---
title: "A Hard Day"
year: 2014
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-hard-day"
fi1m_id: "a-hard-day"
imdb_id: "tt3697626"
tmdb_id: 269494
wikidata_id: "Q16734496"
fi1m_score: 79
critics_score: 75
critics_reviews: 8
published: "2026-10-04T04:24:21.490507+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-04T04:24:44.598970+00:00"
region: "FI"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# A Hard Day (2014)

Directed by Kim Seong-hun · 1h 51m · Crime, Thriller, Mystery, Action

## Identity

A Hard Day

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/a-hard-day
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** a-hard-day
- **IMDb ID:** tt3697626
- **TMDB ID:** 269494
- **Wikidata ID:** Q16734496
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3697626/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/269494, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16734496

**Fi1m score: 79** · Critics 75 from 8 reviews

*In a sentence:* He runs a man over on the way to his mother’s funeral, and that turns out to be the easy part of the day

> Kim Seong-hun’s thriller about a crooked detective and the body he cannot get rid of is fast, funny and precisely built. The people in it are thin and the last act is louder than it is clever, but the first hour is hard to fault.

## Synopsis

Detective Go Gun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) is driving to his mother’s funeral when he learns that internal affairs are raiding his homicide squad over bribes. On a dark, empty road he hits a man with his car and kills him. He puts the body in the boot, talks his way through a drink-driving checkpoint, and arrives at the funeral home with his sister (Shin Dong-mi) and his small daughter Min-a (Heo Jeong-eun) waiting and a coffin that will shortly be sealed. Back at the station, Detective Choi (Jeong Man-sik) and the Chief of Homicide (Shin Jung-geun) need the squad’s money moved before the inspectors find it. Then a man Gun-su does not know, Park Chang-min (Cho Jin-woong), rings him and says he saw everything.

## Review

Go Gun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) is a homicide detective who has been taking money, and *A Hard Day* finds him on the night everything comes due at once. His mother has died, inspectors are going through his squad’s desks, and on the way to the funeral home he runs a man down on an empty road. Kim Seong-hun, who wrote the script with Jang Hang-jun, builds the first hour out of that one night, and the building is the pleasure of the film. Each thing Gun-su does to get out of trouble puts him in more of it.

The sequence people will tell you about is in the funeral home. Gun-su has a corpse in his car and a coffin with his mother in it, and he works out that the coffin is the one place nobody will look. Getting the body there without anyone noticing is the set piece, and it is built from whatever is in reach. We laughed at it, loudly, and then felt slightly ashamed of ourselves, because what we were laughing at was a man climbing into his own mother’s coffin while his sister (Shin Dong-mi) knelt in the next room. Kim Chang-ju’s editing cuts between the mortuary and the mourners so that every laugh arrives with a wince attached.

Lee Sun-kyun holds his face almost still and lets the rest of him do the acting. At the drink-driving checkpoint he plays an entire argument with himself through one wet eye on the rear-view mirror. Later he climbs, falls, is hit by doors and cars, and never looks like a man enjoying it. Cho Jin-woong, as the man on the phone, is pleasant and soft-spoken and smiles a lot, which is more frightening than shouting. Jeong Man-sik and Shin Jung-geun, as Gun-su’s colleagues, are too busy shredding paper to care what has happened to him.

Kim Tae-sung shoots the road at night in headlight glare and orange street light, and the funeral home in flat white fluorescent, so the two halves of Gun-su’s problem look like different films. Lee Mi-kyoung’s production design gives the squad room stacked boxes and locked drawers, a place with things to hide. Mok Yeong-jin’s score is low drums and something like a ticking clock, and for most of the first hour it keeps time. Later it starts to push.

So does the film. Once Gun-su knows who he is up against, the story takes a turn we will not describe, and it stops being about a man who cannot tell anyone anything and becomes two men hitting each other. The fights are well staged, in a stairwell, a flat and a car park, but they are fights, and we have seen fights. The invention of the first half, where every object in reach had to be used for something it was not meant for, gives way to force. We did not get bored, but we noticed we were no longer leaning forward.

Then there is Gun-su himself. He is a crook from his first scene and never feels bad about anything, and the film does not ask him to. That is fine for a farce, and this is a farce with blood in it, but it means the last act is about who is left standing, not who deserves to be. Most critics have made both complaints, the loud second half and the thin people, and we agree. Neither spoiled the evening.

The Korean police thriller usually arrives with weight, [*Memories of Murder*](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder) being the standard. This one is lighter and nearer to *Blood Simple*: a trap built from one bad decision, with the pleasure in watching it close. At 111 minutes it is the right length. Watch it with your phone face down. The plot runs on a telephone, and you will not want reminding that you own one.

*Fi1m score 79, published 4 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews lean clearly positive, and they agree on what the film is: a tightly built thriller that is funnier than most of its kind. Most critics praise the control of the filmmaking, the dark humour threaded through the carnage and the inventiveness of the set pieces, with the body-disposal sequence singled out more than once. Lee Sun-kyun’s performance draws near-unanimous praise, several critics noting how his frozen, physically reactive panic stops the comedy from floating free of the stakes.

The reservations cluster on depth. Variety finds the characterisation shallow and the hero oddly free of remorse; The Playlist and The Hollywood Reporter enjoy it while allowing that it does not mean much. Vulture is alone in finding the second half less exciting than the first. The spread is narrow, running from warm to warmer, though three of the eight reviews could not be read in full, so the picture rests on five.

## Straight answers

**Is A Hard Day worth watching?**

*A Hard Day* is worth watching for anyone who likes a tight crime thriller with jokes in it, and we scored it 79. The first hour, in which a crooked detective tries to hide a body on the night of his mother's funeral, is fast, funny and precisely built. The last act is louder than it is clever, and nobody in it is much of a person.

**How long is A Hard Day, and what is it rated?**

*A Hard Day* runs 1h 51m. It is a crime and thriller film.

**Where can I watch A Hard Day in Finland?**

*A Hard Day* is not on any streaming or rental service in Finland at the moment. It is available in 8 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does A Hard Day compare to Memories of Murder?**

*A Hard Day* is the lighter and quicker of the two, a trap built from one bad decision, where [*Memories of Murder*](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder) carries the weight this one chooses to leave out. Bong Joon Ho's film is the better one, funny and then not funny and then something else, and the standard for Korean police thrillers. Watch *A Hard Day* for a tense, sharp evening; watch *Memories of Murder* when you want to be shaken.

**What should I watch after A Hard Day?**

After *A Hard Day*, try [*Memories of Murder*](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder) (2003, Fi1m 91): Korean detectives again, but with the weight this one chooses to leave out. Then [*Shallow Grave*](https://film.one/film/shallow-grave) (1994, Fi1m 78): A body in the flat and three people getting steadily worse about it; and [*Uncut Gems*](https://film.one/film/uncut-gems) (2019, Fi1m 85): A man digging himself deeper by the minute, filmed as a panic attack.

### Reviews we read (8)

- **Vulture**, David Edelstein (90/100, inferred): Edelstein praises the film as a witty, exhilarating thriller that keeps viewers laughing and afraid, though he finds the second half less exciting than the first. He singles out Lee Sun-kyun’s frozen-faced, physically reactive performance and the film’s elegant visual wit amid messy carnage. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2015/07/movie-review-a-hard-day.html)
- **Variety**, Maggie Lee (85/100, inferred): Lee praises the thriller as tightly controlled, technically accomplished, and suspenseful, with dark humor and social satire. She singles out Lee Sun-kyun’s performance and the inventive, tense body-disposal sequence, while criticizing the shallow characterization and lack of remorse. [Read](https://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-a-hard-day-1201185578/)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Stephen Dalton (80/100, inferred): The critic calls it a dynamic, highly enjoyable thriller, though not one of Cannes’s deepest films. He praises its suspense, smart twists, dark humor, and polished visuals. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/a-hard-day-cannes-review-705244/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Chuck Bowen (3.5/5): Bowen calls the film a terrific, unusually funny thriller and praises its breathless, inventive orchestration of chaos. He singles out Lee Sun-kyun’s disciplined screwball performance for grounding the film’s playful heartlessness in visceral panic. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/a-hard-day/)
- **RogerEbert.com** (64/100, inferred): The page could not be accessed, so the critic’s verdict is unavailable. No praise or complaint from the review can be confirmed. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-hard-day-2015)
- **Screen Daily**, Jason Bechervaise (64/100, inferred): The critic's verdict is unavailable because the article text is behind a paywall. No specific praise or complaint is visible in the accessible page. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/a-hard-day/5072035.article)
- **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The page content is unavailable, so the critic’s verdict cannot be established. No specific praise or complaint can be verified. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/movies/review-in-a-hard-day-looney-tunes-meets-cops-corpses-and-crime.html)
- **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (A-): The critic calls the film an exhilarating, brilliantly entertaining genre thriller, while noting it is neither profound nor especially meaningful. They praise its inventive set pieces, tightly paced filmmaking, and deadpan humor. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/cannes-review-twisty-inventive-hilarious-korean-cop-thriller-a-hard-day-is-a-total-blast-20140518/)

## Details

- **Director:** Kim Seong-hun
- **Director:** Kim Seong-hun
- **Writer:** Kim Seong-hun, Jang Hang-jun
- **Cinematography:** Kim Tae-sung
- **Editor:** Kim Chang-ju
- **Music:** Mok Yeong-jin
- **Production design:** Lee Mi-kyoung
- **Costume design:** Ko Hee-jung
- **Producer:** Cha Ji-hyun, Lee Dong-yoon
- **Cast:** Lee Sun-kyun as Go Gun-su; Cho Jin-woong as Park Chang-min; Jeong Man-sik as Detective Choi; Shin Jung-geun as Chief of Homicide; Shin Dong-mi as Younger Sister; Heo Jeong-eun as Min-a; Kim Dong-yeong as Detective Doh; Joo Suk-tae as Detective
- **Runtime:** 1h 51m
- **First release (France):** 18 May 2014
- **Genres:** Crime, Thriller, Mystery, Action
- **Box office:** $26 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMHH08BRAOg

## Where to watch in Finland

Not streaming, renting or buying in Finland at the last check.

Also available in: AT, BR, CL, IN, IT, KR, MX, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Memories of Murder* (2003), Fi1m 91: Korean detectives again, but with the weight this one chooses to leave out — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder.md)
- *Blood Simple* (1984): One corpse, several bad decisions, and nobody able to tell anybody anything
- *Shallow Grave* (1994), Fi1m 78: A body in the flat and three people getting steadily worse about it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/shallow-grave.md)
- *Uncut Gems* (2019), Fi1m 85: A man digging himself deeper by the minute, filmed as a panic attack — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/uncut-gems.md)
- *Tunnel* (2016): Kim Seong-hun’s next, with one man trapped and the officials useless

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/a-hard-day