A girl who is only eight years old is raped and almost killed by a male person. We follow the parents and the little girl who tries to move forward in their lives, but it’s not easy under these circumstances.
This is not an enjoyable movie to watch, considering the content. The movie is based on true events, and this became a major media case after the perpetrator received his sentence. Again, the law fails. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The result of the rape is brutal, the little girl barely survived. This is the information I got from Wikipedia: 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.
But it’s nice to see people slowly but surely get back up again and try to continue living. Even though their lives will never be the same after what happened to their daughter.
The affected family has good friends around them. It’s very interesting to follow the little girl and her father who are having problems since his young daughter was raped by a man. It’s especially a scene that hurts to watch when the father tries to help his daughter when she has had an accident in her bed.
The movie also focuses on the rapist and the trial, which works fine. The movie criticizes the judiciary because the punishment that the perpetrator got is like spitting in the face of the victims. Of course, you get provoked, but what the rapist is trying to do is not abnormal at all. It’s a pity that they don’t allow to castrate such persons and then kill them! They are a waste of human life!
The actors are good. One of my favorite Korean actors, Kyung-gu Sol, plays the father of the little girl. He’s always solid, he is especially a master at playing a broken man. I also have to give praise to the actress who plays the little girl. She is fantastic in this role, and she is worth keeping an eye on.
Hope is a painful movie, but it leaves behind a large dose of warmth, even though what happened to the little girl will make you feel sick and angry. Life goes on, but the past will always follow the victims and they have to learn to live with it, unfortunately.