''Coin Locker Girl'' (; lit. "Chinatown") is a 2015 South Korean

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 ...

written and directed by Han Jun-hee, starring Kim Hye-soo and Kim Go-eun. It was selected to screen in the Critics' Week section of the

2015 Cannes Film Festival The 68th Cannes Film Festival took place from 13 to 24 May 2015. Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel Coen were the Co-Presidents of the Jury for the main competition, marking the first time that two people co-chaired the jury. Since the Coen brothers ...

Plot

A baby is found abandoned inside a coin locker at Western Seoul train station in 1996. A beggar takes her and names her Il-young, then when she turns 10, she is taken by the corrupt detective who sells her off to a woman referred to simply as Mother as part of his loan payment. Mother is the boss of a loan shark and

organ trafficking Organ trade (also known as the blood market or the red market) is the trading of human organs, tissues, or other body products, usually for transplantation.(Carney, Scott. 2011. "The Red Market." Wired 19, no. 2: 112–1. Internet and Personal C ...

crime ring in Chinatown,

Incheon Incheon is a city located in northwestern South Korea, bordering Seoul and Gyeonggi Province to the east. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Incheon was home to just 4,700 people when it became an international port in 1883. As of February 2020, ...

; she has held on to her position of power by being dispassionate and calculating, and by keeping by her side only those of use to her. Mother decides to raise the young child after she shows toughness and smarts, eventually grooming her for a position in her organization as her personal debt collector. One day, Il-young is given a task to collect debt from Suk-hyun, the son of a debtor. Over the course of a few days, she is initially taken aback by the guy, who doesn't seem afraid of her and even shows her kindness and openness when talking about his own struggles, before starting to develop feelings for him. But when his father flees from the debt, Mother orders her to kill Suk-hyun, an order Il-young fails to follow. Regardless, Suk-hyun is killed and organ-harvested by Mother's other goons. Il-young is beaten down and readied to be shipped for Japanese flesh trade. The only family she has ever known comes crashing down. Il-young escapes and makes her way back to Mother, and kills her, only to find out that she is actually her birth mother and that her mother uses this opportunity to teach her a lesson and train and prepare her for taking over.

Cast

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Coin Locker Girl 2015 films 2015 crime action films 2010s Korean-language films Films based on Japanese novels South Korean crime action films 2010s South Korean films