An ambitious professor who has been living an affluent but miserable married life murders his wife, thinking he has committed the perfect crime. Then the woman’s body goes missing from the National Institute of Scientific Investigation. A tenacious detective starts chasing the truth of the mystery.

Upcoming thriller “The Body,” starring Kim Hee-ae, Kim Gang-woo and Kim Sang-kyung, unfolds with the creepy tagline “A corpse of my wife I killed has disappeared,” zooming into the three characters’ thrilling psychological saga. The film is a remake of a 2014 Spanish film of the same title. 

Kim Hee-ae plays the mysterious Yoon Sul-hee, a chairman of a conglomerate who is murdered by her husband, while Kim Gang-woo plays Park Jin-han, the husband who is chased by keenly analytical detective Woo Joong-sik, played by Kim Sang-kyung.

Lee Chang-hee, who makes his directorial debut with the film, said viewers will be able to fully immerse themselves in the suspenseful movie that ends on a cliffhanger.

“Viewers will find themselves comfortably following the emotional flow of the onscreen character Park, who appears as a villain in the film, and even understand him in the end. ‘The Body’ will offer the great joy of solving a mystery,” Lee said during a press conference for the movie in Seoul on Tuesday.

Lee added the film has been crafted in a relatively compact setting and time frame, as many of the scenes were shot at the NISI morgue and the entire story takes place in one night. 

Kim Hee-ae, who takes on a thriller for the first time in her long career, said it was a challenge for her to play the mysterious role of Yoon Sul-hee.

“Actually, I am not really into thrillers. But when I first read the script, I just couldn’t stop reading. Flipping through the pages, I got more curious about the ending rather than feeling scared by the genre,” she said.

“My role doesn’t take much of a part in the movie, but I just enjoyed participating in the movie itself,” she said.

The film had gained public attention for the veteran actress’s bold decision to return to the big screen in a thriller. Her last film was 2015 musical “C‘est Si Bon,” meaning “It’s so good” in French. Kim Sang-kyung, who has frequently appeared as a detective in other films, also said he was immediately captivated by the script and decided to become a detective again. 

Meanwhile, Kim Kang-woo, whose last movie was 2015’s “The Treacherous,” had a tougher time making his decision. “At first, I couldn’t understand how Park could kill his wife,” he said. “Especially when I saw my own wife sleeping. I even feared playing the role could hurt my image.”

Kim Kang-woo went on to joke that focusing on the murderer’s role actually made him feel uncomfortable with his onscreen wife Kim Hee-ae, and cinemagoers will see Park‘s psychological and physical exhaustion as he is driven to the corner.

“Those two weeks of shooting in the morgue setting, they were some of the most lonely and tough scenes in the movie,” he added.

Produced by Sidus Pictures and distributed by Kidari Entertainment, “The Body” will hit local theaters on March 8.

(lotus@heraldcorp.com)