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Mal-Mo-E: The Secret Mission
Mal-Mo-E: The Secret Mission
	Theatrical release poster
Hangul	말모이
Revised Romanization	Malmo-i
Directed by	Eom Yu-na
Written by	Eom Yu-na
Starring	Yoo Hae-jin; Yoon Kye-sang
Cinematography	Choi Young-hwan
Edited by	Kim Sang-bum
Music by	Jo Yeong-wook
Production; company	The Lamp
Distributed by	Lotte Cultureworks
Release date	January 9, 2019;
Running time	135 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Box office	US$21.4 million

Mal-Mo-E: The Secret Mission (Korean: 말모이) is a 2019 South Korean historical comedy-drama film written and directed by Eom Yu-na. It was released on January 9, 2019.^[2] The title refers to an old Korean dialect word which roughly translates to "collecting vocabularies."^[3]

Synopsis

Imprisoned several times during the 1940s, when Korea was under Japanese occupation, Kim Pan-Soo is illiterate and does not know how to read or write Korean Hangul or any other language. The teaching of Korean in the schools is banned by the Imperial Japanese government. He meets a representative of the Korean Language Society and joins forces to publish a dictionary of the Korean language.^[4]^[5] The story is a fictional treatment of both the work of the Korean Language Society and the 1942 Korean Language Society Incident.

Cast

Yoo Hae-jin as Kim Pan-soo
Yoon Kye-sang as Ryu Jung-hwan
Jo Hyun-do as Kim Duk-jin
Park Ye-na as Kim Soon-hee
Kim Sun-young as Goo Ja-young
Kim Hong-fa as Mr. Jo
Kim Tae-hoon as Park-hoon
Woo Hyun as Im Dongik
Min Jin-woong as Min Woo-chul
Heo Sung-tae as Ueda
Lee Sung-wook as Jang Choon-sam
Cho Hyun-chul as Park Bong-doo
Song Young-chang as Ryu Wan-taek
Oh Hee-joon as Mail man
Choi Gwi-hwa as Mailman (cameo)
Lee Jung-eun as Jeju teacher (cameo)
Yoon Kyung-ho as Optometrist (cameo)
Yoo Eun-mi as Soon-hee (cameo)
Ye Soo-jung as Jo Gap-yoon's wife (special appearance)
Yoo Jae-myung as Kim Doo-bong (special appearance)
Kim Dong-young as Adult Deok-jin (special appearance)

Historical context

The film is based on historical events in Korea during the late 1930s to 1940s. When Korea was under Japanese Imperial rule, the Korean language was "demoted" in status and significance and eventually outright banned in 1938 in favor of the Japanese language.^[6] The characters were based on the real-life scholars and members of the Korean Language Society who continued working on the dictionary even after the ban was enforced. In 1942, more than thirty of the group were arrested and imprisoned by the Japanese and two died in prison. The Korean Language Society did not resume activities until Korea re-gained independence after Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945.^[7]^[8]

Reception

The film debuted on top of the South Korean box office, where it earned $8.96 million from 1.19 million admissions between Wednesday and Sunday.^[9]

Local reviews of the film were largely positive, with South Korean English-language newspaper The Korea Times commending the film for being able to tell "the same old story of these historical figures....but in a fashionable way".^[3]^[2]

Movie Information

On December 18, 2018, at the entrance of Lotte Cinema Konkuk University, the press preview of <Malmoi> was attended by director Eom Yu-na and the two main actors Yoo Hae-jin and Yoon Kye-sang.^[10]
Mal-Mo-E, which was released on January 9, 2019 (Wednesday), was screened 4,853 times on 1077 screens on the opening day, and attracted 122,458 audiences. By the 13th (Sunday), the first weekend, 1.18 million viewers were received. The final theater audience is 2.8 million.^[11]