This is one of the Korean movies I like most. I have never written the movie review before. This is my first one. I am not familiar with the Korean names, so I used Mr. A for his dad and B for his son. Please critique my review and leave a comment so that I can improve on my next one. Many thanks.
The story starts with the prisoner. The officers were assessing the prisoners for leaves. Their leaves depended on seriousness of the crimes they committed, the duration they have spent in the prison, good behavior they conducted in prison, etc. Now the turn was for the main character, let’s call him Mr.A. He was telling his story to the officers. He murdered two people and he had a son. When he committed the crime, his son was only three years old. He hasn’t seen his son since then, so it was almost 15 years now. He couldn’t remember his son’s appearance. One of the officers assessing was woman and she was moved by his genuine tear and feelings. While he was re-telling his story, he cried as well. Finally, the officers decided that he deserves to get one day leave from prison because of his good behavior. He was finally allowed to leave the prison for one day with one officer who was going to follow him in civilian dress. (I don’t know much about Korean’s Laws, apparently in Korea, for prisoner who had a leave for a day or so, must be accompanied by the officer from the prison.)
He left the prison early in the morning, he was looking at the prison from the car and gave the comment, “Wow, the prison looks like this from outside, I have never seen this before.” with teary eye. The night before he left, he was chatting with the officer who was coming along with him. The officer gave him a paper which had the lists of teenager’s slangs. He was practicing all those lines with the officer so that when he met his son for the first time in 15 years, he would be able to communicate with his son in slangs. He was still memorizing those slangs in his cells. All the light went out around 10:00 and he used the torch to read the paper which the officer gave him. He seemed nervous, anxious and happy.
He took the train to get to his son’s place with the officer. He fall asleep at first and then he woke up in the middle of the ride. He shook his head in disbelief that he felt asleep. He blamed himself for falling asleep instead of enjoying the scenery which he hadn’t seen for 15 years and this would be his only first and last chance. He cried again and blamed himself for not using time effectively and efficiently. The worries he had was his son’s impression on him when they meet. He couldn’t even recall his son birthday and his son’s appearance at all.
Finally, he arrived to his son’s place. The place was fairly messy. He knocked the door first and no one came and opened the door. The door wasn’t locked. He first went into to the living room and then he heard the voices from television in next door room. So he went into that room and he found his found. His mother apparently had dementia and couldn’t remember him. She was telling the funny story to her and was kept going about that story. After spending some time with his room, he looked around the apartment and finally he got into his son room. It was like a typical teenager room. He found the photo on his son’s study desk. It was a group photo and he couldn’t tell which one was his son. He looked at the officer who followed him and said, “I couldn’t even tell you who my son is in this photo.” with sad eye. He suggested the officer that instead of waiting his son to return home after school, they should go and wait in front of his school. The officer agreed with him and so they went to his son’s school.
The next scene showed his son at school playing piano. Let’s call him B. B seemed nervous and played a different song which he was supposed to and the whole classmates were looking at him with eyes wide. At the end of his song, they gave him applause. When Mr.A arrived to his son’s school, he got out of the car and was looking at the school and thinking his son must have grown up now. The officer with him reminded him that he should think of the way to get the recognition from his son. They haven’t seen each other since he ended up in prison 15 years old and his son would not recognize him either. So Mr.A came up with the idea of carrying a cardboard on which he wrote, “It is Dad.”
The school finished in the evening and students after students passed, no one came up to him and said, “It is me, I am your son.” At that time, his son was still inside the school and was wandering how he should go out. He wrapped his face with scarf and finally came out of the school compound and save a man wearing a big apparently cheap coat with a sign saying, “It is Dad.” He was slowly walking to his dad and took a scarf off. It was a first awkward moment the father and son met. The officer drove the car back to his son’s apartment. On the way back, they were silent and little conversation was made.
Finally, they arrived home and his son changed the clothes. After that the first thing he did was going to room where his grandma was watching TV. He lifted up the blankets and felt with his hands whether they were wet or not and he said, “Grandma, you are good today. You don’t pee on the sheets.” His dad and the officer were watching this and his dad’s eyes swollen up with tears again. The house was silent again and there was no conversation started yet between son and father. The officer suggested that he would cook dinner for them. He went out and bought stuff and cooked. They prepared the dinner and had the dinner together. His father was having this inner thought, “the officer’s cooking was worse than prison’s meals, thus why he always had meals at prisons.” His son was not eating much at all. He said this dialogue in his mind, “I don’t think the meal cooked by the officer is the reason for my son poor appetite. “ The officer asked this question to his son, “when is your birthday?” His son looked at his dad and his dad couldn’t answer the question. His son said, “My birthday was 2 days after my dad’s birthday.” This was the first time ever being called dad for Mr.A. He was really pleased and he asked his son again, “Did you just call me dad?” His son said, “No, I just said, my birthday is 2 days after my dad’s birthday, I didn’t call you dad.” (This is one of the best scenes in this movie; both he and his son were anxious and didn’t know where to start the conversation. Although he did a lot of practice on teenager’s trendy slangs the night before his leave, he forgot all of those. He was talking in his mind thousand times, but to speak out those inner thoughts, he had a struggle, so did for his son. )
After dinner, they cleaned up and his son started to wash plates. He came in and asked his son to leave them to him and said, “You know, in prison, the prisoners who had good behavior are only allowed to wash plates.” His son said, “OK, I will leave them to you then and walk away from him.” When the night falls, his son prepared the bed for his son and himself. Both of them couldn’t fall asleep. His dad suggested that they should turn the light off and his son said no. This is his son’s inner thought, “if I turn the light off, I couldn’t be able to see you. Don’t you know that I want to see your face?” They were both tossing and turning around in the bed and his dad finally suggested him that they should go out for a walk. His son was delighted with this idea and he changed the clothes swiftly and ran out of the house. The prisoner was not supposed to go out on their leave, they were meant to be with the officer all the time. The officer who was sleeping in the living room gave him gestures to go out. He could see the officer’s thumb up in the dark and so he went.
His son and he was running all the way along until they got to near river bank. They could see the full moon and Mr.A could see his son’s beaming smile. He said to himself, “With this killer smile, my son would be very popular with girls at school.” The rained started to fall and they both ran into the phone boot to get the shade. To be continued
My Opera
I was on pm shift on Friday. It was such a hectic day that I didn’t even have a break. Patient after patient coming out from theatre. 
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