Blood and Ties

Plot

Da-eun (Son Ye-jin) has completed graduate school and is set to become a newspaper reporter. She lives with her father Son-man (Kim Kap-soo) who lovingly refers to her as "my heart." Although her father does menial work, Da-eun is proud of him.

One day, Da-eun goes to the movies with her boyfriend Jae-kyung (Lee Kyu-han) and friend Bo-ra (Jo An). They watch a movie based on a real-life unsolved crime: A boy was kidnapped and the kidnapper demanded ransom from the parents, but the child was later found dead. The only clue the police had to the killer's identity was the ransom phone call he made to the parents. At the end of the film, they play the actual recorded audio from that phone call. Da-eun freezes when she hears the voice; the man's voice sounds eerily like her father and he also uses the phrase "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over," which her father always favored.

When Da-eun gets back home, she looks up the crime that took place nearly 15 years ago on the internet. Awash with horror and guilt for even suspecting her father, she begins to look into his past with only a few days remaining before the statute of limitations lapses on the unsolved crime. As the relationship between father and daughter wrenches apart due to mounting distrust, a man (Im Hyung-joon) from Son-man's past suddenly appears.

Cast

Release

Blood and Ties was released in theaters on October 24, 2013. It topped the box office during its opening weekend, selling 648,000 tickets. It reached 1 million admissions in eight days, and at the end of its run, totaled 1,766,283 admissions with a gross of ₩12,333,094,882.

The film also received a limited North American release, opening in six cities in the U.S. and Canada. It screened at the CGV Cinema in Los Angeles on November 1, 2013, followed by Vancouver's Cineplex Silvercity, New York City's AMC Bay Terrace, Atlanta's AMC Colonial, Honolulu's Consolidated Pearlri and Toronto's Yonge-Dundas on November 8.