Students Are Unaware That The Security Guard is a Math Genius Who Escaped From North Korea

Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a drama film from 2022, titled In Our Prime. Spoilers ahead!

Watch out and take care. In the most prestigious high school in South Korea where the 1% gathers, Han Ji-Woo fails to fit in. He used to be the smartest student in his old humble school, but here surrounded by geniuses, he is one step from the bottom of the class, especially in Math, which is considered the most important subject to get into college.

His classmates are rich, so they can afford tutors and boot camps, but Ji-Woo is on student welfare and can't afford such things. His Math teacher, Mister Kim Geun-Ho, reminds him these grades won't be enough to get into a prestigious college and asks Ji-Woo to consider transferring. One night, Ji-Woo's roommates give him money so he can sneak out and get some snacks and alcohol for everyone.

But on his way back, Ji-Woo is caught by the night guard Lee Hak-Sung. The following morning, Mister Kim tries to get him to confess who else was part of this plan, but Ji-Woo values loyalty and stays silent. This catches his classmate Park Bo-Ram's attention but also gets him temporarily kicked out of the dorms.

After class, his roommates try to give him some money as thanks and are shocked to hear Ji-Woo doesn't want it because they're friends. They discuss the possibility of bringing in late-night snacks through other routes, but this has been impossible since Hak-Sung started to work as a guard. They call him the "commie officer" because he's a North Korean defector.

Later, Hak-Sung goes to see his doctor, who tells him working as a night guard isn't good for his health and relying on sleeping pills causes his biorhythm to be off. Hak-Sung reminds him that it's the only job he can get as a defector, so unless the doctor can get him a position somewhere else, he'll take the pills. Afterward, Hak-Sung returns to his lonely apartment, where he spends his time feeding his turtle, drinking strawberry milk, and doing sudoku puzzles.

The following day, Ji-Woo is kicked out of the dorms. Bo-Ram teases him on his way out, saying she thought he could be more than a loser, but it seems she was wrong. A couple of hours later, Ji-Woo has returned to his family apartment, which he cleans before his mother comes back from work.

She's a widow that has always worked very hard to raise him, so she's very proud of seeing her son in such an important uniform. Not having the heart to tell her he needs a place to sleep, Ji-Woo says instead that he only came to visit her and he must return to the school before it gets too late. It begins raining on his way back, so Ji-Woo tries to hide in the school's abandoned lab, but he's found by Hak-Sung.

The guard feels bad when he hears Ji-Woo doesn't have a place to stay, so he invites him back to his office. While Ji-Woo sleeps, Hak-Sun finds the very hard Math homework that Ji-Woo couldn't finish. As soon as the sun raises, Hak-Sun kicks Ji-Woo out.

The boy goes to his Math class and is shocked to find his homework has been done by Hak-Sung - not only that, all the answers are correct. Bo-Ram notices this and wants Ji-Woo to show the teacher, but he asks her to keep quiet. After class, Ji-Woo goes to thank Hak-Sung for the help and asks him to teach him how to do it, but Hak-Sung just kicks him out again.

Later, in the studying room, Ji-Woo hears even his classmates' private tutors have trouble with some of these Math problems, which indicates how special Hak-Sung is. Ji-Woo starts following him around, begging to be tutored, but Hak-Sung won't pay attention to him. One afternoon, while he's taking out the trash, Hak-Sung overhears the teachers talking about welfare students with uncaring parents and inferior complexes, and Mister Kim includes Ji-Woo on the list.

When Ji-Woo approaches him to ask for tutoring again, Hak-Sung tells him it's better to transfer and that self-pity isn't a badge to carry because it gets you fixated on tragedy. Ji-Woo explains how angry it makes him that others can have opportunities he can't, so Hak-Sung gives in and accepts to tutor him - he only asks for Ji-Woo to pay him with strawberry milk. The next day, Hak-Sung visits his friend An Gi-Cheol, who helped him come to South Korea because he works as Seoul's North Korean defector support lead.

Together they play board games and chat about life, and when Gi-Cheol gets Hak-Sung the lamps he needed as a gift, Hak-Sung insists on paying for them because he didn't come to this country for charity. When night falls, Hak-Sung puts the lamps inside the abandoned lab so he can teach Ji-Woo there in secret. There are three rules Ji-Woo must follow: one, nobody must know about these classes; two, no questions other than math; and three, Hak-Sung will teach Math but he doesn't want to hear anything about grades or tests.

After Ji-Woo promises to follow all the rules, Hak-Sung gives him the first exercise: finding the area of a triangle. Ji-Woo solves it quickly, pointing out this is a middle school problem, but Hak-Sung tells him he's wrong by drawing a full circle around the triangle. Feeling tricked, Ji-Woo thinks it's unfair because Hak-Sung has given him the wrong question, but Hak-Sung's point is that he's approaching problem-solving the wrong way.

Yes, finding the answer it's important, but understanding what the question is, that's what is even more important. Math is all about the process of finding a solution. When Ji-Woo shows an understanding of the concept, Hak-Sung calls it "Epsilon" as he has a flashback of how a younger he and a friend received a fancy pen as a prize for their academic success.

Epsilon means small and insignificant, trivial even. After the class is over, since Ji-Woo still doesn't have a place to go, Hak-Sung allows him to stay with him. Ji-Woo discovers that Hak-Sung loves listening to classical music on an old cassette player, so they chat about classical composers for a while, which helps Hak-Sung avoid Ji-Woo's questions about his past.

The cassette is worn out and has a bad sound quality, so Ji-Woo plays the songs on his phone, the quality of which fascinates Hak-Sung and helps him sleep deeply for the first time in ages. In fact, he stays in bed until late the next morning, and when he wakes up, Ji-Woo has already left for class. Mister Kim has some important news for his Math students: instead of having finals, his class will participate in the prestigious Pythagoras Math Competition, which will count as their exam.

The teens aren't happy about this since they only have two months to practice, but Mister Kim expects them all to win gold. Ji-Woo goes to see Hak-Sung every day for Math classes, and Bo-Ram begins noticing how often Ji-Woo purchases strawberry milk, almost as if he was an addict. One evening, there's a particularly hard exercise that Ji-Woo needs to know the technique to solve, but Hak-Sung explains he expects him to add it all up manually.

Three hours later, Ji-Woo manages to solve it, so Hak-Sung shows him something special: famous mathematician Bernhard Riemann calculated thirty-eight decimals of the square root of two by hand to become intimate with the solving process, which you can't do by just memorizing a formula. This is greatly helpful when it comes to a better understanding of Math. Hak-Sung refuses to tell Ji-Woo if his answer is right or wrong because his homework will be to discover it himself: that's the job of a mathematician.

As the weeks pass, Ji-Woo improves his Math skills more and more every day. One afternoon, he receives some devastating news: a close friend and fellow welfare student is transferring back to his old school, admitting having come here was never worth it. Now Ji-Woo has some thinking to do about his own situation, and Bo-Ram tries to hear him out, but he feels like she's making fun of him by saying they're in the same situation when she's actually a rich kid too.

Their conversation is interrupted when Bo-Ram's mother comes to pick her up. When they get in the car, Bo-Ram is scolded for hanging out with a welfare kid - Bo-Ram is technically on welfare too because of her divorced parents, but she isn't on financial aid, so it isn't really the same. Her mother also scolds her for listening to piano music because she wants Bo-Ram to concentrate on her studies, so she's hired Mister Kim to be Bo-Ram's private tutor, which is illegal.

Later that night, Ji-Woo tells Hak-Sung about his friend and wonders if he should transfer too. Hak-Sung encourages him not to give up and reminds him the most important thing to succeed isn't intelligence but courage to prevail until the end. To prove his point, he shows Ji-Woo the exercises he corrected: while there are some mistakes in the final solutions, the boy has correctly learned the process to solve them.

That same night, Ji-Woo's suspension ends so he gets to go back to the dorms, but he admits missing sharing a space with Hak-Sung. The next day, Bo-Ram gifts him strawberry milk with an apology note, and when he gets distracted, she follows him to the abandoned lab and discovers his secret. After thanking Hak-Sung for taking care of Ji-Woo, she asks if she can come over from time to time, and Hak-Sung accepts as long as she keeps it a secret too.

Bo-Ram also calls him "commie officer" and this confuses Hak-Sung - he may be from North Korea, but he never served in the military. For a reason he doesn't bother to explain, he was exempted. At that moment, they notice a group of students sneaking around the campus, but having learned what happened to Ji-Woo last time, Hak-Sung decides to do nothing about it.

Another evening, Ji-Woo asks Hak-Sung why he studied Math so hard. He explains that at first, he did it for the scholarship and the sake of his family, but the more he learned about it the more beautiful he found it, so he fell in love with it. Then, they call Bo-Ram to join Hak-Sung at the piano so he can teach her a cool little trick: assigning a note to each digit, the two of them make a beautiful melody by playing the number pi.

During the next Math class, Ji-Woo corrects Mister Kim's answer to an exercise using the logic Hak-Sung taught him about incorrect questions. However, Mister Kim scolds him for it: the answer may be correct, but it's not what the examiner intended, and that's the only thing the students need to worry about: giving the solution that is expected, not the one that is right. It's all about test technique, but Ji-Woo doesn't accept this and replies he'll still give the right answer on the test.

Considering him rude for such attitude, Mister Kim makes him stand outside the door for the rest of the class. Afterward, Ji-Woo informs Mister Kim that he won't be transferring. In the afternoon, during another of Hak-Sung's visits, Gi-Cheol gifts him a smartphone so he's easier to find.

Hak-Sung happily shows it to Ji-Woo later, and the boy can't help noticing he's reading long theses on this tiny screen. To help, Ji-Woo asks a classmate to sneak him into the computer lab so he can print the entire document and gift it to Hak-Sung. The next day is the Pythagoras test.

Ji-Woo is doing wonderful thanks to Hak-Sung's lessons, and while Bo-Ram starts well enough by remembering the music, she soon gets frustrated. Pressure takes a toll on her, and she ends up leaving the classroom without finishing the exam. Her mother makes her stay home to avoid shame and lies to the school, saying that they'll go away on a trip.

When Ji-Woo tries to contact her, all his texts are ignored. In the evening, Ji-Woo and Hak-Sung go to a classical concert that Bo-Ram got them free tickets for because her family's company sponsors it. Bo-Ram never shows up, but at least Hak-Sung enjoys it so much that he's moved to tears.

Afterward, Hak-Sung invites Ji-Woo to have dinner at his place, which makes Ji-Woo realize this is the first time he sees Hak-Sung eat. That same night, someone leaks the Pythagoras test on the internet, causing trouble for the teachers, who now must find the student that did it if they don't want the Education Board to fire them. Meanwhile, Ji-Woo and Hak-Sung go to a bookstore to do some shopping, and a stranger recognizes Hak-Sung.

This man also comes from North Korea and calls Hak-Sung "doctor", remembering him from the days Hak-Sung taught classes at the university he attended. The man also calls Hak-Sung "the famous mathematical genius" and thinks Ji-Woo is his son, which puts them in an awkward situation. Hak-Sung thanks the man for the memory and rushes to leave the store, refusing to answer Ji-Woo's questions.

When he gets home, Hak-Sung remembers the good times he used to have with his son Lee Tae-Yeon, like having dinner together, getting the turtle, and buying strawberry milk because it was Tae-Yeon's favorite. The next day, some important news appears on tv: the Riemann Hypothesis, one of the most important mathematical problems, is about to be solved by a famous North Koren called Lee Hak-Sung, so far it's still ongoing review by a board of scholars. Professor Oh on tv tells the story of how he entered a math olympiad when he was a kid and met Hak-Sung, who represented the North while Oh represented the South.

They both were given a fancy pen by a famous mathematician and Oh still has it to this day. Both Gi-Cheol and Ji-Woo see the news, and it's Ji-Woo that finds Hak-Sung first to ask him about it. However, Hak-Sung gets angry and asks him to never mention the Riemann Hypothesis again.

Meanwhile, Mister Kim is having trouble with the test incident because his reputation is on the line, but when a coworker reviews the security tapes after a student passed on some rumors, he finds his salvation. The following day, Mister Kim calls Ji-Woo to show him the recording of him sneaking out of the computer lab with some printed sheets in his hands. Ji-Woo tries to explain that it's unrelated, but he has no way to prove it.

Between the tape evidence and the fact he magically became better at math in a few months, nobody will believe him, so Mister Kim offers him a deal: if he accepts to transfer, he won't make his blame public. Sadly, the rumors of Ji-Woo having done the leaking still reach everyone's ears, and Bo-Ram gets upset about it because she knows the truth. Gi-Cheol is having some trouble of his own, too.

North Korea is angry that the South is taking Hak-Sung's achievements, especially since these discoveries are tied to military encryption, so the NIS wants Gi-Cheol to convince Hak-Sung to appear on tv to clarify matters. Hak-Sung's name is all over the news now, and an old colleague even visits him to convince him to return to the North together. However, he puts his foot in his mouth when he admits he's asking because bringing Hak-Sung would earn him forgiveness too, and only manages to anger him by bringing up what happened to his son.

Gi-Cheol visits Hak-Sung to apologize for not being able to keep the NIS off his back, but Hak-Sung is still thankful for all the years of protection. While Hak-Sung's packing to leave town, Gi-Cheol returns to him the document with his research, with Hak-Sung tried to throw away years ago and Gi-Cheol saved it because it was too valuable to be trash. At that moment, Ji-Woo arrives as well, but he decides to stay outside when he hears yelling.

Hak-Sung is angry because it was this research that cost him his son's life, so he refuses to put it on tv. After Gi-Cheol leaves, Ji-Woo tries to talk to Hak-Sun, but the old man only lashes out at him, refusing to accept they are anything closer than tutor and student. Afterward, Ji-Woo gets a call from an upset Bo-Ram, who doesn't understand why he's letting them frame him like this, but he just tells her it's over and hangs up.

In the meantime, Hak-Sung arrives at the bus station and when he thinks he saw his son's face on a random stranger, he begins to remember the night Tae-Yeon died. After he got into another fight for defending fellow defectors, Tae-Yeon began arguing with his dad, accusing him of having escaped to the South for selfish reasons because he didn't do it when his mom was sick with tuberculosis. Hak-Sung insisted he did it to give his son a better life, but Tae-Yeon pointed out that doing entry jobs and being treated like dirt was far from a better life for a scholar.

After wishing his dad to enjoy his life with only math as a company, Tae-Yeon ran away and tried to go back to the North by swimming, but he was shot on sight by border patrol. Back to Ji-Woo, he sneaks into his home to use her mother's stamp on the transfer papers while she's sleeping. The next morning, he hands the papers to Mister Kim, who tells him he did the right thing.

Hak-Sung is hiding in a hotel while Gi-Cheol searches for him to take him to the tv show, and he is surprised to get a call from Bo-Ram telling him about Ji-Woo's transfer. That afternoon is the Pythagoras award ceremony. Ji-Woo is on his way out of the school, but Bo-Ram suddenly arrives and drags him with her to the auditorium by stealing his stuff.

Professor Oh opens the ceremony with a speech about the recently proven theory, and that's the moment Hak-Sung decides to interrupt, having rushed over to the school after freeing his turtle on the river. He presents his pen as proof of his identity, so Professor Oh receives him with open arms and allows him to give a speech too. After making a joke about his work as a guard, Hak-Sung confesses he was the one that taught Ji-Woo math and presents the printed thesis as proof that he didn't leak the test.

He also reveals that it was Mister Kim that leaked the test to his private students, which causes Mister Kim to leave with anger and shame. Then, Hak-Sung shares a bit of his story: he defected North Korea so he could study math properly, because his own government was using his research to build weapons. He wants his math to be used to find jobs and get into good colleges, but such greed cost him his son's life.

Hak-Sung is ashamed of his choices, yet Ji-Woo never saw him that way and stayed loyal to his secret until the end even if it would cost him his future. Crying, Hak-Sung apologizes and thanks Ji-Woo for believing in him, and such speech makes Gi-Cheol, who has been listening all along, leave without even asking about the tv interview He does however wait for Hak-Sung outside and offer him a ride. After throwing away the smartphone he had gifted him, Gi-Cheol reveals a little surprise for Hak-Sung: a new, legal passport that marks Hak-Sung as a South Korean citizen, and tickets for him to leave town so the NIS can't find him for a while.

Gi-Cheol will probably get fired for it, but he thinks it's worth it. Sometime later, Gi-Cheol visits Ji-Woo to give him the gift Hak-Sung left for him: the famous pen and the first draft of his thesis. Three years later, Ji-Woo and his college class visit the prestigious Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics.

Hak-Sung is working there now, and Ji-Woo surprises him with some strawberry milk and a hug before diving into a long talk about math.