Hope (2013 film)

Plot

On her way to school, a young girl named So-won (which literally means "wish" or "hope" in Korean) gets sexually assaulted by a drunk older male stranger. As a result, she suffers multiple internal injuries and has to undergo a major surgery, but her emotional wounds are equally difficult to heal. Their happy family shattered, her parents Dong-hoon and Mi-hee go through feelings of pain and rage. From the trauma of that day, So-won refuses to see or talk to her father, so Dong-hoon hides beneath the costume of his daughter's favorite cartoon sausage character Kokomong and becomes her soft toy. Thanks to the love of those around her, So-won's condition gradually improves. Her father, dressed in the Kokomong costume, re-connects with his daughter finding hope in the midst of his sorrow and despair.

Cast

Production

Director Lee Joon-ik had retired briefly from the local film industry following the lackluster commercial performance of his previous effort Battlefield Heroes (2011). He returned two years later with Hope, casting top actor Sol Kyung-gu in one of the lead roles. Lee said he wanted to "make a happy movie that begins with a tragedy. With this heartbreaking material, I wanted to make the film as happy as possible. I am going to present a human drama where hope blooms at the edge of unhappiness and desperation, after a series of ordeals and hardships." He maintained that he made the film to "encourage Na-young and other victims of sex crimes," and that instead of other films with a similar subject matter that focus on sensationalist aspects, like the crime itself, Hope is about "what happens after, and is more about showing how life is good and worth living, emphasizing how the community rallied around the victim."

Actress Uhm Ji-won had previously declined the film two years before, thinking she wasn't talented enough or ready to take on the intense emotions her role (as So-won's mother) required. But when Sol's wife and her close friend Song Yun-ah sent the script to her, Uhm said, "I started to think that this movie was supposed to come to me. I felt that someone should tell this valuable story. And I gained the courage to think that I could try it."

Shooting began in Changwon on April 13, 2013. Throughout the filming, Sol stayed in character as So-won's father, wearing his character's clothes all the time. The film wrapped on June 24, 2013 in Busan; the entire cast attended the final day of filming.

Reception

Hope was released in theaters on October 2, 2013. It had a soft opening, but through strong word of mouth, the film surpassed Tough as Iron (which opened on the same day), and topped the local box office chart with 1.21 million tickets sold (US$5.2 million) on its first week. On October 9, a public holiday, Hope recorded 210,000 admissions, the daily highest during its screening period. It increased its ticket sales by chalking up a 16% increase from its October 3 tally of 187,804 admissions. By its second week, it had reached 2.4 million admissions (₩11.9 billion), demonstrating it had strong legs by dropping only 8% and 29% in its second and third weekends. It stayed on the box office top ten in its third week, adding 290,000 to its modest hit status, with 2.67 million admissions. At the end of its run, its total admissions stood at 2,711,003, with a gross of ₩18,529,474,100.

Hope was sold to five Asian countries—Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia at the Asian Film Market during the 18th Busan International Film Festival. Hong Kong-based major financing and distribution company EDKO commented on the film as "a warm and considerate account of a highly controversial subject matter."

It was invited to be the opening film of the 8th Festival du Film Coréen à Paris ("Korean Film Festival in Paris") in 2013, and shortly after, was also shown at the London Korean Film Festival.

Hope was the surprise winner for Best Film at the 34th Blue Dragon Film Awards, defeating blockbusters Miracle in Cell No. 7, Snowpiercer and The Face Reader. It also took Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Ra Mi-ran. In her acceptance speech, a tearful Ra said, "I want to say this to the many girls out there who are in suffering like So-won—it's not your fault. It's OK. Please cheer up." Ra again won at the KOFRA Film Awards (organized by the Korean Film Reporters Association), and Uhm Ji-won won Best Actress at the Korean Association of Film Critics Awards.

Apart from accolades from critics and audiences for "its focus on family, heartfelt emotion and feel-good message," the film has also drawn criticism for "trying to turn one of the most infamous news stories in recent years into a maudlin piece of mass entertainment," and that "it is too idealistic in depicting how the family overcomes the assault," with some people questioning whether it was right to profit from such a horrible event, no matter the intentions of the filmmaker.

Background

On December 11, 2008, an eight-year-old first grader (known by her pseudonym "Na-young") was on her way to school when she was kidnapped by Cho Doo-soon (Jo Du-sun), a 57-year-old man living in Ansan, who was drunk at the time. Cho repeatedly raped Na-young in an abandoned public church restroom, and as the child resisted, he beat, strangled and attempted to drown her in a toilet until she lost consciousness. Her parents found Na-young near death, and she was taken to a local hospital where after an eight-hour surgery, she had a prolonged stay in the intensive care unit. Doctors said Na-young sustained irreversible damage to her genitals, anus and intestines, which initially required her to wear a colostomy bag to replace her missing organs. Cho was arrested three days after the incident; he was a habitual sex offender with 17 prior crimes, and had spent three years in prison for rape in 1983.

Prosecutors had demanded life imprisonment for Cho, and more than 400,000 angry netizens signed a petition at Internet portal site Daum calling for capital punishment. A lower district court sentenced Cho to a 12-year jail term, citing his temporary loss of sound judgment due to inebriation, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2009. This relatively lenient sentence sparked widespread public outrage, prompting even then-President Lee Myung-bak to express regret over the ruling during a Cabinet meeting. Cho was incarcerated in a maximum security prison in North Gyeongsang Province.

Na-young's parents, represented by the Korean Bar Association, filed a lawsuit against the prosecution for subjecting their daughter to unnecessary physical and psychological distress; they cited the prosecution's hours-long, extended questioning soon after Na-young underwent major surgery during which she sat in discomfort and was forced to answer the same questions four times due to the prosecutors' inexperience with the electronic recording equipment, their inability to follow protocol in obtaining testimony from a minor (taping her in plain sight of other patients at a hospital ward), and their delay in exhibiting a key piece of evidence (the arrest videotape of Cho) which would have eliminated the need for her to take the witness stand. Prosecutor-General Kim Joon-gyu later apologized to the family. In 2011, the appellate division of the Seoul Central District Court upheld the court's previous decision ordering the government to pay ₩13 million (US$11,509) in compensation to Na-young.