Jeong-eun comes home after 3 years to find that her father wants nothing to do with her. And who can blame him? After all, she just got out of prison for the third time, having gone from petty theft to stabbing a guy with a knife.
The father realizes that Jeong-eun has come home after 3 years, but only to see her 5-year-old brother. She wants nothing to do with him. And who can blame her? After all, he threw his life away to alcohol and physically abused his wife (Jeong-eun's mother; now dead).
But each of them seeks redemption and atonement, and things are not all as they seem. And caught in the middle is the little boy.
Father and daughter find out things about each other that cause each of them to re-evaluate their relationship baggage. She wants to go on the straight and narrow, but her gangster ties do not allow that to happen. And he has a specific reason for needing his daughter back in his life.
The best thing about this film is the acting. Father, daughter, and little boy, as well as other major and minor characters all hit just the right notes. Absent is the overacting too common in Korean films. No 180-degree tone shifts in the middle of the movie. Yes, there is a gangster that goes around slapping his henchmen on the back of the head, but surprisingly it does not go over-the-top. Ae Su, as Jeong-eun, is a revelation in her first feature film.
The emotions that come out in the film (both in the actors and in the viewer) never seem forced. No melodrama just for melodrama's sake. Real people, facing real problems, making the mistakes real people make.
This movie is heartwarming and heartbreaking, with the two woven together masterfully. Highly recommended.
