The story starts with an average family residing in a small town that owns a grocery shop named after their daughter So-won (Lee Re) whose name means ‘hope.’ The dad (Sol Kyung-gu) and the mom (Uhm Ji-won) are very much overworked, so their playful, cheerful child often spends days alone playing or watching television. Suddenly, her usual happy life changes due to one act of cruelty. On one occasion while going to school So-won is noticed following drunk old man (Gang Seong-hae). This leads her, as she meets him while at construction site for little girls where latter ending up being brutally assaulted and raped. She gets rushed into the hospital leaving her parents with not just physical pain but also counseling on legal process of how justice should be served. This means that Hope, due to its harshness especially when the rape scene is depicted, is not everyone’s cup of tea. Nevertheless, Lee Joon-ik handles the sensitive topic with kid gloves and avoids anything too explicit wh...