Miracle In Cell No. 7
Lee Hwan Kyung
The story: Lee Yong Gu (Ryoo Seung Ryong) is a simple-minded man who is determined to get a Sailor Moon bag for his six-year-old daughter Ye Sung (Gal So Won). He ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time and is sentenced to death for the murder and sexual assault of the police commissioner’s young daughter. Realising that Yong Gu is a good-hearted man, his cellmates help to reunite him with his daughter (Park Shin Hye as an adult) and to prepare for his trial.

For a film with no big stars and a modest budget, this flick performed a, well, miracle at the South Korean box office.
Released domestically in January, it chalked up more than 12 million admissions and is now the third- highest-grossing domestic movie, behind sci-fi thriller The Host (2006) and crime caper The Thieves (2012).
It is all thanks to a story that tugs at the heartstrings as well as winning performances from the leads.
Ryoo Seung Ryong (Masquerade, 2012) is totally convincing in the role of the mentally handicapped father who would do anything for his daughter – a character that could have been impossibly saintly if Ryoo had not made it real.
Writer-director Lee Hwan Kyung effectively milks his character Yong Gu’s plight for maximum sympathy.
Yong Gu is an innocent man who is tricked and browbeaten into admitting a crime he did not commit. His inability to articulate that injustice will have audiences seething in frustration.
As the smart little girl who believes in her father, Gal So Won is excellent. The adorable actress is a natural and has a sweet rapport with her on-screen father, which overcomes thoughts that the treatment of their relationship is baldly manipulative.
Even though the film is a tearjerker with its share of scenes that will turn on the faucets, particularly towards the end, there is also plenty of humour dished out along the way.
Yong Gu’s cellmates are a hodgepodge of criminal types, but luckily for him, they are all of the heart-of-gold variety.
It helps that he has a cute daughter to bring out their protective and paternalistic side.
How they smuggle Ye Sung into a jail cell and then keep her squirreled away from the eyes of the wardens is amusing. The scheme ends with a flight of fancy that is undeniably harebrained but still, you root for it to succeed.
All of this is told in flashback as a grown-up Ye Sung argues her father’s case at a mock trial many years later, in an attempt to clear his name.
Get your hankies ready when she makes her final arguments and Yong Gu’s fate is revealed.
(ST)