The movie starts with Gong Ju (Chun Woo hee) facing a crowd of disparaging adults as she tells them she did nothing wrong.

One day at school in the present, Gong Ju is walking down the hall and peers through a classroom window where a small group of girls are rehearsing an a cappella song.

Gong Ju attends swimming lessons and meets Eun Hee who tries to befriend her after hearing her sing in the changing room.

Although Gong Ju is not interested, she asks Eun Hee for the loan of her phone to help with directions so she can find her mother.

Gong Ju stops by the empty music room at school and starts to sing where she is heard by Eun Hee and her friends.

Shortly afterwards, a cluster of angry parents barge in and interrupt the class to harass Gong Ju for having put their sons in jail.

The scene returns to the present where Gong Ju is sitting with the principal as he advises her he will discuss the situation with the board, not having known about her past.

Eun Hee and her friends are horrified after seeing the video of Hwa Ok being raped, but she does not immediately answer a call from Gong Ju.

Han Gong-ju was released on just over 200 screens (a sizeable exposure for a Korean independent film), and through strong word of mouth, it was a hit with critics and audiences.

Amid the opening of such large scale commercial films as The Fatal Encounter, The Target and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it continued to attract average audiences of 2,000 a day.