The Attorney

The Attorney
Theatrical poster
Hangul	변호인
Revised Romanization	Byeonhoin
Directed by	Yang Woo-suk
Produced by	Choi Jeong-ho Choi Jae-won
Written by	Yang Woo-suk Yoon Hyeon-ho
Starring	Song Kang-ho Kim Young-ae Oh Dal-su Yim Si-wan Kwak Do-won
Music by	Jo Yeong-wook
Cinematography	Lee Tae-yoon
Edited by	Kim Sang-bum Kim Jae-bum
Production company	withUs Film
Distributed by	Next Entertainment World
Release dates	December 18, 2013 (2013-12-18)
Running time	127 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Box office	₩82,880,761,300

The Attorney (Hangul: 변호인; RR: Byeonhoin) is a 2013 South Korean courtroom drama film directed and co-written by Yang Woo-suk, in his directorial debut (Yang was previously a film producer and webtoon author).^[1][2][3][4] With 11,375,954 tickets sold and a revenue of ₩82.9 billion, The Attorney became the 8th best-selling Korean film of all time, and the second highest-grossing Korean film of 2013.^[5][6]

It was inspired by the real-life "Burim case" of 1981, when during the authoritarian Chun Doo-hwan regime, 22 students, teachers and office workers who belonged to a book club were arrested without warrants on fabricated charges that they were North Korea sympathizers. Roh Moo-hyun, then a tax lawyer from Busan, formed a legal team with his allies (including Moon Jae-in and Kim Kwang-il) to defend the arrested individuals against the government. After the case, Roh became an influential human rights lawyer throughout the 1980s; he later entered politics and became the ninth president of South Korea.^[7][8][9]

Plot

With only a high school diploma, legal attorney Song Woo-suk (Song Kang-ho) is somewhat of an outcast in Busan society ruled by university connections. Determined to become economically affluent, he accepts cases that colleagues shun, and with his business acumen and appetite for money, he soon builds a successful practice dealing with real estate and tax law. But Woo-suk becomes embroiled in a civil liberties case involving a group of young student activists detained by police, who are accused of being communist sympathizers. One of them is Park Jin-woo (Yim Si-wan), the son of Choi Soon-ae (Kim Young-ae), a restaurant owner that Woo-suk is indebted to. When Woo-suk sees that Jin-woo has been tortured by interrogators, he decides to take on the case

Cast

• Song Kang-ho as Song Woo-suk^[10]
• Kim Young-ae as Choi Soon-ae
• Oh Dal-su as Park Dong-ho
• Kwak Do-won as Cha Dong-young
• Yim Si-wan as Park Jin-woo
• Lee Sung-min as Lee Yoon-taek
• Jung Won-joong as Attorney Kim Sang-pil
• Song Young-chang as Judge
• Jo Min-ki as Prosecutor Kang Young-cheol
• Lee Hang-na as Song Woo-seok's wife
• Cha Eun-jae as Miss Moon
• Jung Joon-won as Song Gun-woo
• Cha Gwang-soo as Park Byeong-ho
• Ryu Soo-young as Lee Chang-joon (cameo)

Box office

Within ten days of its release, The Attorney had been seen by over 3.4 million people in South Korea.^[11] By the end of the year it became the 8th best-selling local movie of all the time.^[5]

It reached 7.8 million admissions in 18 days, making it the fastest Korean film to pass 7 million admissions since the 2012 film The Thieves, which did it in 13 days.^[12][13][14] It became the tenth movie to break the 10 million admissions mark in Korea.^{[15][8][16][17]}

The film grossed a total of ₩82,880,761,300 in South Korea, with 11,375,954 tickets sold.^[18][6]

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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