This film is based on the true story of the Korea’s National Women’s Handball Team at 2004 Athens Olympics and was the biggest box office hit by a woman filmmaker in Korea after Going Home by LEE Jeong-hyang in 2002, as well as the biggest hit of YIM Soon-rye’s entire career. The newly elected team leader, Hea-kyung has to leave the position for being a divorcee, a star player Mi-sook works at the supermarket to pay off her debt, and Jung-ran suffers from infertility problem. Younger players, Soo-hee and Bo-ram, can be secure in their future as players, as handball is a marginal sport in Korea. Like the characters in YIM’s other film, these women survive, although they are no strangers to failure and frustration. YIM’s unaffected eye towards people on the margins of society does not lose its power to deliver the punch of reality. With the help of the dynamism and fast pacing of sports film and its backstory, well known to the public, Forever the Moment was an unexpected success at box office. Unlike other works, YIM tries to strike a balance between genre conventions and her own art-house style. [Sunah ​KIM]