"BROKER" - Simply put, Kore-Eda's Best Work
Broker, the latest film by Japanese director Hirozaku Kore-eda, is set in Korea, a country where, apparently, there are some “baby boxes” in which babies can be deposited to be donated for adoption anonymously and guaranteeing safety conditions for the baby. Crazy, but true. The truth is that it is not surprising that the existence of these boxes has inspired a director like Kore-eda , obsessed with families and children.
Broker is being led by Song Kang-ho (Recollections of Murder , Parasite), Gang Dong-won (Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula), Bae Doona (Sense8), Lee Joo Young (Itaewon Class), and superstar K- Pop Lee Ji-eun, also known as IU (Hotel Del Luna).
In Broker, the opening scene is a woman (Ji-eun Lee) who abandons her baby in one of these boxes without knowing that the place is being watched by a couple of female police officers (Doona Bae and Lee Joo Young) who investigate the sale of babies on the black market. Behind that theft and sale of babies there are two men. One of them (Song Kang-ho) is a divorced man with serious financial problems, the other (Dong-won Gang) is a young orphan resentful of mothers who abandon their children.
With this beginning linked to the trafficking, one would expect a tearful melodrama, emotions, and horrified denunciation, but during the little more than two hours of narration, Kore-eda Hirokazu will make it a journey full of encounters and disagreements, marches and countermarches, unexpected turns that will turn it into a tragicomic, disturbing and sometimes moving experience.
The plot unfolds in a way that is quite consistent with Kore-eda ‘s filmography . A succession of complicated situations treated with humor and tenderness in which the characters get to know each other and generate emotional and even family ties. As in Shoplifters , the protagonists live outside the law and under the layer of sweetness there is a bitter taste. Especially since this time the crimes are more serious and serious than before and Kore-eda is even more critical of his characters than usual. A scolding full of affection and understanding, yes, we are talking about an author who loves and cares for his characters to the last consequences of him.
Song Kang-Ho, the face of South Korean cinema awarded at Cannes
By shooting the film in South Korea, Kore-eda was able to work alongside Hong Kyung-pyo , who was in charge of photography for Parasites , Burning and The Stranger , among others, and it shows. The images, especially the nocturnal ones and those closest to the thriller plot of the film (slightly thriller), achieve an atmosphere that we are not used to in a much brighter and more naturalistic director. Quite a success that also helps to ensure that the sweetest moments of the plot are not excessively so. It is also a success to work with a cast like the one in the film, with some of the faces of Korea, a cast that works just as well in the most bitter parts as in the most tender or fun ones.Kore-eda has a great hand in directing his casts and does not usually fail in the casting elections, surely one of the keys to his good work.
These little nuances distinguish this Kore-eda film from other Kore-eda films . They achieve that, despite three decades of career behind him and an almost constant obsession with the same themes, the formula of his cinema has not yet been exhausted, that it is still fresh to see a film by Kore-eda and that his name in the poster is a guarantee of a good movie session.
Very well written. A must watch movie.