Innocence: A recap
In my love for many things Korean, I have taken to watching Korean variety shows (in addition to their dramas, movies and music, I should reconsider my nationality, right?). It was in one of these shows that I heard about the movie, “Innocence”. The show had featured Bae Jong-ok and Shin Hye-sun, two amazing actresses whose dramas I have seen.
Innocence, a 2020 crime film based on a true story, centers around Ahn Jung-in, a lawyer, as she defends her mother on trial for murder. The movie opens as a man, Mayor Chu, walks into a funeral. It seems the funeral is that of a man, Ahn Tae-soo. Mayor Chu walks to a table of men who are drinking, making toasts and asking about Mayor Chu’s governorship campaign (at a funeral I must add!)
Mayor Chu goes to pay his respects to the widow, Chae Hwa-ja, and soon gets stuck trying to separate a fight between the widow and her sister-in-law who keeps talking ill of the widow’s daughter. In the middle of this commotion, some men, including Mayor Chu, suddenly start vomiting and then faint. Ambulances are called to the scene.
We are then taken to a court room. It is here that we meet our female lead, lawyer Ahn Jung-in, as she defends a man who killed his wife and wins. After the court proceeding, Jung-in asks the president of her firm to become selective of the cases they take, as defending thugs would eventually make them thugs. It is right here that she sees the news the incident at the funeral. It seems the rice-wine served at the funeral had been spiked with pesticide and one of the people poisoned had died. A closer look at the news shows that the woman being arrested is the widow, who is Jung-in’s mother. Once Jung-in recognizes her mother she leaves the office immediately and makes her way to Daecheon, the crime scene and her hometown.
As Jung-in drives, she recalls some not so fun memories that had led to her leaving the town. The relationship between Jung-in and the deceased Ahn Tae-soo, her father, had been a rocky one, to say the least. She had gotten admission to study Law at Seoul National University (a school very difficult to get into) and needed the seal of her father. Knowing that he would not willingly do it, she had stolen his stamp and sealed her recommendation letter. Unfortunately for her, her father had come into the room at that time and caught her red-handed. After beating her up, he had torn her recommendation letter into bits while promising her that she would not be able to do anything she wanted until he died (Be careful what you wish for). Her mother had barely managed to get him out of the room. When she tried to plead with her mother (probably for the recommendation letter) she was told to wait until later (sounds like never to me). Feeling like that was the last straw, Jung-in had slit her wrists in an attempt to take her life. She was fortunately seen by her mother who bandages her wrists in tears. As soon as she was strong enough, Jung-in had packed her bag and left in the middle of the night and with that we are brought back to the present.
Her first stop is to visit her mother, who is now in detention. To her surprise, her mother does not seem to recognize her. She does not even seem to know where she is, let alone the events that led to her coming there. Seeing her state, Jung-in introduces herself as a lawyer and asks her about the rice-wine poisoning. She has no idea what Jung-in is talking about and is visibly worried for her son Jung-su.
Jung-in then heads over to the crime scene, her former home, where a very rude policeman asks her to leave. She introduces herself as a lawyer and family of the deceased while handing him her card. The policeman seems to know her and is also the son of one of the poisoned men. Jung-su is seen running around the crime scene tampering with it and the policemen are just a step away from hitting him. From his behavior, we are let in on his autism.
At the first court hearing, Jung-in sees her mother’s defense attorney doing a very terrible job of defending her (being a lawyer herself she must find this very annoying). Outside the court room she angrily asks the lawyer why he was doing such a terrible job and he is very quick to drop the case citing the poor payment (good riddance).
As her mother’s new attorney, she tries to investigate but only gets very angry and hostile people, doors slammed in her face and even gets splashed by water. Only one relative of hers seems to be forthcoming with information and lets her know that people only became mean to her family because of a mine scam her father was involved in.
In court she tries to get her mother released from police custody by trying to discredit the signed confession and the witness who had earlier come forward. Unknown to her it seems someone else is pulling the strings. Mayor Chu (who unfortunately is still healthy having taken just a sip of the rice wine at the funeral) is seen insisting that everything be done to ensure that Hwa-ja, Jung-in’s mother is not released from detention. He is soon informed by his right-hand man, the terrible lawyer, (why am I not surprised?) that he needs to head to the hospital (seems he has an act to put up).
Mayor Chu succeeds in making the Chief prosecutor prevent the release of Jung-in’s mother. As Jung-in continues her investigation she meets Wang-yong, a former classmate of hers who is now a cop. He takes her to the police station and shows her a footage of her mother, very soaked, claiming that her husband was a murder and Mayor Chu and his friends were all in on it. Although Jung-in dismisses the incident as a display of her mother’s dementia, she finds out nothing significant had happened in the town except the proposed building of a casino.
As Jung-in continues her investigation, she soon is able to confidently tie Mayor Chu, the shady lawyer and the Chief prosecutor together. She also discovers a picture torn in shreds. This leads her to discover a shocking story. It seems Chae Hwa-ja, Jung-in’s mother, had been married to a man called Lim Choon-woo, the son of a quarry owner. Ahn Tae-soo (Jung-in’s father), Chu In-hwe (who became Mayor Chu) and some other of their friends had worked for Choon-woo’s father. They all conspired and drowned Lim Choon-woo in other to take over the quarry. After Choon-woo’s death, Ahn Tae-soo had taken over as the manager of the quarry. When the news of her husband’s death reached her, the then pregnant Hwa-ja had attempted suicide only to be rescued by Ahn Tae-soo who promised to marry her and take care of the child as his own (it seems he did not take this promise to heart.)
Ahn Tae-soo, as the new quarry manager, soon discovered that the quarry had little minerals left. The geologist at the site then informed him of a piece of land where gold had been found. He then raised money to buy the piece of land by pooling funds from the villagers. Not too long after, he discovered that this was a lie. In his last attempt to succeed, he tried to run for the post of mayor. After doing all the dirty work, his friend, Chu In-hwe with the help of his other friends, betrayed him and had stolen his nomination.
Jung-in tries very hard to get Mayor Chu to appear in court, where she exposes the fact that he was actually behind the gold mine scam. The parcel of land bought by Ahn Tae-soo in search of gold, had belonged to the family of Mayor Chu’s wife and the geologist who had given the false tip turned out to be his wife’s cousin acting under Mayor Chu’s instruction. She also exposes the fact that Mayor Chu had received his funds for his governorship campaign under the condition of the casino permit. This enrages the townspeople in the court room as they were also victims of the gold mine scam. When he tries to talk his way out of the charges, she leans closer and casually drops Lim Choon-won’s name and that shuts him right up.
She concludes by naming a new suspect, the late Ahn Tae-soo claiming he knew he was near death and wanted to exact his revenge. Her statement seems to hold some water as the only people who seem to have been poisoned were only the people who had betrayed him. With the aid of her brother, she manages to get the court to find her mother not guilty. Mayor Chu is in a bit of a situation as the police starts investigating the issue of his illegal election funds (He messed with the wrong person).
The twist of the movie is seen close to the end as we see that Jung-in’s mother did in fact poison them in a brief period of lucidity to avenge her murdered husband. The movie ends with a flashback of a sweet moment between Jung-in as a child and her mother.
Innocence shows the cruel and mean world in lenses that are not so black and white. Hwa-ja committed murder but as Jung-in said she had already paid for it. If you are ready to have your heart torn out and then handed to you, Innocence is just right.
Thank you.
