Voice of a Murderer

Voice of a Murderer (; lit. "His Voice") is a 2007 South Korean crime thriller film written and directed by Park Jin-pyo, starring Sol Kyung-gu and Kim Nam-joo. It was the third top-grossing domestic film of 2007, with 3,143,247 tickets sold. The story is a fictionalized account of the real-life kidnapping case of 9-year-old Lee Hyung-ho in 1991. Plot One day, the 9-year-old son of famous and successful South Korean news anchor Han Kyung-bae, Sang-woo, disappears without a trace. Later, Kyung-bae receives a phone call from an anonymous person demanding 100,000 dollars as ransom in exchange for the boy's life. The exchange does not happen after the boy's mother Oh Ji-sun gets the police involved. The police assign detective Kim Wook-jung to the case and assembles a secret investigative task force and forensics team. The kidnapper, sometimes referred to as the "Bastard's Voice", however, seems to be smarter than any of the detectives assigned to the case: He knows not to stay on the phone too long and keeps changing locations for exchanges. Not to mention, his emotionless voice suggests a possibility of him being confident he won't get caught. An example of his cunning is seen when in one potential chance to arrest the kidnapper who gets away with the money, Kim who was hidden in the trunk of Kyung-bae's car, is kidnapped and tortured by the kidnapper and made a mockery of when he is left somewhere naked. As time goes by, the boy's parents become restless and angry as the kidnapper continually taunts them through phone calls as he mocks them as he demands ransom. The police have a number of suspects including Kyung-bae's former best friend Lee Jae-joon who has a grudge on the former for getting him sent to prison, but he has an air tight alibi. The kidnapper calls Kyung-bae once more to ask if has gotten his car back and allows Kyung-bae to hear his son's voice, convincing Kyung-bae that Sang-woo is still alive. However, the kidnapper is fed up with Kyung-bae's increasingly hostile tone with him, he demands that Ji-sun come meet him at a disclosed location in order to get her son back alive. Upon arriving, she finds instructions to pay 100 grand to an account belonging to an alias but during the stressful ordeal faints.