A Day Off


A Day Off is a South Korean drama film directed by Lee Man-hee. Shot and completed in 1968 but not released due to censorship, it opened to the public in 2005, 37 years later, after the original print was rediscovered during the reorganization of the Korean Film Archive's warehouse. Regarded as one of the masterpieces of 1960s Korean film and its representative modernist film, A Day Off was selected near the top of the top 100 Korean films list in 2014.

Plot

One winter Sunday, a penniless young man named Huh Wook sets off to meet his beloved Ji-yeon. Unable to start a family, Ji-yeon, who is pregnant, needs an abortion. Huh Wook meets his friends to get money but ends up stealing from a friend when all his friends refuse to lend him and runs away. While Ji-yeon is in hospital, Huh Wook wastes time at a bar with another woman and spends the night together. When he wakes up and remembers Ji-yeon who is lying in hospital, he runs back to the hospital only to discover she has died during the surgery. He goes to tell her father but is turned away at the doorstep. His friend whose money he has stolen catches him and beats him up. With blood streaming down his face, he runs down the dark streets and reminisces the happy times he had with Ji-yeon.

Cast