SEOUL, Chung Ji-young’s latest feature, “The Boys,” is based on real-life events, except that the director made up a lead character for dramatic purposes.
Newly-appointed police officer Hwang Jun-cheol (Sol Kyung-gu), takes a key role in re-investigating a 1999 robbery and homicide case in a small southwestern town that left an old shopkeeper suffocated to death.
The case was quickly closed, bringing fame to the police investigative team, but Hwang later learns that the evidence, if any, was seriously fabricated by his fellow police officers amid a political power-play.
After a span of 16 years, Hwang persuades one of the actual killers to appear in court and confess to his crime, so that the three wrongfully convicted boys, who are facing a retrial, can be exonerated.
In the process, Hwang risks everything he has to stand up to the corrupt and powerful police system to which he and his daughter belong.
The director deftly blends fact and fiction in his dramatization of the real-life story known as the Samryenara Supermarket case, in order to deliver his message home more effectively.
Chung’s message is as clear as it is simple: justice prevails over evil in the end, although it comes at a cost.
“Powerful people pick on the weak when most people, who see themselves on the side of the weak, choose to stay silent” and do nothing about it, the director said after a media screening event Monday.
The director’s intention is to provoke nationwide soul-searching on how authorities, as well as the general public, have turned a blind eye to the plight of the poor, undereducated and have-nots.
Actor Sol Kyung-gu plays the police officer Hwang Jun-cheol in Chung Ji-young’s latest feature “The Boys” in this scene provided by CJ ENM.
Veteran actor Sol resoundingly plays the fictional character Hwang, who stands for truth and justice, even though he is often tempted to make a compromise with reality.
Hwang’s wife, played by Yeom Hye-ran, and right-hand man, played by Heo Sung-tae of “Squid Game,” help lighten the film’s otherwise heavy mood.
Going back and forth in time to show core events could be confusing to some viewers, and court battle scenes at later stages of the movie overflow with emotionally charged interactions.
In the climax, the three boys repeatedly yell “We are not murderers!” at the police chief and the prosecutor, the two main villains, played by Yu Jun-sang and Cho Jin-woong, who falsified the case to gain quick fame.
“When I read the scene in the script, I felt it was a bit too much and cheesy. But when filming the scene, I was actually really into the scene and became quite emotional,” Sol said.
Source: Yonhap News Agency