Children (2011 Film)
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''Children...'' () is a 2011
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
n
crime thriller film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film, but al ...
directed by Lee Gyu-man starring
Park Yong-woo Park Yong-woo (; born March 16, 1971) is a South Korean actor. Early life Park Yong-woo's father was an engineering professor and his mother was a music teacher. As a child he was shy and expressed himself poorly. Instead, he nurtured his imag ...
,
Ryu Seung-ryong Ryu Seung-ryong (; born November 29, 1970) is a South Korean actor. Ryu began his acting career in theater, subsequently becoming one of the most versatile supporting actors in Korean film and television. He gained recognition by starring in th ...
and
Sung Dong-il Sung Dong-il (; born April 27, 1967) is a South Korean actor. Sung made his acting debut in theater in 1987, then was recruited at the 1991 Seoul Broadcasting System, SBS open talent auditions. He rose to fame as the comic, Jeolla dialect-speak ...
. This film based on an actual unsolved murder case, the Frog Boys of
Daegu Daegu (; ), formerly spelled Taegu and officially Daegu Metropolitan City (), is a city in southeastern South Korea. It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; the fourth-largest List of provincial-level ci ...
.


Plot

On March 26, 1991, the local elections are being held. Since it is a day off school, the five boys set off to the nearby mountain and never return. Their parents try to get the police to investigate right away, but the authorities are more concerned about guarding the election polls. Days later, thousands of police set on the mountain to search for clues as to what may have happened but nothing turns up. The parents take their pleas for the boys’ return to the airways where their story captures the heart, mind and sometimes imagination of the nation. Various theories such as the involvement of North Korean spies and alien abduction comes up. In 1996, a career-driven documentary maker, Kang Ji-seung is transferred to the small town after being disgraced for rigging an award-winning documentary. He then decides to investigate the case in the hopes of making a comeback. He teams up with an equally ambitious professor who hopes to make a name for himself by solving the crime where police failed. The professor’s theory, which seems to have quite a bit of compelling evidence behind it, takes the pair in a direction that the police were reluctant to investigate. The professor has the telephone recording of someone claiming to be one of the missing boys calling up his parents' home. However, the mother does not appear to be shocked to receive a call from her son. This leads the professor to suspects that the father and mother of this boy may know more than they have been letting on. While visiting the boys' home, everyone, from the boy's parents to his grandmother act strangely. The professor convinces the authorities to dig up the boy's home, but they find nothing. Nevertheless, the accusation destroys the family's reputation and the father dies without having cleared his name. Kang Ji-seung is soon transferred back to the city while the professor loses his job at the university. Then in September 2002, the remains of the children are found in the woods on the same mountainside the children said they were visiting by two men who were gathering acorns. At first police claim it seemed likely that the boys got lost and froze to death during the night. The parents refuse to believe this since their sons used to play in the area all the time. Also, the search party have searched this area as well but nothing came up at the time. After learning that the remains were found, Kang Ji-seung visits the forensic lab and learns that two of the skulls bear large holes and one has strange indentations made from an unidentified instrument. Their clothes were tied into knots used by sailors and bullet casings were found in the shallow, makeshift grave. Meanwhile,
Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
is shaken by the news of the disappearance of two children in the city. Kang Ji-seung meets with the police officer who investigated the missing boys' case ten years ago. The officer reveals that on the night after the boys disappeared, he came across a mysterious young man who is always seen fishing in the area. However, the man fled in his jeep when the officer approached him. The officer decided to keep this a secret since Korea has a statute of limitation on major crimes and in 2006 it ran out on the case. Even if the killer was found at this point, he cannot be prosecuted. So, the officer decided to wait for him to commit another crime in order to trap him. To add to the mystery, the area where the remains were found had been searched numerous times since the boys were known to play there and yet, almost a decade later, their bodies suddenly show up there. Through his license plate, Kang Ji-seung tracks the man down and breaks into his apartment when he is not home. To Kang Ji-seung's horror, there is a box containing little things owned by children. He also finds stacks of books tied up in knots used by sailors. Kang Ji-seung decides to wait for the culprit outside his apartment building to confront him when he gets home. However, Kang Ji-seung falls asleep and the culprit, realizing he is being watched, takes a picture of the reporter's car. The next morning, Kang Ji-seung's daughter goes missing. However, she is found soon after and claims she was helped by a man driving a passing by truck. Kang Ji-seung chases the truck down to a slaughter house. He confronts the suspect, who refuses to confess but hints that he might be the killer. Since Kang Ji-seung has no evidence to have the man arrested, he watches as the suspect walks away, presumably to escape from the city.


Cast

*
Park Yong-woo Park Yong-woo (; born March 16, 1971) is a South Korean actor. Early life Park Yong-woo's father was an engineering professor and his mother was a music teacher. As a child he was shy and expressed himself poorly. Instead, he nurtured his imag ...
as Kang Ji-seung *
Ryu Seung-ryong Ryu Seung-ryong (; born November 29, 1970) is a South Korean actor. Ryu began his acting career in theater, subsequently becoming one of the most versatile supporting actors in Korean film and television. He gained recognition by starring in th ...
as Hwang Woo-hyuk *
Sung Dong-il Sung Dong-il (; born April 27, 1967) is a South Korean actor. Sung made his acting debut in theater in 1987, then was recruited at the 1991 Seoul Broadcasting System, SBS open talent auditions. He rose to fame as the comic, Jeolla dialect-speak ...
as Park Kyung-sik *
Sung Ji-ru Sung Ji-ru (born October 16, 1968) is a South Korean actor. Filmography Film Television series Awards and nominations References External links * * * 1968 births Living people People from Gongju Male actors from ...
as Jung-ho's father *
Kim Yeo-jin Kim Yeo-jin (; born June 24, 1972) is a South Korean actress. She made her acting debut in the stage play ''What Do Women Live For'' in 1995, and has since remained active in film and television, drawing praise for her supporting roles in Im S ...
as Jung-ho's mother *
Joo Jin-mo Joo Jin-mo may refer to: * Joo Jin-mo (actor, born 1958), South Korean actor * Joo Jin-mo (actor, born 1974) Joo Jin-mo (born Park Jin-tae on 26 September 1974), is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his leading roles in the films '' ...
as Director Ahn *
Park Byung-eun Park Byung-eun (; born July 14, 1977) is a South Korean actor. Early life and education Park majored in drama at Chung-Ang University. Park was set to debut with 90s South Korean boy group Taesaja in 1997, but gave up due to him feeling that ...
as Kim Joo-hwan * Kim Gu-taek as Won-kil's father * Park Mi-hyun as Won-kil's mother * Lee Sang-hee as Yong-duk's father * Seo Ju-hee as Yong-duk's mother * Jo Deok-je as Dong-pil's father * Seo Young-hwa as Dong-pil's mother * Nam Sang-baek as Chul-woo's father * Jeon Guk-hwan as Professor Cha * Kwak Min-seok as police chief *
Ra Mi-ran Ra Mi-ran (; born March 6, 1975) is a South Korean actress and television personality. She is best known for her roles in the television series ''Reply 1988'' (2015–2016), '' Avengers Social Club'' (2017), and '' The Good Bad Mother'' (2023) ...
as psychic *
Lee Si-eon Lee Si-eon (born Lee Bo-yeon on July 3, 1982) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his comic supporting role in the popular campus drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance ...
as PD Yoon * Tae In-ho as Producer Choi


Release

The film was released on February 17, 2011 and netted a total of 1,867,736 admissions nationwide."Final Korean Box Office for the Week-end 2011.03.25 - 2011.03.27"
''
Hancinema HanCinema () is an online South Korean movie and drama database created by Cédric Collemine during the summer of 2003 in Korea. It provides information related to Korean movies, television dramas, actors, and other related information. It is a ...
''. 29 March 2011. Retrieved 2013-07-24.


References


External links

* * * {{Hancinema film, Children..., Children... 2011 films 2011 crime drama films South Korean crime thriller films Crime films based on actual events Lotte Entertainment films 2010s Korean-language films 2010s South Korean films