General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Voice of Silence (소리도 없이)

Voice of Silence (소리도 없이; literal title "Without a Sound") is a 2020 South Korean crime drama written and directed by Hong Eui-jeong in her feature debut, about two men who clean up crime scenes for criminal organizations and are left holding a kidnapped 11-year-old girl when their client turns up dead.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	Hong Eui-jeong, her first feature film²
Release / runtime	October 15, 2020; 99 minutes; rated 15 in South Korea³
Distributor	Acemaker Movie Works¹
Lead cast	Yoo Ah-in (Tae-in, a mute cleaner), Yoo Jae-myung (Chang-bok), Moon Seung-ah (Cho-hee)⁴
Genre	Crime, drama³
Awards	2021 Baeksang Arts Awards Best Director and Best Actor; 2021 Blue Dragon Film Awards Best New Director and Best Leading Actor; 2021 Fantasia Cheval Noir for Best Film and Best Actor¹
Box office	1,084 screens; 403,424 admissions; total gross $2,657,486³

Spoilers

Plot

Tae-in (Yoo Ah-in), who lost his voice, and Chang-bok (Yoo Jae-myung) make their living cleaning up crime scenes for criminal organizations, disposing of bodies after killings. By day the two sell eggs from a truck; at the murder scene they work methodically in hair caps, raincoats, and rubber gloves. Chang-bok, a devout man who prays before each job and recites scripture to rationalize his work, handles the talking; Tae-in says nothing at all.³^•⁵

One day their regular client, the organization official Yong-seok, pays them a large sum to look after an abducted 11-year-old girl, Cho-hee (Moon Seung-ah), for a short time. When they try to return her the next day, Yong-seok is found dead, and Tae-in and Chang-bok suddenly find themselves the girl's kidnappers.¹^•⁶ Cho-hee, who was abducted in place of her brother, keeps her composure and plays the dutiful "good girl," even caring for Tae-in's younger sister. As Tae-in begins to open up to her, Chang-bok, who left to collect the ransom, goes out of contact.³

Production

Hong Eui-jeong wrote and directed the film, her feature debut. Born in 1982, she graduated from the Korean National University of Arts in 2005 and completed a master's degree at the London Film School in 2012; her short Better Than Tomorrow won the best student film award at the London Short Film Festival in 2016.⁷ The screenplay was a 2016 finalist for Venice Biennale College Cinema, the Venice International Film Festival program supporting first or second features, alongside Ali Abbasi's Border.² The feature grew out of her short film Habitat (서식지), which was invited to the Wide Angle Korean Short Competition of the 2018 Busan International Film Festival.²

Filming began on July 29, 2019 and finished on October 31, 2019.¹ For the role of the wordless Tae-in, Yoo Ah-in shaved his head and gained 15 kg; director Hong asked him to play the character like "a gorilla whose territory has been invaded" and sent him gorilla video links as reference. Yoo Jae-myung's Chang-bok contrasts by talking constantly.⁵

In an interview, Hong said she had long been interested in the theme of survival: "what I wanted to express in Voice of Silence was a story of survival."⁸

Reception and awards

Korean critics highlighted the interplay between the two leads and the film's handling of crime without exhibiting violence, with praise for the direction in balancing drama, thriller, and the dry humor characteristic of Korean productions.⁹^•⁷ The film won 21 awards at national and international festivals after its 2020 release, concentrated in the categories of Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Debut Director, which it took up to six times.⁷

At the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards in 2021, Hong Eui-jeong won Best Director and Yoo Ah-in won Best Actor. At the 41st Blue Dragon Film Awards (held February 9, 2021), Yoo Ah-in won Best Actor and Hong won Best New Director.¹ At the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, the film won the Cheval Noir Award for Best Feature and Best Actor.¹⁰ It was also nominated at the Udine Far East Film Festival and the Fribourg International Film Festival's international competition, and screened at festivals including Glasgow, the Korean Film Festival in Hungary, Transilvania, and Seattle.¹⁰^•³ The 15th Asian Film Awards listed it among the year's honored works.¹¹

Box office and distribution

The film opened on October 15, 2020 on 1,084 screens and sold 403,424 admissions for a total gross of $2,657,486.³ A Korean Film Council year-end ranking placed it 20th among 2020 domestic releases with 403,530 admissions and ₩3,559,504,900 in sales, on 1,084 screens.¹²

As of late 2026 the film streams free with advertisements on The Roku Channel, Tubi TV, Xumo Play, and Amazon Prime Video Free with Ads; it is not available on Netflix in the United States.⁴^•¹³ Aggregated ratings sit in the modest-to-strong range: IMDb 6.5, Letterboxd 3.5, and TMDB 7.4.¹⁴

Note on a same-title film

A separate Armenian drama titled The Voice of Silence, directed by Vigen Chaldranyan and running 1 hour 59 minutes, is a different work with no connection to the Korean film.¹⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026