The Attorney

In early eighties Busan, Song Woo-seok has grown wealthy as a lawyer handling tax work and has no interest in politics. When the son of a woman he knows is detained as a communist and tortured, he takes the case. The courtroom changes him entirely. Yang Woo-seok directed. Song Kang-ho plays Song Woo-seok. The source is real: the Burim case of 1981 and the lawyer who argued it, Roh Moo-hyun, later president of South Korea. The film changed the names but the events are recognisable. The trial scenes are the centre, particularly the long, unbroken section with the witness who confirms the torture. It was a major event in Korea, drawing over eleven million admissions, and the political argument ran at the same scale. Song Kang-ho starts the character deliberately unlikeable, which is what makes the change convincing. Who it is for: viewers who like courtroom drama and recent history. Who it is not for: anyone unprepared for torture scenes; the film does not avoid showing them.