2037

Yoon-young is nineteen and wants to be a civil servant. She lives with her mother, who cannot speak. One day a man attacks her. Defending herself, she kills him. The court does not listen and she is sentenced. She enters the women's wing. Her number is 2037. There are other women inside; each has a story and most are here for similar reasons. At first she speaks to nobody. Then one woman teaches her to read and write, another puts food aside for her. Outside, her mother waits and cannot come. Mo Hong-jin directs. Hong Ye-ji plays Yoon-young; Kim Ji-young, Kim Mi-hwa and Hwang Seok-jeong are in the cast. It is a South Korean production and runs a hundred and twenty six minutes. The film opened on 8 June 2022. It is Hong Ye-ji's first acting work. The matter it treats is self defence not being accepted; the film passes quickly over the legal process and looks at what follows. The narrative does not build the prison as a place of horror; there is little violence and the relationships come forward. The narrative does not leave the women as one type and gives each a short story. The communication between mother and daughter is in sign, and those passages are its quietest. The ending gives no release and the situation does not change. Its limit is method; the narrative is slow, the emotional steering high, and the ending unresolved. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean drama and prison narratives. Who it is not for: it is slow, heavy, and the ending bitter.