New Trial (재심)
New Trial (재심; also romanized Jaesim) is a 2017 South Korean courtroom drama film directed and written by Kim Tae-yun, starring Jung Woo as a debt-ridden lawyer and Kang Ha-neul as a young man wrongfully convicted of murder who seeks a retrial.1 It is based on the 2000 Iksan Yakchon Junction (약촌오거리) taxi driver murder case in North Jeolla Province, in which a teenage boy was convicted on a coerced confession and served about ten years in prison before being exonerated through a real retrial.2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 재심 (Jaesim, "retrial")1 |
| Director and writer | Kim Tae-yun (김태윤)1 |
| Release | February 15, 2017 (South Korea); some listings give February 163 • 1 |
| Runtime and rating | 118 minutes per KOFIC (119 minutes per AsianWiki); rated 15 and over3 • 1 |
| Basis | The 2000 Yakchon Junction taxi driver murder in Iksan; the driver was stabbed 12 times and found dead around 2 a.m. on August 10, 20002 |
| Box office | 2,421,197 total admissions and $13,961,101 gross on 935 screens (KOFIC figure)3 |
| Production | IDIOPLAN; distributed by Opus Pictures and CGV Arthouse; filmed July 17 to October 3, 20161 • 4 |
Spoilers
Plot
A 40-year-old taxi driver is found dead at Yakcheon. Hyun-woo (Kang Ha-neul), a teenager who witnessed the crime, is charged with the murder despite his protests of innocence and serves ten years in prison. After his release he tries to live quietly with his mother, but the stigma of being a convicted murderer follows him.3
Meanwhile, lawyer Joon-young (Jung Woo) has just lost a large class action suit and is heavily in debt, so he takes a job at a law firm. While handling pro bono cases arranged by the firm, he meets Hyun-woo, and the two begin the effort to prove Hyun-woo's innocence.3 In the film's telling, Joon-young initially sees the case as a chance for fame and advancement, but as he digs into the investigation he recovers a sense of justice, while Hyun-woo regains hope.1 Kim Hae-sook plays Hyun-woo's mother Soon-im, with Lee Dong-hwi, Han Jae-young, Lee Kyoung-young, Kim So-jin, Min Jin-woong, and Lee Jung-eun in supporting roles.1 • 5
The real case behind the film
The film reconstructs the murder of a taxi driver at the Yakchon Junction in Iksan, North Jeolla Province. According to Yonhap News, the driver was found dead after being stabbed 12 times around 2 a.m. on August 10, 2000, and the 15-year-old boy who first witnessed the crime was driven by coercive police investigation into being treated as the culprit.2 AsianWiki's production notes state the boy was arrested and confessed after a violent interrogation.1
The real exoneration unfolded while the film was being made. The actual victim, identified in Korean press as Mr. Choi, petitioned for a retrial in 2013; the court decided to open the retrial in 2015; and in November 2016, sixteen years after the crime, he received an acquittal.2 Director Kim Tae-yun said he wrote the scenario convinced of Choi's innocence even though the trial was still ongoing during shooting.2
The real lawyer. The character Joon-young is modeled on Park Joon-young, the human rights lawyer who argued the actual retrial.6 Park later became a public figure in his own right, appearing on television programs including tvN's You Quiz on the Block and SBS's I Want to Know That, and writing the book Delayed Justice (지연된 정의).7 The case also reached the public through SBS's investigative documentary I Want to Know That (그것이 알고 싶다), which covered it in two episodes, on June 15, 2013 (episode 898) and July 18, 2015 (episode 994).8 Director Kim has said the film project began at the suggestion of an SBS reporter who had covered the case.9
Production and release
Kim Tae-yun had said after his previous fact-based film Another Family (2014), about a legal battle between Samsung Semiconductor and employees diagnosed with leukemia, that he did not want to make another investigative film; he changed his mind after hearing the Yakchon case described as too unjust to leave unfilmed.10 • 2 Filming ran from July 17 to October 3, 2016.1 Kang Ha-neul prepared the Jeolla dialect for his role by sending lines to friends living in Jeonju for correction.11
At the European Film Market in 2017 the film sold to New Select for Japan, Lemon Tree for China, Deltamac for Hong Kong, and One Demand Korea (ODK) for North America.12 It screened in competition at the Udine Far East Film Festival (2017), was selected for the Thriller Competition and the Film Critics Selection at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (2018), and played at the Paris Korean Film Festival (2017), the Korean Film Festival in Australia (2017), and the Frankfurt Korean Film Festival (2017); it also received the Kreative Thinking Award at the 2017 Korean Film Producers Association Awards.3
Box office and reception
The film opened at number one at the South Korean box office. Over its first weekend (February 18–19, 2017) it drew 596,000 admissions, a 34.1 percent share of box office revenue, and it passed one million admissions in five days.13 KOFIC's database records 2,421,197 total admissions and a gross of $13,961,101 on 935 screens.3
Reviewers highlighted the lead performances. Yonhap's review credited Jung Woo with portraying a lawyer who moves from chasing money and success toward understanding the meaning of law, and Kang Ha-neul with a convincing portrait of a man living under the mark of "murderer" who recovers his will to live; the review also noted that the film, unlike earlier hit fact-based courtroom films such as Silenced (2011) and Unbowed (2011), focuses more on the characters' psychological change and growth than on the crime itself.2 • 14 A scholarly comparison of Korean and Chinese courtroom cinema places New Trial in the lineage of Korean courtroom and social-issue films, describing it as converting public anger into rational trust in institutions through its depiction of procedural restoration.15
References
- New Trial, AsianWiki
- 정우·강하늘의 열연이 빚어낸 감동 실화 '재심', 연합뉴스 (2017)
- New Trial (2017), Korean Film Council (KOFIC) database
- 재심(영화), Seore (Korean film database)
- New Trial (DVD) (2-Disc) (First Press Limited Edition) (Korea Version), YESASIA
- 약촌오거리 살인사건 담은 재심, 대한민국 정의의 현주소, 한국경제 (2017)
- 2025학년도 인문사회부 문화콘텐츠 특강 안내 (강사: 박준영 변호사)
- 2016 그리스도인의 영화이야기: 재심
- 실화 소재 영화 '재심' 속 숨겨진 이야기, SBS 뉴스 (2017)
- Review: "New Trial," Starring Kang Ha Neul And Jung Woo, Soompi (2017)
- 영화 재심에 담긴 '약촌오거리 살인사건'의 진실, 오마이스타 (2017)
- NEW TRIAL Sets Global Court Dates, Korean Film Council News (2017)
- 실화의 힘 '재심' 닷새만에 100만 돌파…첫 주말 1위, 연합뉴스 (2017)
- 배우들의 호연, 인물의 성장 과정이 돋보이는 영화 '재심', 경기일보 (2017)
- 재심과 제20조에 나타난 한중 사법영화의 절차적 복원, 감정 통치와 법적 정당성 구축, 한국언어문화학회 저널
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2015 to 2019 › Drama films 2017 and 2018
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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