"A prosecutor requests a sentence; they don’t give the verdict." SINNER questions how many untold stories have been buried beneath this phrase. When the ostensibly unblemished prosecutor Kim Seokgyu (Jung Sung-il) is nominated for Minister of Justice, the opposition party raises questions about the 1994 "Migeum Arson-Murder Case." They allege that he conducted a coercive investigation against the illiterate suspect Hong Sunhwa (Park Ji-hyun) and sought the death penalty; however, the crisis passes when a letter left by her comes to light. Yet, after belatedly reading her plea for her innocence to be conveyed to her son Eunsu, Seokgyu begins to reinvestigate the closed case. A prosecutor who once sought justice only within documents and courtroom walls confronts the truths he had overlooked through the voices of those involved. Only then the chasm between facts on paper and the substantive truth reveals itself. As the suspect Sunhwa’s past wrongful conviction intersects with the present crisis of conscience faced by prosecutor Seokgyu, the audience is given a chance to reflect on values so easily forgotten or brushed aside. The film movingly reminds us that while we cannot undo the past, we can at least feel shame for it.
Hong Sung-min graduated from the Film Program at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. He directed the short films Kim Il-sung Lives in Our Village (2008) and Mourning Period (2013), and gained professional experience as a script supervisor on As One (2012), The Long Way Home (2015), and as an assistant director on Apostle (2014) and The Target (2014). In 2023, he won second place in the Korean Film Council’s Screenplay Contest for Korean Films for his screenplay Broken City. SINNER is his feature directorial debut.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
