Bleak Night


Bleak Night is a 2010 South Korean coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Yoon Sung-hyun. The film is about a father's search for answers following his son's death, and the shifting dynamics at play among three high-school friends. A Korean Academy of Film Arts graduation project by Yoon Sung-hyun, it received rave reviews and won several Best New Actor awards for Lee Je-hoon, as well as Best New Director for Yoon at the Grand Bell Awards and Busan Film Critics Awards.

Plot

Still mystified by his son's death, the father of high school student Ki-tae tries to track down his two best friends, classmates Hee-joon and Dong-yoon, to try to find an explanation. Through Ki-tae's classmate Jae-ho, the father meets Hee-joon, who says he cannot help as he moved schools "weeks before what happened to Ki-tae." Afterwards, Hee-joon berates Jae-ho for giving his phone number to Ki-tae's father but Jae-ho tells him that Ki-tae "went crazy" after he moved away. Hee-joon manages to trace Dong-yoon and urges him to contact Ki-tae's father and provide some answers. In parallel, flashbacks to the time gradually reveal what really happened, starting with Ki-tae's needling and bullying of Hee-joon and the latter's response.

Cast