The Tooth and the Nail 2017

In late 1940s Seoul, a chilling murder within a cold stone mansion sets off a chain of revelations that stitch together love, betrayal, and a buried wartime past. A nationally renowned circus magician, Lee Seok-jin, meets Ha-yeon Im Hwa-young and what begins as a tender romance soon deepens into marriage, with Ha-yeon carrying their unborn child. As they settle into a shared life of performances and secrets, a copper plate used to manufacture counterfeit banknotes surfaces, linking Ha-yeon to a shadowy period when a man named Shigeru Okamoto approached her uncle to forge money. The police circle tightens, Ha-yeon hides the plate, and Seok-jin’s instinct to protect her grows desperate when he learns Okamoto is still dangerous. When Ha-yeon is abruptly pushed to her death on a street, Seok-jin’s grief hardens into a consuming resolve to avenge what was lost, including the life of their child, and he drifts away from the magic that once defined him.

Grief gives way to a calculated pursuit of vengeance. A chance encounter with a counterfeit-note trail leads Seok-jin down a dangerous path toward the man he believes to be at the heart of Ha-yeon’s fate. To reach Okamoto without drawing suspicion, he changes his name, adopts the alias Choi Seung-man Go Soo, and becomes a penniless taxi driver who tests every note he receives by burning it—a test that slowly reveals a broader network. While working the streets, he discovers that the mastermind behind the forged notes is Nam Do-jin Kim Joo-hyuk, a multilingual Korean who lives a life of quiet power in a stone mansion. Seok-jin embeds himself in Do-jin’s world, watching every movement as he quietly crafts a plan to bring down his former enemy and clear Ha-yeon’s memory. The path to revenge travels through deception, danger, and a broker’s game of cat and mouse.

The web tightens as Do-jin’s shadowy operations touch the lives of others close to Seok-jin. A calculating brothel owner, Ms. Sung, becomes a focal point in the peril surrounding Ha-yeon’s memory. When Do-jin confronts a printer who can expose the counterfeit scheme, he silences him violently, and Ms. Sung becomes an unwitting witness in the escalating danger. Seok-jin, now deeply embedded as the driver in Do-jin’s household, obtains Sung’s own chilling letter and a severed head that Do-jin has already disposed of, a grisly clue that underscores the dark costs of the pursuit. The emotional stakes rise as Seok-jin contends with the weight of his choices, slowly choosing not to read the letter and instead treasuring the memory of Ha-yeon, a memory he keeps close alongside her ring.

In the courtroom, truth and inference clash as Do-jin faces murder charges tied to the disappearance of Seung-man and the broader counterfeit operation. The prosecution builds its case around circumstantial proof, including the severed finger and the blood evidence tied to Sung’s head, while Do-jin insists on his innocence and questions whether there is direct evidence that ties him to Seung-man’s death. A turning point arrives when Seok-jin himself takes the stand as an anonymous tipster who eventually reveals his true identity as Choi Seung-man, confronting Do-jin with the realization that he has nothing to fear from a distant accuser—yet the court’s questions about identity, motive, and connection intensify. The confrontation exposes the fragility of certainty, and with no small measure of drama, Do-jin’s fate is sealed.

Ultimately, Nam Do-jin is convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, with additional charges to be addressed in a future proceeding. Seok-jin, having achieved his long-sought revenge and justice for Ha-yeon and their unborn child, returns to the circus to resume his career, carrying a quiet, steadfast memory of his lost love. In the end, the magician keeps a small keepsake—a photo of Ha-yeon and her ring—by his side, a constant reminder of what he sacrificed and what he finally avenged.