Title :  Miracle in Cell No.7/ Number 7 Room's Gift/7번방의 선물 /7beonbangui Seonmool



Director: Lee Hwan Kyung
Writer : Lee Hwan Kyung, Kim Hwang Sung, Kim Young Suk
Producer: Lim Min Sub
Cinematographer: Kang Seung Ki
Release date :  24 january 2013
Runtime : 127 min
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Distributor: Next Entertainment World
Language : Korean
Official website : http://www.7gift.kr/


Sypnosis

A father (Ryoo Seung-Ryong), who is mentally handicapped, but loves his daughter very much, is falsely accused of a crime and sent to prison. Later, his daughter Ye-Seung (Park Shin-Hye, who is a law school student, works to prove his innocence.

Back in 1997, Yong-Goo lives happily with his daughter Ye-Seung (Kal So-Won), even though he has the intelligence of a child. They stop by a shop everyday to look at a yellow Sailor Moon backpack that he hopes to buy his daughter. One day, they notice that the last yellow Sailor Moon backpack is being sold. Yong-Goo goes inside the store to plead his case, but the father buying the backpack ends up slapping Yong-Goo.

The following day, the girl who bought the yellow Sailor Moon backpack sees Yong-Goo working in the grocery store parking lot. She tells him that she knows another store that sells the same yellow backback. Yong-Goo follows the girl to a traditional outdoor market. A short while later, the girl is laying on the ground unconscious and Yong-Goo is trying to perform CPR. A woman walks by and calls the police.

Yong-Goo is accused of kidnap and murder. The father of the dead girl is also the chief of the National Police Agency. Yong-Goo is given the death penalty and incarcerated. In prison, Yong-Goo shares a jail cell with five other inmates. One day, Yong-Goo saves the life of his cellmate So Yang-Ho (Oh Dal-Su) from a rival prison gang leader. So Yang-Ho then offers to help Yong-Goo in any way he can to return the favor. Yong-Goo tells So Yang-Ho that he wants to see his daughter Ye-Seung. The five inmates then plan to make a miracle happen.

Two heartwarming films for when you can't feel your toes

Source | 2012/12/27 | 

Left: Human comedy-drama "Miracle in Cell No.7" tells the story of a mentally challenged man who is wrongfully put in a prison full of notorious criminals. Right: "Man on the Edge" centers on a gangster who leads a double life as a shaman after an accident. Provided by NEW/ Showbox

Hollywood blockbusters like "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" and "Les Miserables" have recently hit Korean theaters, but there are still a number of Korean flicks that are worth checking out in the new year. Two heart-warming comedies are perfect for a frigid winter night: "Miracle in Cell No.7" and "Man on the Edge".

Lee Hwan-gyeong's latest film "Miracle in Cell No.7", which is readying for a Jan. 24 release, tells the story of a mentally challenged man, Yong-gu (Ryoo Seung-ryong), who is wrongly convicted of a crime while purchasing a gift for his beloved daughter Ye-seung (Gal So-won). 

He is thrown into a maximum security prison with a number of notorious criminals. The range of crimes they are convicted for vary from fraud and pick-pocketing to adultery.

At first everyone in the prison is bemused by the newcomer with an older man's body who acts like a child, but later they grow attached to Yong-gu and start taking care of him. The father has only one wish: to see his daughter Ye-seung. 

The strict prison policy, however, does not allow visitors. So the gang of convicts decides to help him by sneaking in his daughter.

Ryoo, who plays Yong-gu, is a master at work in the film, tastefully making the audience laugh as though they had a dose of laughing gas before the start. 

"I didn't focus on changing my look to play Yong-gu but tried hard to embrace the susceptibility that young kids have", he said. 

"I talked with So-won, who plays my daughter in the movie, all day long and tried to remind myself of childhood".

The actor earned critical acclaim for his roles in box office hits "Masquerade" and "Everything about my Wife", but playing a mentally challenged man was a new task altogether. 

"I developed a deeply rooted habit of thoroughly analyzing scripts since I took on a theatrical role, but Yong-gu was especially challenging. I made a graph outlining the flow of Yong-gu's feelings based on different scenes, locations and timelines. 

"I tried to get into the role 24 hours a day", the 42-year-old actor who won best supporting actor for"Masquerade" at this year's Daejong Film Awards. 

Ryoo also drew on his experience of meeting a mentally handicapped man.

"I've met and talked with the disabled and there was one man who drew my attention. He is very pure and always wears a big smile", the actor said. 

"I try to inject his characteristics into Yong-gu. The man tends to speak the same thing over and over and is good at memorizing specific numbers".

In addition to a plethora of hilarious scenes, director Lee infused dramatic moments into the heartfelt comedy.

"I was inspired by a documentary telling the story of a father and his daughter. 

"He was arrested by the police but kept saying, 'You should have breakfast before leaving for school' to his daughter, although she has no one to prepare meals for her. The scene was a starting point for this movie", the director said. 

Lee proved his exceptional ability to touch people's hearts in his previous work "Lump sugar"(2006), which explores a friendship between an aspiring jockey and a horse.

The human drama won over critics and moviegoers alike and successfully presented the warm-hearted relationship as reflected in the movie's line: "What makes the horse move is not the whip but the jockey's heart".

"Man on the Edge" by Jo Jin-kyoo tells an even more bizarre story. 

The upcoming movie with its release date set for Jan. 10 presents a veteran gangster, Gwang-ho (Park Shin-yang), who is both incredibly loyal and skilled. 

After an accident, Gwang-ho gets possessed by a spirit and then becomes a shaman, beginning a hand-wringing double life as a gangster-shaman.

As strange as the story may sound, director Jo said he was inspired by an online news report that stated that a gangster had indeed become a shaman.

The director holds a strong foothold in the gangster comedy genre with his successful debut feature "My Wife Is a Gangster" (2001).

By Park Eun-jee [ejpark@joongang.co.kr]

Source : koreajoongangdaily.jo... ( English Korean )

[HanCinema's Film Review] "Miracle in Cell No.7"

2013/01/25 |

The main characters are retarded father Yong-Goo (played by Ryoo Seung-ryong) and his adorable seven year old daughter Ye-Seung (played by Gal So-won). Circumstances conspire to keep them apart, but through sheer determination and the help of other prison inmates, they're able to find time to be happy together. This family changes the hardened people around them for better. But inevitably, for all these attempts at happiness, tragedy strikes and people left my theater crying. "Miracle in Cell No.7" is an extremely manipulative movie emotionally, and oftentimes feel like it's cheating by forcing the audience to identify with these overwrought situations.

And yet, in spite of all this, I could not hate it. Even though "Miracle in Cell No.7" is deliberately and cruelly constructed to maximize sadness, there was one fact I could not bring myself to forget. Events like this actually happen. I'm all too familiar with the abuses and neglect present in the American criminal justice system, and never at any point during this movie's serious scenes did I ever think "phbt, that could never happen". If anything I was more dubious that prisoners were allowed privileges like model centerfolds and books in their cells.

Well, that and the more obvious comedic fodder. There's something undeniably entertaining about ploys to get an adorable seven year old both inside the jail, as well as keep anyone from finding out about her. The camraderie between Yong-Goo's cellmates and the way they warm up to Ye-Seung is also very cute. Only two of them have any real subplots, but both are handled quite well in a very humanizing way.

Indeed, the way the prisoners and guards are all humanized to significant degree is extremely inspiring. Even people that seem malicious at first turn out to be quite capable of genuine human empathy as the movie goes on, and there really isn't any clear deliberate malicious villain. The one man who I can confidently say does an unforgivably horrible deed does so for perfectly understandable reasons- and he's quite literally the last person you'd expect this behavior from in a movie that's almost entirely set in a prison.

The ensemble deserves enormous credit here, because it's clear that even those with very few speaking lines were in on the basic message of this movie- that the love between a father and daughter is a very beautiful thing that inspires a great deal of emotion. What I take the most comfort in is that this emotion doesn't have to be tragedy. "Miracle in Cell No.7" is genuinely funny often enough that even knowing about its tragic end, it's easy to find joy with the characters when they're just spending time together and enjoying life, in spite of the less than ideal circumstances.

It's quite significant, I think, that at this movie's single most spiritually powerful moment, even though circumstance inevitably unravels it, the audience still feels that same hope, joy, and love as the main characters do even though we, just the same as they, know exactly what's going to be coming next. This is not the movie for a cynical person to watch. But if you're looking for an excuse to try and have hope, to try and believe in something when you're at a crossroads, "Miracle in Cell No.7" will leave a very pleasant aftertaste.

"Miracle in Cell No.7" is directed by Lee Hwan-gyeong and features Ryoo Seung-ryong, Oh Dal-soo,Park Won-sang, Kim Jeong-tae, Jeong Man-sik and Kim Gi-cheon.

Review by William Schwartz. William Schwartz is an American currently living in Gyeongju, South Korea, where he studies Korean and themes in Korean media.

CELEBRITY NEWS

Ryu Seung-ryong gifts movie daughter Park Shin-hye with food truck

by girlfriday | January 31, 2013 |

So. Much. Cuteness. Why is this man so full of win? Ryu Seung-ryong has another hit movie on his hands, the heartwarming comedy The Gift of Room 7, where he plays a jailbird dad to Park Shin-hye (and her childhood version, Gal So-won, pictured above). And just to be a good dad to his movie daughter, he sent a food truck to the set of Park Shin-hye’s current drama, Flower Boy Next Door. Adorable.

It’s common practice for celebs (and fans) to send each other food trucks to feed the cast and crew of their latest projects, but it’s especially endearing when they’re from movie parents. Of all the ways to promote a movie, it’s definitely one of the sweetest. The banner reads: “Ryu Seung-ryong is buying for his daughter! Our Shin-hye has to eat rice. Rice~” (mimicking his character’s funny speech pattern). He even visited the drama set in person to deliver the late-night food truck, and Park Shin-hye tweeted that she was especially thankful, on a day when her character Dok-mi was crying. Awwww.

The Gift of Room 7 stars Ryu Seung-ryong as a man with the intelligence of a 6-year old, who gets convicted for murder and sent to a maximum security prison where he’s assigned to Room 7, home to the meanest baddest baddies around. But the group of hardened criminals starts to take care of their new childlike roommate, and decide to help him fulfill his only wish: to break his daughter into prison, so he can be with her. It’s a daddy-daughter heartwarmer and a zany comedy, and I can’t wait to watch it.

It opened in first place at the box office and sold over 2.5 million tickets in its first week, proving that Ryu Seung-ryong is on one crazy hot streak these days. The Gift of Room 7is in theaters now.

Via DongA

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