In “Seven Days” Yunjin Kim (Americans will recognize her from the ABC show “Lost”) plays hot shot lawyer Ji-yeon. When it comes to the crème de la crème of attorneys, Ji-Yeon would top that list as she has never lost a case. Unfortunately, her world comes quickly crashing down and turned upside down when her young daughter is kidnapped during her school’s field day event. A short while later the kidnapper contacts Ji-Yeon and gives her his demands.

The kidnapper isn’t interested in money, but rather he wants Ji-yeon to gain the acquittal of a five time convicted felon on trial for the rape and murder of a young woman. The accused felon’s case is already in the advanced appellate stage and there is only seven days left until his case is to be decided. Ji-yeon must now work frantically to gain the acquittal for this alleged rapist and murderer.

From there the movie shifts into overdrive and races through a bevy of twists and turns to always keep you guessing and always sitting on the edge of your seat. Other issues gets slyly thrown into the mix, none more so than Ji-yeon’s own moral dilemma. Which is the lingering question, “what if her client is really guilty?” And if so, “would she she still do everything possible to free this man to gain her daughter’s freedom?”

While all these elements plays out, there’s a lot to get excited about and not much to complain about. Sure, Yunjin Kim has a tendency to overact, but everything else about the movie seemed to be about extremes so her performance actually fit within the context of the movie. If I did have to nitpick a few things about the movie my biggest gripe would be with a handful of the courtroom scenes. Perhaps for simplicity’s sake (which is odd since everything else about the movie is not so simple) or maybe just to fit the movie into a reasonable runtime, but several of those court room scenes seemed way too simplistic. As an example, you have to remember that Ji-yeon is a hot-shot lawyer and she is facing off against an equally hot-shot prosecutor. With these two equally brilliant minds squaring off it comes as a surprise to watch Ji-yeon deliver her rebuttal with such basic Criminal Law 101 theory (i.e., burden of proof lies with the prosecution which they failed to meet) and then watch the prosecutor hold an expression of shock from her revelation. What, you’re telling me Mr. Prosecutor that you didn’t realize you have the burden of proof?

Beyond nitpicking a few of these courtroom scenes, there’s a lot to like about “Seven Days”. The movie is filled with genuine thrills and the ambiguity of the defendant’s innocence or guilt makes those moments even more harrowing. As long as you can take the “Hollywood” like elements embedded into the movie and tolerate its commercial feel, you have likely found your new favorite thriller from Korea. That is until “The Chaser” makes its way onto DVD anyways.