‘In Our Prime’ is a drama that follows Ji-Woo, a student from a low-income family in a prestigious private high-school. By chance, the boy meets Hak-Sung, the school security guard. Having difficulties with his grades, Ji-Woo asks Hak-Sung to teach him. The two become close, but that friendship is threatened after an incident at the school.
Being a welfare child, Ji-Woo is shown as an outcast, finding it hard to fit in and his grades not measuring up to the school standards. Ji-Woo is caught by Hak-Sung one night as he tries to sneak alcohol into the school for his classmates, and Ji-Woo is banned from his dorm for a month.
With nowhere to go, Ji-Woo stays with Hak-Sung in his security guard post. Hak-Sung is also revealed to be a defector from North Korea. Discovering his math homework to have been completed the next day, Ji-Woo returns to Hak-Sung and asks him to teach him mathematics. The two grow closer and over time Ji-Woo’s grades improve.
Park Bo-Ram, Ji-Woo’s classmate, discovers Ji-Woo and Hak-Sung’s study sessions, but agrees not to tell anyone. In preparation for the Pythagoras Award, a math assessment that has replaced the year’s final examination, Hak-Sung is recognized by a fellow North Korean defector in a bookshop.
Soon, Hak-Sung is pestered by his handler and invited by the media to give a presentation on his work regarding a proposed solution to the Riemann Hypothesis, after his presence in South Korea comes to light. Concurrently, Ji-Woo is forced by his home-room and class math teacher to transfer out of the private high-school, in an attempt to use Ji-Woo as a scapegoat in the recently leaked Pythagoras Award exam questions.
Unwilling to present his proposed solution on television, Hak-Sung instead goes to the Pythagoras Award ceremony, and is allowed to speak to the audience. Hak-Sung vindicates Ji-Woo and exposes his home room teacher to have been the one to leak the exam questions. The film closes on the two meeting years later to work together on a mathematical problem.
‘In Our Prime’ is a quiet drama that explores the relationship between Hak-Sung and Ji-Woo. Initiated by Ji-Woo seeking help in studying mathematics, Hak-Sung takes pity on the student after learning that he is from a low-income family. As the two spend more time together, Hak-Sung starts seeing a resemblance between Ji-Woo and his son, who Hak-Sung had lost after the two defected but his son tried to get back into North Korea and was subsequently shot.
Likewise, Ji-Woo starts seeing Hak-Sung as a father figure. With his father having died when Ji-Woo was only six, the boy looks up to Hak-Sung and appreciates not only his knowledge in maths, but also appreciates his advice.
The relationship inevitably breaks down when it comes to light that Hak-Sung is a mathematical genius and has been trying to hide this side of himself from the world and himself. Fundamentally, the film explores how Hak-Sung has to deal with the altercation that lead to the death of his son, where he had blamed Hak-Sung’s obsession with his work for the dissolution of their family.
Ultimately overcoming his past, Hak-Sung does the right thing and returns to help Ji-Woo maintain his place in the school and shines a light on the wrongdoer who had leaked the final exam questions to other students.
Kim Dong-hwi and Choi Min-sik portray Ji-Woo and Hak-Sung respectively. The two establish an unlikely yet real friendship. Started only as a study session arrangement, the characters inevitably become a part of each others lives as they spend more time together. Choi Min-sik portrays Hak-Sung as a quiet and reserved individual, maintaining an air of mystery about him, carrying the secrets of his past all the way to the final act of the film. His motivation for teaching Ji-Woo becomes clear after it is revealed Ji-Woo reminds him of his son, yet does not overshadow the relationship the two share.
Heartfelt and a bit melodramatic, ‘In Our Prime’ delivers a solid drama that at times introduces a jovial shift in tone through the character of Bo-Ram, played by Cho Yoon Seo. Creating for an unexpected and somewhat annoyingly juvenile shift in tone, Bo-Ram does not really add much to the film, but rather detracts from the gravity of what Hak-Sung and Ji-Woo are going through.
‘In Our Prime’ explores the unlikely friendship between Ji-Woo and Hak-Sung. Where little to no sympathy would normally be found between the two characters, the film explores the very basic instinct of people to seek each other out, to help them and to look for companionship. A bit saccharine and silly at times, ‘In Our Prime’ manages to hit hard when the friendship falters, making us feel for the love lost between the two characters.
Score: 2.5/4
Comments