Miracle in Cell No. 7 | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Hangul | 7 |
Hanja | 7의 |
Revised Romanization | Chilbeonbangui Seonmul |
McCune–Reischauer | Ch‘ilpŏnbang ŭi Sŏnmull |
Directed by | Lee Hwan-kyung |
Produced by | Kim Min-ki Lee Sang-hun |
Written by | Lee Hwan-kyung Yu Young-a Kim Hwang-sung Kim Young-seok |
Starring |
Ryu Seung-ryong Kal So-won Park Shin-hye |
Music by | Lee Dong-jun |
Cinematography | Kang Seung-gi |
Edited by | Choi Jae-geun Kim So-yeon |
Production
company |
Fineworks/CL Entertainment
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Distributed by | Next Entertainment World |
Release date
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Running time
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127 minutes |
Country | South Korea |
Language | Korean |
Box office | US$80,298,551 |
Miracle in Cell No. 7 (Hangul: 7번방의 선물; RR: 7beonbangui Seonmul; lit. "A Gift from Room 7") is a 2013 South Korean film starring Ryu Seung-ryong, Kal So-won and Park Shin-hye. The film is a heartwarming comedy and family melodrama about a mentally challenged man wrongfully imprisoned for murder, who builds friendships with the hardened criminals in his cell, and in return they help him see his daughter again by smuggling her into the prison.
The film's early working title was December 23 (Hangul: 12월 23일).
Lee Yong-go is a mentally impaired father with the intellect of a six-year-old, who lives in a run-down house along with his daughter Ye-seung. One day, he gets into a physical altercation with the police commissioner, who has just purchased the last Sailor Moon backpack for his daughter, a gift Yong-go was saving up to buy for Ye-seung. Soon after, the police commissioner's daughter dies in a freak accident, in which she slips on ice and suffers a fatal blow to the back of her head while she is taking Yong-go to another store that sells the same backpack. When he tries to resuscitate her, a woman witnesses him and mistakes him to be molesting her. Yong-go is falsely accused of the abduction, murder, and rape of a minor. The police quickly take advantage of his disability and force him to admit to the crimes, while ignoring exonerating evidence. Yong-go is imprisoned and assigned to Cell No. 7, the harshest cell in a maximum security prison.
At first, the other men in the cell, led by gang leader So Yang-ho, do not take kindly to Yong-go after reading in his file that he murdered and molested a child. However, when Yong-go saves Yang-ho from being fatally stabbed by a rival gang leader, Yang-ho repays the favor by smuggling Ye-seung into Cell No. 7. The Cell No. 7 inmates slowly befriend Yong-go and believe that he is a good man who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They help Yong-go rehearse his trial. Eventually, even the head prison warden, Jang Min-hwan, who is initially harsh to Yong-go but softens up when the latter saves him from an arson attack, realizes that Yong-go is merely cornered into admitting a false guilt. He takes custody of Ye-seung and allows her to visit her father every afternoon.