Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a comedy film from 2020,
titled Honest Candidate. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
Inspired by his grandmother Kim Ok-hee's huge donation to society and constant will to always
help the little guy, Joo Sang-sook fought a massive insurance company due to a fine print
in the contract that wouldn't cover Ok-hee's cancer treatment. Afterward, she founded the
Ok-hee Foundation to help students and eventually made it to congress with her grandmother's
encouragement before she died. Nowadays, Sang-sook is running for the fourth time.
She has a team full of experts that take care of every single detail, keeping an eye on what sector
of the townspeople they need to win over next. Her main assistant and planner behind all is
Park Hee-cheol, who remembers even the smallest details, like stepping on her feet to make the
shoes look more worn. Everything about Sang-sook's image has been carefully chosen, and she changes
her outfit and commentary accordingly to please every person she visits throughout the day - from
the civilians on the streets to religious leaders. When reporters ask her tricky questions,
she chooses to stay silent. Today she'll appear on tv to debate against her campaign opponents
Nam Yong-sung and Shin Ji-sun. When Yong-sung makes her awkward questions about shady financial
dealings with the Ok-hee Foundation and her son's dual citizenship issue, Sang-sook quickly turns it
around by mentioning rumors about him making money on stocks and clarifying she just lives in a small
apartment, built on the trust and values left by her grandmother. As soon as she mentions her,
she pretends to become emotional and be hurt by Yong-sung's accusations.
After the interview is over and they're gone, the show's reporter Kim Joon-young asks the director
Cha Yoon-kyung how come nobody digs deeper into Sang-sook's financial dealings, and Yoon-kyung
tells him to drop the subject because there's nothing he can do after six years. Meanwhile,
Sang-sook goes to a restaurant to have dinner with Yong-sung and important politician Kim Sang-pyo.
Yong-sung is whining because Sang-sook embarrassed him on camera and he couldn't do anything because
they have an agreement, so to calm the waters a bit, Sang-sook gives them information on
what company stocks they should invest in next. Unaware to them, someone is recording
this whole conversation through a hole on the painting in the room. Outside the restaurant,
all the assistants are having take out. That's when Hee-cheol sees the waiter sell a mysterious
package to reporter Hwang, who runs away as soon as Hee-cheol asks what is going on. Hwang escapes
in his car before Hee-cheol can take a picture of his plate but at least he gets to see and memorize
the number, and the waiter refuses to answer any questions. When the bosses hear about this,
Sang-pyo promises to take care of it. The next day while Sang-sook continues his campaign on the
streets, Hwang finds his car hit by a employee of Sang-pyo's, who offers him a new expensive car in
exchange of his old one and the footage he took at the restaurant. This is enough to buy his silence,
so Sang-sook is safe for now. In the evening, she returns to her humble apartment and talks to
all the neighbors about their problems, but only because Hee-cheol whispers reminders into her ear.
She's welcomed home by her husband Bong Man-sik, who is wearing his badminton uniform and loudly
comments on wanting to play. As soon as they enter the apartment though, all the masks are off:
Man-sik is sick of pretending to be a player just because his wife needs the badminton club votes.
Their chat is interrupted by a call from Man-sik's mother, which Sang-sook takes with her best
manners before the couple leaves the apartment. They do this in a very unsual way: they dress all
in black and hide their faces, then climb to the roof to leave through a back door where Hee-cheol
is waiting for them with the car. It turns out this humble apartment is also part of the campaign
charade, and their real home is a very fancy house that includes a foreign maid that doesn't speak
Korean. During dinner, Man-sik has a special list of requests for his wife, because he enjoys living
off her money and power, not having to work for anything at all. Later in the middle of the night,
Sang-sook gets an emergency call that makes her travel to the countryside while a storm is on the
way. The person that has called her is Ok-hee, who is actually alive and hiding so Sang-sook can keep
on using her name as part of her sympathetic story. Ok-hee is sick of hiding, but Sang-sook
reminds her that coming out clean would get them all arrested so they must stick to the lie.
She also thinks her grandaughter has lost the kindness she had when she was younger,
but Sang-sook promises she hasn't before noticing a photograph of her grandmother with two friends.
Sang-sook freaks out, thinking Ok-hee has been in contact with old friends, and Ok-hee gets angry
because all her granddaughter cares about is to keep up her cover instead of Ok-hee's happiness.
It's already raining by the time Sang-sook leaves, and while waiting for Hee-cheol to come with the
car, she sees a prayer's pile and decides to ask the gods to help her win the ellection.
Back in the house, Ok-hee prays as well, asking the gods for Sang-sook to stop lying.
At that moment, lightning hits the prayer's pile. The next morning, when Sang-sook comes down for
breakfast, Man-sik tells her his mother called and she insults her without meaning to over and over,
not understanding what's wrong with her mouth. A few hours later, the couple goes to a livestream
interview with a host Hee-cheol has already spoken to so he wouldn't touch certain topics
like the presidential election and R-rated jokes. However, as soon as the questions begin, Sang-sook
continues not to control what she says and brings up those subjects herself, even admitting she and
her husband haven't been intimate for years and that she doesn't read the comments her
followers send her - the same followers that are now wondering if she's drunk. Man-sik keeps
on laughing, trying to make it look like she's joking, but the interview is a complete disaster.
Sang-sook realizes she can't lie no matter the topic. After her husband leaves because she
calls him an unemployed leech, she and Hee-cheol go to a bookstore to do the presentation of her
autobiography. But things keep getting worse there: she admits she didn't even read the
book because a ghostwriter wrote it, that they paid off the reviews, and that a new book store
in town is bad news for politicians because it helps people to be less dumb. Hee-cheol follows
Man-sik's idea and keeps on laughing to make it look like jokes, but Sang-sook gets too nervous
and ends the presentation by freaking out and taking off her wig. Her weird behavior goes viral
on the internet, and Joon-young decides this is the perfect moment to dig deeper into her story.
In the evening, he goes to her apartment building to see if it's true that she lives there and is
shocked to find her mailbox full of utility bills. Before he manages to put them back though, he can
hear her and Hee-cheol arriving, so he hides before they can find him. Hee-cheol checks the
mailbox before taking Sang-sook to her apartment, and as soon as they get into the elevator,
Joon-young puts the bills back and runs away. When Hee-cheol comes back down, he notices the mailbox
is full now and immediately gets suspicious, so he runs out of the building and sees someone escaping
on a car. This time he's ready to take pictures with a camera pen, but they're all blurry, so he
checks the security camera on his car instead and sees Joon-young investigating the area. Moments
later, Sang-sok and her husband go to their fancy house, where Man-sik's mother is waiting for them
unannounced. Unable to lie, Sang-sok insults her and treats her cruelly, causing her to leave in
tears. The curse is so bad and accurate that Sang-sok can't even show sympathy for Man-sik:
she's actually super happy that the old hag won't visit for a while. The following day, Sang-sok
goes to see a doctor, an acupuncturist and even a shaman, but none of them is able to help them,
so Hee-cheol decides to hire a campaign expert that has even helped presidents in the past:
Lee Woon-hak. Woon-hak begins by calling some inside contacts of his and gets Sang-sok to
appear with various important institutions as support, like soccer clubs and military. Then,
they upload to the internet an embarrassing picture of Yong-sung to hurt his image.
They also manipulate the most searched results online and clean all of their opponent's fliers to
replace them with her own. Honesty isn't the only one of Sang-sok's problems though. There's a car
around town playing in its speakers a speech about Sang-sok's son, who she gave birth to abroad for a
second citizenship and so he could avoid military service, but now he can't be found by prosecutors.
To solve this problem, Man-sik travels abroad to find their son Bong Eun-ho and bring him back to
Korea to send him into military service. After forcing him to get a haircut, Sang-sok convinces
him to join the military in exchange for a hefty payment, which Eun-ho accepts. The next day,
Woon-hak wants Sang-sok to give a press conference on her story about having a baby aboard,
but Sang-sok explains she can't read that because it's a lie: she never gave birth to Eun-ho,
he's Man-sik's son with another woman. It's not just the matter of the lie: she doesn't want
Eun-ho to find out about this through a press conference - he may not have come out from her,
but he's still her son. To avoid this issues with the impossible lie, Sang-sok spends the night in
a freezing bath filled with ice-cubes, so when the time for the conference comes, she passes out
before she can finish that sentence. Sang-sok is sent to the hospital, where the tv is showing the
latest news: the fact Eun-ho isn't her biological son has somehow reached reporters' ears.
When she's finally discharged, they're waiting for her outside, but she only tells them she
won't be using her family as part of the campaign anymore. Some viewers decide to respect her for
having raised a kid that isn't hers. Unaware that Joon-young is following her, she goes
directly to the fancy house to check on his son's emotional state at hearing the news, but it turns
out he's known since he was eight. Man-sik told him while he was drunk, and Sang-sok throws him
in the swimming pool as punishment. Meanwhile, Joon-young secretely meets with Sang-sok's maid,
who does speak Korean after all, to see if he can get some secrets from the inside. Some days later,
Sang-sok is doing a presentation at a theater by using carefully written true phrases about
things she's already done for the city. Suddenly, she's interrupted by Ji-sun, who has shown up to
accuse her of being in a bussiness arregement with the insurance company she once fought against.
Sang-sok is about to confess this is true and that she did it because they would invest in the
company of her choice, when Hee-cheol pretends to have seen a bomb, pushing Sang-sok out of the way
and making everyone leave the theater. When they return home, the first thing they do is to get rid
of all the gifts the insurance company ever got them - they will have to move out, too, since this
nice house is also being rented by them. Some time later, Sang-sok is glad to see she's back on first
place in the polls, so Woon-hak shares the next step in his plan. Trying to be sweet again won't
work, so Sang-sok is going to promote her image as the most honest politician in the country.
With the help of Eun-ho, who has written a catchy song about her, Sang-sok talks to the people and
appears in debates discussing how corrupted the system is, which gains her people's sympathy.
One afternoon, when they drive by the Ok-hee Foundation, Sang-sok sees a woman camping at the
entrance as a sign of protests because her son ended his life over low grades. Sang-sok wants
to look into it, but Sang-pyo has given extrict orders to ignore it. Meanwhile, Hee-cheol takes
Ok-hee to her routine check-up because on her fake papers, he's her grandson, and he admits after all
these years it does feel real. The doctor thinks Ok-hee will die soon but she doesn't listen,
claiming they all have been telling her the same things for years now. Someone does end up talking
to the woman protesting though: Joon-young, who then takes all the info he's obtained to
analyse it with Yoon-kyung over dinner. They discover the Ok-hee Foundation is corrupted to
the core and people can just pay more money to be admitted over others instead of passing the exam,
and to the not-VIP students they would just give Fs. Joon-young exposes all this online during a
mukbang stream, causing an instant scandal. While Sang-pyo begins getting rid of all the documents
that may serve as proof of his involvement in the Ok-hee Foundation, Ok-hee herself takes a risk and
goes Sang-sok to her office by keeping her face hidden. She's angry over what Sang-sok has done
with her name and in return, Sang-sok is angry that her grandmother is risking being caught.
The two of them return to the prayer's pile near Ok-hee's house, unaware that Woon-hak is following
them and now knows Ok-hee is alive. Together the two women pray for Sang-sok to be able to lie
again, but there are no signs they've been heard. Afterwards, Sang-sok goes to see Joon-young,
who doesn't accept to stop digging and won't believe either that her intentions were good
when she started. The next day, Woon-hak quits his position with her and goes to work with Yong-sung,
who tells her he now knows her grandmother is alive and staying in one of the hospitals
in the city. Sang-sok rushes to the clinic and Hee-cheol explains Ok-hee passed out last night,
and he didn't tell her not to worry her. He doesn't think the secret is in danger,
because if Yong-sung had any real proof, he would've already gone to the news. Then, Sang-sok
gives her grandmother a quick visit, crying when Ok-hee shows her support for her campaign.
Some time later, Sang-sok gives a speech on the street, but she barely has any audience.
She admits having become rotten while at the same time, Ok-hee is dying at hospital,
making the prayer's pile glow. After the speech, Sang-sok meets with Sang-pyo,
who informs her he'll be backing Yong-sung instead now because if Sang-sok keeps opening her mouth,
she'll bring them all down, so she should quit. While trying to convince him that's not the case,
Sang-sok finds herself lying, but when she goes to tell her husband the great news,
she's told about Ok-hee's death. Man-sik and Sang-sok go to Ok-hee's funeral but
they don't stay for long because they're still pretending she was Hee-cheol's grandmother.
But at least Sang-sok is relieved to see Ok-hee's friends are coming over to say her goodbyes.
Later, however, she and Hee-cheol find themselves stopping Sang-pyo, Yong-sung and their bodyguards
from getting closer to the body before cremating it because they want to identify it themselves,
calling it evidence. Because they don't know her curse is broken yet,
Sang-sok reminds them she can't lie and gives them her word that she'll step down from the election,
impressing them when she says she respects them both. But Sang-sok still has a plan. The next day,
Hee-cheol goes to see Hwang to buy the original recording of the meeting at a very high price.
On his way out, he takes the keys of the car he got as a bribe and tries to use it to leave,
but Sang-pyo's employee shows up to steal the pendrive from him. Hee-cheol takes Hwang's older
car to escape and picks up Sang-sok to hide her and the pendrive in the secret room at the Ok-hee
Foundation, since they don't know Hee-cheol knows it exists. After reviewing the student admission
paperwork and seeing how vile it is, Sang-sok leaves the hideout to apologize to the grieving
mother that is still protesting at the building entrance. At that moment she's found by Sang-pyo
and Yong-sung, who are after the pendrive. Sang-sok leaves in the car Hee-cheol left her and
the men begin chasing her through the city, which is easy because Sang-sok hasn't driven in years.
Eventually they corner her in a street that has been closed because of an accident, but luckily,
Hee-cheol and Man-sik arrive to help. While they fight the bodyguards, Sang-sok struggles against
her former politician friends until she finally manages to get out and run back to the main street
to get a taxi. After checking the pendrive is safe where she hid it in her hair, she takes a
moment to remember everything she's learned so far and comes to terms with what she has to do.
She tells the taxi driver to take her to the tv station, where she hands the pendrive to
Joon-young so he can have the big scoop. The next day, she offers a press conference only
two people are attenting, but when she's about to come clean and confess everything, the hall is
suddenly flooded with reporters that want to know what kind of game she's been playing. It turns
out Hwang got the pendrives mixed and instead of giving Hee-cheol the one with the dinner Sang-sok
had with her opponent, he gave him the most expensive one in his collection: a copilation
of videos that incriminate various congressman in criminal activities that go from harassment and
gambling to urinating in public. After visiting her grandmother properly though, Sang-sok still
does the right thing and gives herself up for investigation even if she wasn't in those videos.
Two years later, Sang-sok is released from jail and is making money from the book she's written
about her experience. Her husband and son live with her in a small apartment and still expect her
to pay for everything. But Sang-sok has learned her lesson and continues to be brutally honest,
so after telling the two men to get jobs, she goes to the tv station to have her first debate
as a comeback into a political career. She scolds Hee-cheol for telling her not to touch certain
subjects and the host for not being neutral, then gets ready to drop some truth bombs.