Ye-sung, an aspiring lawyer, chooses a profoundly personal case for her mock trial: the wrongful conviction of her late father for a crime he did not commit. The film traces how a courtroom victory in the present echoes a distant, painful past, where memory and justice tug at each other. After the verdict, a quiet, haunting image lingers: a balloon caught on barbed wire, a fragile remnant that threads the past into the present and reminds Ye-sung of the father she never stopped wanting to understand.
In 1997, six-year-old Ye-sung and her father, Yong-gu, who faces a developmental challenge, stand before a shop window, admiring a Sailor Moon backpack. Yong-gu promises to buy it once he gets paid, but the moment is hijacked when the police commissioner and his daughter beat him to the back-to-school prize. Yong-gu rushes in to retrieve it and is pulled away, returning home battered but hopeful. The next day, the commissioner's daughter spots Yong-gu again and points toward another shop selling the same backpack, offering a glimmer of possibility. Yet tragedy strikes when the girl slips on the market’s icy pavement and a brick falls on her head, ending in a death that is swiftly misinterpreted as Yong-gu’s fault. He is arrested for rape and murder, his attempts at CPR misread by a bystander, and he is sent to prison.
Inside the prison, Yong-gu shares Room 7 with five other inmates, a diverse group who initially reject him because of the false crime attached to his name and his disability. Despite this, Yong-gu earns a bond with one inmate by saving his life during a violent confrontation between rival factions. This act of loyalty plants a seed of gratitude, and the inmate—who becomes a key ally—offers to help him in any way he can, including enabling visits from his daughter Ye-sung. The inmates arrange for Ye-sung to meet her father during a prison choir visit, and she spends a night among Yong-gu’s cellmates, an encounter that leaves a lasting impression. The warden, initially wary, begins to see Yong-gu’s humanity when Yong-gu later saves the warden himself from a dangerous arson attempt, and Ye-sung is permitted to visit after school on a daily basis.
As the trial approaches, Yong-gu’s cellmates train him on how to answer questions he might face, turning his nerves into practiced, almost instinctive responses. Yet fear and anger surge when the commissioner strikes Yong-gu in a fit of rage, threatening Ye-sung’s safety and forcing Yong-gu into a heart-wrenching choice. To shield Ye-sung, Yong-gu lies about his involvement in the girl’s death, a decision that leads to his conviction and a death sentence. The execution date is set for December 23, a cruel coincidence that intersects with Ye-sung’s birthday. In a bid for one last chance at freedom and a final act of solidarity, the inmates devise a plan to help Yong-gu escape by constructing a hot air balloon. During a prison concert, the climactic moment arrives: Yong-gu and Ye-sung embark on the balloon, while guards feign helplessness. But the escape is thwarted when the rope catches on barbed wire, leaving the fate of Yong-gu sealed with the day of his imminent execution.
Nineteen years later, in a scene that reframes the past, Ye-sung—now a young woman—returns to the courtroom as she, the warden, and the Room 7 inmates attend a “training court” that seeks to salvage Yong-gu’s legacy. The judge overturns the earlier verdict, granting Yong-gu a posthumous acquittal and ordering a reinvestigation into the girl’s death. Although this act has no legal weight beyond the symbolic closure it provides, it brings relief to those who carried the burden for years: Ye-sung, the quietly steadfast warden, and the loyal inmates who stood by Yong-gu’s side. The film elegantly loops back to the balloon, as Ye-sung envisions Yong-gu and her younger self waving from the tethered escape craft, the image of goodbye rising with the balloon as it drifts away, leaving Ye-sung with a poignant, bittersweet farewell to her father and the memory that shaped her into who she is.
- The story unspools with a restrained, compassionate tone that honors resilience, memory, and the complicated dance between truth and justice. It invites viewers to reflect on the power of family bonds, the courage to tell difficult, painful truths, and the idea that even posthumous vindication can offer a form of closure for those who endured in silence. The film’s alternating tempos—courtroom precision, childhood memory, and quiet, hopeful reconciliation—create a tapestry that is at once intimate and expansive, anchored by the enduring image of a balloon slipping free into the sky.
