The Truth Beneath

The Truth Beneath (, lit. "There Is No Secret") is a 2016 South Korean thriller film directed by Lee Kyoung-mi, her second directorial outing after 2008's Crush and Blush, and co-written by Park Chan-wook. The film stars Son Ye-jin and Kim Joo-hyuk. Plot Kim Yeon-hong (Son Ye-jin) appears to have a perfect life. She is beautiful, is married to a charismatic young politician (Kim Joo-hyuk), and her adolescent daughter who used to be a troublesome child is now doing better at school. Her husband, Kim Jong-chan, decides to run for office against the powerful incumbent, No Jae-soon (Kim Eui-sung). A few days before the elections, Yeon-hong and Jong-chan's daughter, Kim Min-jin (Shin Ji-hoon), goes missing. At first, they assume she has run off to seek their attention as she had done before. However, Yeon-hong soon finds out that the friend Min-jin she said she was going to meet does not exist. Then Yeon-hong learns from the school her daughter attends that she had an eccentric friend named Choi Mi-ok (Kim So-hee) and they were both bullied by their classmates. While questioning Mi-ok, Yeon-hong notices the girl is wearing an expensive watch that looks like her daughter's despite coming from a poor family. Yeon-hong becomes suspicious and tells this to Jong-chan. However, her husband is more preoccupied with his campaign. Yeon-hong then hacks into her daughter's email account and finds leaked examination papers sent by a young female teacher at her school. Yeon-hong knows the teacher since she once invited Jong-chan to the school as a guest speaker. The teacher eventually admits she leaked the papers but only to help Min-jin and Mi-ok improve their grades so that they can become popular to avoid getting bullied.