Forgotten (2017 film)

Forgotten is a 2017 South Korean mystery thriller film directed by Jang Hang-jun.[2][3][4] The film stars Kang Ha-neul, Kim Mu-yeol, Moon Sung-keun and Na Young-hee.[5][6]

Forgotten
Theatrical release poster
Hangul기억의 밤
Revised RomanizationGieokui Bam
Directed byJang Hang-jun
Produced byPark Joon-shik
Written byJang Hang-jun
StarringKang Ha-neul
Kim Mu-yeol
Moon Sung-keun
Na Young-hee
Production
company
B.A. Entertainment
Distributed byMegabox Plus M
Release date
  • November 29, 2017 (2017-11-29) (South Korea)
Running time
109 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
Box officeUS$9.9 million[1]

Plot

Jin-seok, a young man, moves to a new house with his mother, father, and older brother Yoo-seok. Things seem off to Jin-seok in their new home. One rainy night he witnesses the abduction of Yoo-seok, being dragged into a car. Nineteen days pass and suddenly, Yoo-seok returns. Jin begins noticing discrepancies in his family's personality. He then realizes that they are not his family at all, but people pretending to be his family. He escapes the house and goes to the police. When he tells them he is 21 years old, the officer, skeptical, asks him what year it is. He replies that it's 1997; the officer reveals that it is actually 2017. Jin is, in fact, 41 years old.

A shocked Jin looks around and sees signs of modern life: a tablet, a smartphone; an LED flat-screen TV showing the current South Korean President Moon Jae-in and United States President Donald Trump. He leaves confused, but is captured by the same "family" that was holding him captive. The young man pretending to be his brother, "Yoo-seok," tells Jin that twenty years ago, a teenage girl and her mother were murdered. The case went cold, so the family of the victims hired "Yoo-seok" to find the murderer, Jin. In flashbacks, it is shown that Jin was abducted and tortured to confess, but maintained his innocence. A psychiatrist suggested that he had repressed his memory because the event was too traumatic. The team has the psychiatrist hypnotize him back to his last happy memory in 1997, figuring that if they could re-enact the events of the murder, Jin might be able to recover his memories and tell them what happened. Everything was going as planned, until the night when Jin saw Yoo-seok being abducted. He was actually being arrested for fraud, and was gone for 19 days because that's how long he was in jail. Back in the present, Jin escapes the van and the young man crashes, while Jin is struck by a stranger's car, resulting in him regaining his memories from 1997.

In 1997, the opening scene from the film is shown, except this time, Jin is with his real parents and older brother, Yoo-seok. They get into a car accident that kills his parents and critically injures his brother. Jin desperately needs money for Yoo-seok's surgery, but times are hard, due to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. He goes online seeking a job, and is messaged by an anonymous person, telling Jin he will pay him to kill someone's wife, but he must leave the two children unharmed. Arriving at the house, Jin's conscience doesn't allow him to go through with it. He is about to leave when the mother sees him, then the daughter, who starts screaming, and Jin ends up killing them both. The youngest child, a little boy, comes out, and Jin tells him to go back to bed. As he leaves, he discovers that this is actually the family of his brother's doctor.

Jin meets with the anonymous man, who is indeed Yoo-seok's doctor, demanding to know why the man would have his own family killed. The doctor explains that the financial crisis had bankrupted him; he had taken out multiple insurance policies on his wife to keep his children from becoming homeless. Since Jin not only killed his wife but also his daughter, the doctor says Yoo-seok will die as well. A struggle ensues and the doctor is accidentally pushed to his death.

In the present, Jin wakes up in a hospital. The young man who had pulled Jin into the van survived the crash, and was now about to kill him with a poisonous needle, but Jin informs him that his memory has returned. The young man reveals that he was the little boy in the house twenty years ago, when Jin killed his mother and sister. After the deaths of his parents and sister, his relatives took all the money and left him to grow up in an orphanage. He begs Jin to tell him why he hadn't killed him too, and whether the murders were planned by his father. A distraught Jin lies, taking full responsibility, but the young man doesn't believe him.

Jin, now aware that he had in fact committed the murders, uses the poisonous needle to kill himself; simultaneously, the young man comes to terms with the murder of his family, and also commits suicide, jumping out of a hospital window.

The film flashes back to 1997. Jin's family is at the lake. Jin is stopped by a little boy, who offers him a lollipop. After he politely declines, the boy runs to his family. It is shown that it was the doctor's family.

Cast

Production

Principal photography began on March 11, 2017 and ended on June 8, 2017.[7][5] For the film's premise, Jang Hang-jun took inspiration from a story told to him by a friend, who recalled how his cousin left home for about a month and seemed liked a radically different person when he returned.[8] Jang also drew inspiration from French folktale Bluebeard.[8]

Release

The film was released in South Korea on November 29, 2017.[9]

After the local release, Forgotten was released on Netflix and available to 190 countries.[10][11]

References
  1. "Forgotten (2017)". koreanfilm.or.kr.
  2. "기억의 밤". naver.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  3. "Daum영화 <기억의 밤>". daum.net. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  4. "영화 [기억의 밤] 상세정보". cine21.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  5. "KANG Ha-neul, GIM Mu-yeol Finish NIGHT OF MEMORIES". www.koreanfilm.or.kr. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  6. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20171210000277
  7. "KoBiz - Global Film Biz Zone". www.kobiz.or.kr. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  8. "Interview: Jang Hang-jun talks Forgotten". FilmDoo. 2018-05-03. Retrieved 2018-08-16.
  9. "[공식] 강하늘X김무열 '기억의 밤' 11월 29일 개봉 확정". sports.chosun.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  10. "'Recall the Night' to be released in 190 countries on Netflix". Yonhap News Agency. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  11. "Netflix Picks up South Korean Mystery Thriller 'Forgotten'". The Hollywood Reporter.
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