South Korea · Film · 2015
The Chronicles of Evil
Synopsis
Choi Chang Sik, a decorated homicide detective up for a major promotion, kills a taxi driver in self-defense during an attack on an isolated mountain road. Rather than report what happened, he covers up the scene and leaves, unwilling to let the incident derail the career he has spent years building.
Rookie detective Cha Dong Jae grows suspicious of Chang Sik's behavior as he quietly tries to steer the resulting investigation away from himself. The pressure increases when a former actor, Jin Kyu, turns himself in and threatens to expose Chang Sik unless he reopens a years-old cyanide poisoning case at an illegal casino, a case that once sent an innocent, intellectually disabled man to prison on fabricated testimony.
As Chang Sik is forced to dig back into the old poisoning case to protect himself, the investigation uncovers that Jin Kyu is the wrongfully convicted man's son, seeking revenge for what was done to his father, while Dong Jae's own connection to the case runs far deeper than his partner realizes. What begins as Chang Sik trying to bury one crime unravels into a second, older cover-up, with both detectives forced to answer for what they have each been hiding.
The Chronicles of Evil cast
Themes and messages
Director and writer Baek Woon-hak has described the film as situation-driven: the story is built around watching how its characters react once they are trapped by circumstance, and he says he cut any scene that risked losing that tension, even ones he liked (press screening, May 2015, eToday).
Baek has also said he did not originally attach much meaning to the title Akui Yeondaegi ("Chronicles of Evil"); it was only while working through the story, asking why the characters ended up where they did, that he came to see the title as fitting the film's core idea (interview, eDaily, May 2015).
The plot centers on a decorated detective who covers up a killing and is then assigned to investigate his own crime, a case tangled with an earlier wrongful conviction of a mentally disabled man. The premise itself foregrounds guilt, institutional cover-up, and who the system protects versus who it sacrifices.
Interesting facts
- The film was director Baek Woon-hak's first feature in 12 years, following his 2003 debut Tube. It topped Tube's entire theatrical run (468,000 admissions) within its own opening weekend (Variety, May 18, 2015).
- It opened at #1 with $6.33 million and 853,000 admissions over its first Thursday-to-Sunday run, ending Avengers: Age of Ultron's 22-day reign atop the Korean box office (Variety, May 18, 2015).
- Baek Woon-hak has said he did not set out to make the title carry special weight, but came to see it as fitting the story only while working on the film (eDaily, May 2015).
- The film was remade in Turkey as Kin (released internationally as Grudge), which streamed on Netflix (Wikipedia).
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