"Broker" - Review

Ha Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho) is a launderer with an excellent side scheme: he and his buddy Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) take abandoned babies in the baby drop box at the church where Dong-soo works part time, and sell them on the black market to families who cannot go through the usual channels. When So-young (Lee Jie-eun) drops her baby off, however, she changes her mind and uncovers the scheme. To the surprise of 2 men, she asks to come along with them. Thus begins a road trip to find the right parents for this baby, all the while dogged cop Soo-jin (Bae Doona, queen) is drawing ever closer. Along the way, all 4 characters learn about each other, and the true meaning of family, acceptance and love...

Japanese Director Hirokazu Kore-eda has a history of found families, outcasts, weirdos, the fringes of society and odd dynamics in his works (particularly "Shoplifters", which is bloody brilliant and you should all watch) and transfers his bittersweet eye quite well to Korea, often portrayed as sleek and glitzy and expensive, but here lovingly well done with an eye for the poor, the run down and the forgotten. He's focusing on some downright terrible people, and by the end you're really rooting for them, and there's a lot of emotional depth, complexity and nuance in its unpredictable ponderous, slow-burning road trip of a plot. It's funnier than expected (an attempted sale at a party is a highlight), and at its best whe looking at the little things we take for granted but for whom these abandoned, forgotten people have never cherished (laughter, the silliness of the world, a trip on a Ferris wheel, a journey through a car wash, a game of football), and it proudly carries a sense of melancholy without being overbearing or treacly. It's sweet without being saccharine, and has an ever encroaching threat which has you wondering WHAT will go wrong, as opposed to IF something will go wrong, and Soo-jin has a lovely arc to make her more than just a dogged, ice cold bitch. It's about flawed people wanting love, human connection and what everybdy else has, and don't we all deserve that?