Driving home after his mother’s funeral, special crimes detective, Gun-su, is
startled when someone jumps out in
front of him onto the road. With no time
to avoid the person Gun-su runs them
down. A cop causing a person’s death,
even accidentally, is not going to end
well for anyone so in a panic Gun-su
comes up with a plan to hide the body
in in his mother’s coffin. A few days pass
and it looks as if he was gotten off scot-free until he receives an anonymous
call from someone who witnessed everything. However this witness/wannabe
blackmailer does not want money but
wants to know the location of the body.
Gun-su problems escalate when the hit
and run pops up on the police database with his partner being assigned the
case. Gun-su has to juggle the blackmailer’s demands, stopping his partner from solving the case and staying alive
as each attempt to cover up his crime
becomes more and more dangerous.

A Hard Day is Korea’s most sus-
penseful thriller of the year drawing
huge crowds in its native Korea and
praise in the Director’s Fortnight at the
Cannes Film Festival this year. The film
is the director’s second film after debuting in 2006 with How the Lack of
Love Affects Two Men, a thoroughly different type of film but holds the running
theme of blackmail. Taking the lead is
actor Lee Sung-kyun who first made
a name for himself as the star of the
Rocky Horror Picture Show musical be-
fore wowing audiences in a number of
successful comedies and Hong Sang-soo films.