A Hard Day (2021) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Ko, who is intoxicated and has just left his mother's funeral, hits a homeless man with his car. Because he is a corrupt cop facing Internal Affairs scrutiny for bribery, he cannot risk calling the police and having his involvement exposed. Desperate to conceal the incident, he hides the body in his car trunk. When he returns to the funeral, he sees an opportunity to stash the corpse inside his mother's coffin before burial, believing this would permanently dispose of the evidence.

Foreshadowing: Earlier in the film, Ko's corruption and willingness to break the law for personal survival is established through his bribery activities.

• ko
• body
• coffin
• funeral
• cover-up
• hit-and-run

The homeless man Ko accidentally hits is Lee, a wanted killer whom Ko's police squad is later assigned to track down. It is revealed that Lee was a criminal who stole a large cache of cocaine and the vault key from Lt. Park, making him a target for Park's wrath. Lee was fleeing from Park when the collision occurred, and Ko unknowingly kills him while attempting to cover up his own crime.

• lee
• homeless man
• wanted killer
• criminal
• park

Lt. Park was the patrol driver who drove past Ko shortly after the collision. He witnessed Ko's damaged vehicle but did not see the body. Later, Park quietly closes the Internal Affairs investigation into Ko's team, then uses his knowledge of what he witnessed to blackmail Ko, demanding control over Lee's corpse and the case.

Foreshadowing: Park's suspicious decision to close the IA investigation without consequence hints at his ulterior motives.

• park
• lieutenant
• patrol
• blackmail
• ia investigation

Lee was a criminal who worked with or under Park. Park had stolen a large cache of cocaine and hidden the profits in a private vault. Lee stole the vault key and fled, making him a target. Park pursued and shot Lee, which coincides with the moment Ko's car collided with Lee. Lee essentially double-crossed his own partner.

• lee
• park
• cocaine
• vault
• key
• criminal

When Ko answers Lee's phone after discovering the body, a fellow criminal reveals that Park stole cocaine and hid the profits in a private vault. Lee had stolen the key to that vault and fled. Park had shot Lee during the pursuit that led to the collision. The call exposes the entire criminal operation and explains why Park is so desperate to control Lee's corpse.

• lee phone
• park crimes
• cocaine
• vault
• key

Ko steals an explosive from the police basement, then returns to Lee's body (which is now in a morgue or holding location). He implants the explosive device into the corpse, then hands the body to Park under the pretense of surrendering evidence. When Park's van is on a bridge, Ko detonates the charge, blowing the van off the bridge into the lake below.

• explosive
• lee body
• bridge
• park van
• detonate

Park somehow survives the explosion that blows his van off the bridge into the lake. The film does not fully explain how he escapes, but he later appears alive to confront Ko at his apartment, suggesting he managed to get out of the van before the blast or survived the fall somehow.

• park survives
• explosion
• bridge
• lake

After Ko is arrested by his subordinate for suspicious car damage around the time of Lee's death, Park uses a crane to drop a shipping container onto the subordinate's car, killing him. Park eliminates anyone who threatens to expose the truth or interfere with his control over the case, demonstrating his ruthless willingness to commit murder to protect his criminal operation.

• subordinate
• park
• crane
• killed
• arrest

After Park accidentally shoots himself during their confrontation, officials begin a cover-up to protect reputations. Ko chooses to resign rather than expose the full truth, instead using Lee's body keys to infiltrate Park's vault. He discovers an enormous cache of cash, far more than he imagined, leaving him to confront a darker reality about power and corruption.

• ko resigns
• vault
• cash
• cover-up

Ko infiltrates Park's private vault using Lee's key and discovers an enormous cache of cash, far beyond anything he had imagined. This revelation represents the true cost of Park's corruption and power, leaving Ko at a moral crossroads as he confronts the magnitude of the criminal operation he has become entangled in.

• vault
• cash
• park
• ko
• discovery

Police triangulate Lee's phone signal and discover its last activity was near Ko's mother's grave. This occurs because Ko buried Lee's phone inside the coffin with the body. The ping creates a direct link between Lee's location and the grave site, which initially seems inexplicable until Ko's connection to the body is uncovered.

• phone triangulation
• grave
• lee phone
• ko mother