Based on a true incident, the movie tells the story of a deaf school where the principal and administrators had been sexually abusing and mistreating the students for a long time. A teacher who came to take up a job at the school found out about this and helped the children to go to court with a friend, but in the end, the defendants were all given light sentences.
However, after the movie was released, it drew such a huge public outcry that the investigation of the case was reopened, and after a re-sentencing, the criminals involved were sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In the same year of the movie’s release, the National Assembly passed the “Law on Partial Amendment to the Special Act on Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes”, also known as the “Melting Pot Law”.
The movie tells us that money and power seem to be omnipotent, but as long as the people with blood can still hold on to their beliefs and values, they can ultimately contribute to the building of a just and kind society by influencing the people and environment around them.
As the classic line at the end of the movie says, “We fight all the way, not to change the world, but to keep the world from changing us.”
2011 / South Korea / Drama / Hwang Dong Hyuk / Kong Yoo Jung Yoo Mi
In-ho (Kong Yoo), a mute art teacher from Seoul, arrives in Mujin to apply for a job at the Mercy School for the Deaf.
When he crashes his car during a foggy day, he encounters a member of a human rights organization, Zojin (Jung Yoo-mi), while repairing it.
In-ho’s wife died young and his 8-year-old daughter, who was born with asthma, is cared for by her grandmother, so he works tirelessly to support his family.
However, the twins’ principal and headmaster ask In-ho for a 50 million won bribe.
Meanwhile, In-ho gradually realizes that the school is suffocating with a tense and depressing atmosphere.
Three children attract attention: the bright Kim Yeon Doo (Kim Hyun Soo), the gluttonous Chan Yoo Ri (Jung In Woo), and Min Min Soo (Baek Seung Hwan), whose brother died by suicide and who is always covered in bruises.
After class, In Ho also hears shouting and crying in the women’s restroom, which he doesn’t look deeper into after the doorman stops him.
Afterward.
He accidentally witnesses the principal bribing the police, the instructor beating Min-soo, and the resident director drowning Yeon-doo.
A shocking hidden secret is slowly unveiled, and the truth shocks South Korea …… This movie is based on a real incident at a school for the deaf and mute impaired in Gwangju in 2005, and is adapted from a novel of the same name by Korean writer Kong Jee-young.
