that he’s a boxing fanatic. This, to me, is the last great boxing film/biopic available.”
Staged November 13, 1982, before a national television audience on CBS Sports Saturday, the WBA lightweight title fight pitted the increasingly popular Mancini versus Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation champion Kim in a bout that soon transformed into a fight-of-the-year war that gripped all who were watching.
Kim had taped a sign reading “kill or be killed” to his hotel-room lampshade, and the fighting heart he revealed while both landing heavy punches on prominent local boxer’s son Mancini while absorbing the champion’s fiercest blows made for compelling, real-life theater.
“After a fight like that, you know someone better than anyone, including their mother or wife, because you know what’s on their insides,” Mancini told BoxingScene this week.
Mancini punctuated the battle with a hellacious right hand to the South Korean’s face in the 14th round that sent the deeply fatigued and wounded Kim straight backward, his head slamming to the canvas with brutal force.
The fighters embraced, but Kim seconds later slumped off his stool and was transported to a local hospital. Four days later, he was declared dead, leaving survivors including his pregnant wife.
A year later, Kim’s despondent mother committed suicide by drinking a bottle of pesticide.
In 2011, Mancini brought Kim’s family to Southern California so Mancini and his children could visit Kim’s son, Kim Chi-wan, and the fighter’s wife, Lee Young-mee.
Kim’s son told Mancini at that meeting, “I blamed you for so long, but now I know it’s not your fault,” and Lee Young-mee said, “We feel [Kim’s] spirit lives on inside you.”
“It was one of the best things I ever did,” Mancini said this week.
Mancini has discussed Kim in author Mark Kriegel’s beautifully written, The Good Son, which included a video documentary while Kim’s life and death has also been memorialized in a South Korean documentary.
Boo and Mancini believe the screenplay goes beyond anything that’s ever been known about Kim.
“Duk Koo has always been portrayed as this tragic hero, who could have been a world champion… he had this grand stage, but it did not end well,” Boo said. “I don’t think he should be remembered for just that.
“He was a champion of Asia, a champion of his nation. And it’s a story about challenge and passion, someone who wanted to do more beyond anyone’s expectation, pushing himself to the limit – and the outcome of that. And that’s when Ray’s side of the story becomes very unique.”
Mancini was just 21 when Kim died, and he still had a world title to defend, a career to pursue, a full life to live while some viewed his career as barbaric, and him as a killer.
“We felt the need to show both sides of the stories, which extended far beyond the actual match.”
As Holland referenced, boxing films are steadily supplied and awarded by Hollywood, considering the Best Actor Oscar won by Robert DeNiro playing Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, the Best Supporting Actor Oscars collected by Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for the nonfiction The Fighter, the Best Film Oscars that went to the fictional Rocky and Million Dollar Baby.
“We’ve seen this time and again where the actor sees this great project and wonders, ‘Why wasn’t I on this list?’” Frankenheimer said. “Not only are they on the list, they’re No. 1.”
Frankenheimer said he fully understands that “even if we crushed every metric,” box-office sales would lag behind Holland appearing in another Spider-Man venture. This is his fourth Spider-Man film, and he’s appeared as the character in many other Marvel films.
“Getting the word out that there is this amazing story that needs to be told and should’ve been told forever ago, and never was in the documentaries… we’re battling against people thinking this is not a new project,” Frankenheimer said. “The uphill battle of getting talent to have the opportunity to get their eyes on the material is understandable but an ongoing challenge.
“I just want people to know there’s this story out there with this amazing script and we have this great Korean actor attached [to play Kim], and we have this director who is just so insanely talented.”
The depth of the story is undeniable, Frankenheimer said.
“Ray being boxing royalty, basically born with gloves on, from a poor, collapsing Youngstown [steel] industry in the middle of America. People knew his dad, the first ‘Boom Boom,’” he said..
“This is juxtaposed against [Kim], a quasi-orphan, the son of a single mother with abusive parents who didn’t come to boxing until his 20s with nothing more than, ‘I need to do this. It’s in my bone marrow.’ He put himself through mental and physical hell to rise as an Asian champion, to get this shot.
“To have them end up in Vegas, at Caesars, there’s such a beautiful double arc as we sprout out from both camps. There’s something so interesting to me about the lack of equal opportunity, but the equal result in the end, arriving at the same point.”
Mancini, living back in Youngstown after years of boxing analysis work on television, hosts a podcast and owns a bourbon distribution company.
He knows other actors are being considered for his role, but is convinced Holland can make it a transcendent performance.
Mancini says Kim once came upon him in a dream, a sequence that will be captured in the film.
“I suppose there’s a way to try to make this on an indie [film] level, but the story feels to the team like we’d rather want a global audience because this is more of an epic experience,” Boo said.
“The story is about two cultures clashing, but in the end, it’s about people from different cultures understanding each other.”
