Blind (2011 film)

Blind
Theatrical poster
Hangul	블라인드
Revised Romanization	Beullaindeu
McCune–Reischauer	Bŭllaindŭ
Directed by	Ahn Sang-Hoon
Starring	Kim Ha-neul Yoo Seung-ho
Release dates	July 22, 2011 (2011-07-22) (Puchon) August 11, 2011 (2011-08-11) (South Korea)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Box office	$15,713,724[1]

Blind (Hangul: 블라인드; RR: Beulraindeu) is a 2011 South Korean crime thriller film.

Plot

A missing person case involving a female university student and the victim in a hit and run case appears to be related. Detectives look for a witness.

Into the police office walks Min Soo-Ah (Kim Ha-Neul). She used to be a promising cadet at the police academy, but after a horrific car accident which killed her surrogate brother, Soo-Ah's police career ended. Min Soo-Ah also lost her eyesight in the car accident. Min Soo-Ah reveals to Detective Jo (Jo Hie-Bong) at the police station that on the night of the hit and run case she was picked up by a taxi cab driver. Soo-Ah believes the taxi driver may be the perpetrator of the crimes. Initially, Detective Jo doesn't take Soo-Ah's claims seriously because she is blind, but when Soo-Ah displays her acute senses the detective starts to believe her.

Detective Jo and Min Soo-Ah then work together to find the taxi cab driver, but all their leads turn up empty. Then another witness comes forward Kwon Ki-Sub (Yoo Seung-Ho). Kwon Ki-Sub is a motorcycle delivery boy who claims to have also witness the hit and run incident. Kwon Ki-Sub also emphatically states that the car in question was not a taxi cab, but rather an imported sedan.

Meanwhile, Min Soo-Ah finds herself being stalked by a mysterious man.

[Spoiler] It turns out that the gynecologist, Myung Jin (Yang Young-Jo) is the mysterious man stalking her as well as the killer. Min Soo-ah, while in the car with him, remembered that he had a strong scent/cologne, he had a watch on his right hand, and he gave her an iced coffee drink in a glass can. While in the car with him, they hit a bump while in an argument. The body of the dead university student rolls out of the trunk and Myung Jin gets out to examine it. When Min Soo-Ah goes out as well to inspect the damage done, he claims that he hit a dog, but she reasons with him, starting another fight. He leaves her in the rain when another car comes. The reason why she was in the car with him is because she needed a ride back from visiting the orphanage she used to grow up in. She had gotten angry and stormed out because her ex-guardian tried to give her two things—tickets to her dead brother's dance group's upcoming dance showdown, and a device that vibrates when a person or moving object—or any object—came too close. It would help her with her disability, but Min Soo-ah strongly disapproved of it.

One night when Ki-Sub is walking home alone, he is followed by Myung Jin. Ki-Sub at first runs away, but is snuck up on and hit by a brick. An ambulance comes and the Detective/Min Soo-ah drives to the scene. When the Detective finishes up his interviews with the people and follows the ambulance to the hospital, we realize that Myung Jin was in the background, watching Min Soo-Ah in the car. At the hospital, the doctor tells them that because Ki-Sub has such a thick skull, only a small fracture was shown in the X-Ray scan. They are relieved and visits him. Ki-Sub gets annoyed by Min Soo-ah's constant nagging, and on the day of his release, storms out in anger. When he reaches the nearly-empty subway station, he sees Min Soo-ah on the other side and then sees her ride the subway, as well as the killer. He calls her on her phone and tells her urgently that the killer is in front of her. As he runs to catch up with her, she goes on Facetime and shows him her location and surroundings. He guides her out of the subway and to safety, as well as her seeing-dog, Seul-Gi (Dolly). However, at one point, she trips, but gets up and feels the ground and way out (In Korea's subway stations, on the ground there is an indented pathway marked from the subway to the nearest exit. This was created of blind people specifically). However, at one point, the killer catches up with her and leads her away, with a knife to her body. She reaches into her handbag and sprays his eyes with her pepper spray and runs off with Seul-Gi. When she reaches the elevator, she thought that she'd be safe, but the killer quickly gets in. Ki-Sub, who still sees her surroundings by Facetime, gets scared when he sees blood splatter on the elevator's button and the fact that Min Soo-Ah fainted. However, what they didn't know at the time was that Seul-Gi shielded Min Soo-Ah from the knife and while she was getting stabbed, grabbed the killer by the jacket and led him out of the elevator. In that scene, Seul-Gi dies by being stabbed many times while watching her owner go up through the elevator. When Min Soo-Ah wakes up, she asks for her seeing dog, but the doctor handed her the blood-stained leash. At home, Min Soo-Ah listens to many video tapes of her past self, when she had just graduated from the police academy. She laid down and listened to her brother's voice, as well as the voice of the orphanage lady. Halfway through, she gets a call from an unknown number. There is a raspy voice. The caller warns her from this case. "You can't see me, but I'm watching you." A few days later, the Detective had narrowed down the number of licensed imported black Sedans and finally, in a garage, he finds the killer. They get into a violent fight, in which the detective dies and the killer drives off. Meanwhile, Ki-Sub and Min Soo-Ah visits the orphanage again when they're asked to watch over it while the grandmother takes the children out. Ki-Sub finds the dead brother's room and various pictures. Min Soo-Ah goes to the 'office' and finds a cabinet filled with her past memories as a cop, as well as the vibrating motion sensor. The killer enters into the living room and lights a cigarette and listens to some music. Min Soo-Ah, annoyed by the music, goes downstairs to turn it off. She reprimands Ki-Sub for playing it, but smells the cigarette. Ki-Sub goes upstairs and fights with Myung Jin while Min Soo-Ah runs away. After a few minutes of them playing Cat and Mouse, she lights him on fire and takes the vibrating motion sensor. She helps Ki-Sub outside, where it's raining. Ki-Sub fights the killer again and Min Soo-Ah goes to the car and breaks it with the motion sensor. The killer runs at her with a knife and with the right timing and the motion sensor, she hits him on the head, making him fall unconscious. The police, who had picked up the Detective's body, had found the evidence and eventually found out who the killer was. The killer was put in jail and Min Soo-Ah was re-admitted to the academy and graduated again. Ki-Sub also enrolled into the police academy. It ends with another video, similar to the video of her first graduation, except instead of her surrogate brother, it had Ki-Sub. While the credits roll, you see pictures of them respectfully visiting the Detective's funeral.

Notes

The script for "Blind" won the "Hit By Pitch" project fair held by the Korean Movie producers Guild in 2009

Cast

• Kim Ha-neul as Min Soo-ah
• Yoo Seung-ho as Kwon Gi-seob
• Jo Hee-bong as Detective Jo
• Yang Young-Jo as Myung-Jin
• Dolly as Seul-Gi

Awards

• 2011 - 48th Grand Bell Awards: Best Actress (Movie - Blind) - Kim Haneul
• 2011 - 48th Grand Bell Awards: Screenplay (Movie - Blind) - Choi Min Seok
• 2011 - Blue Dragon Film Awards: Best Actress (Movie - Blind) - Kim Haneul

References

External links

• Official website (Korean)
• Blind at HanCinema
• Blind at the Internet Movie Database