Certificate: 12A (moderate sex references, references to sexual violence, strong language). Running Time: 129 mins. UK Distributor: Picturehouse Entertainment
WHO’S IN IT?
Song Kang-ho, Gang Dong-won, Bae Doona, Lee Ji-eun, Lee Joo-young, Park Ji-yong, Im Seung-soo, Kang Gil-woo, Lee Moo-saeng, Ryu Kyung-soo, Song Sae-byeok, Kim Seon-young, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Sae-byuk, Park Hae-joon, Baek Hyun-jin, Kim Ye-eun
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Hirokazu Kore-eda (director, writer, editor), Eugene Lee (producer), Jung Jae-il (composer), Hong Kyung-pyo (cinematographer)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A laundromat owner (Kang-ho) runs an illegal infant trafficking scheme…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BROKER?
Now that South Korean cinema is well and truly having its moment on the international stage, it is at first a little jarring to see a new high-profile film from the country be made by someone who isn’t even from South Korea. Acclaimed filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, who instead hails from Japan, has merely chosen it as the setting for his latest film Broker (though he isn’t new to travelling around the world to make movies; his last one, The Truth, was set entirely in France), but he doesn’t hesitate to embrace the deep sensibilities and thoughtfulness that can often be found in plenty of films from the region, mixed in with his own gentle touch of sweetness and crowd-pleasing sentimentality.
The film begins as a young mother, Moon So-young (Lee Ji-eun), abandons her infant son by a “baby box” – a place where reluctant mothers can safely leave their children to be cared for by the state – before disappearing into the night. When she unexpectedly returns, So-young discovers that her baby has been taken by hand laundry business owner Ha Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho) and his young associate Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won), who run an illegal racket where they nab abandoned babies and sell them to adoptive parents for a large amount. Although at first shocked, So-young decides she wants in on the scheme, and sets out with Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo on a road trip to find the perfect parents for her baby, where they are soon joined by young orphan Hae-jin (Im Seung-soo) who stows away in their van after a brief stop at Dong-soo’s old nursery. Unbeknownst to them all, they are being pursued by detectives Soo-jin (Bae Doona) and Lee (Lee Joo-young) who are hellbent on catching the brokers in the act, as well as other sinister forces who may or may not have ties to So-young and her child.
Similar to Kore-eda’s Palme D’Or-winning drama Shoplifters, Broker focuses on a surrogate family unit made up of people who, despite working outside the law, are drawn together by their genuine care for one another. As he often does across his many other films, Kore-eda brings plentiful helpings of humanity to his characters which help to make them feel more grounded and three-dimensional, enough to where you’re so taken by their fascinating nature and how they operate their business as well as their personal affairs, that you’re left itching to follow them all the way to wherever the finish line may end up being for them. It’s easy to buy into why both Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo operate this illegal but (mostly) well-intentioned scheme, why So-young ends up accompanying them on their quest to sell her own baby, and why these pursuing detectives are so determined to bring them down by any means necessary, because Kore-eda writes all of these people in engagingly profound ways that play into their humanity and make them feel like living, breathing human beings rather than just one-note archetypes.
Kore-eda’s soulful writing and equally compassionate direction often makes for plenty of scenes where you can practically feel your heart getting warmer and warmer by the second, which is impressive given the somewhat grim subject matter. The baby box phenomenon – which isn’t strictly limited to South Korea, as they are also used in many European countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic – is abhorrent to some, liberating to others, but to all a controversial topic that calls to question the morality of those who are willing to discard their young child like a chocolate bar wrapper, something that Broker often addresses as part of its drama. However, Kore-eda refuses to judge people like So-young for their actions, and actively calls out people like detective Soo-jin for their judgemental nature, because he isn’t so much concerned with the politics surrounding baby boxes and the accompanying arguments about reluctant parenthood but more so on how the circumstances have deeply affected his characters, with some like Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo turning to criminal activity so they can capitalise on the system, and others like Soo-jin who become so obsessed with catching them red-handed that she ends up feeling more like a broker than they are. It certainly isn’t completely free from political debate, especially at one point when the film picks a clear side when the topic of abortion is brought up, but its strong focus on the emotional consequences makes it a plentiful and even heartfelt exploration of the difficult themes.
The film is incredibly sweet, with lots of tender dialogue scenes that are performed very well by its talented cast (including Song Kang-ho, who picked up the Best Actor award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival for his role in this film), funny moments that shed light on the convoluted processes that some characters undertake – a scene where the detectives are rehearsing with a fake adoptive couple as part of their sting amusingly plays out like an awkward line-reading – and a direct call-back to an infamous sequence from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, which is always welcome as far as I’m concerned. If the movie did have any pitfalls, it would be whenever it briefly becomes a completely different movie, one that involves a gruesome hotel murder and a vengeful crime boss widow who sends her goons after the makeshift family; there is a reason why it’s all there, as it adds to the dark backstory of one of the main characters, but it’s shot, written and paced so differently from the rest of the film that it briefly takes you out of it, as though all of a sudden you were watching a gangster thriller when you’d rather be watching the more gentle film you paid to see.
It doesn’t completely derail Broker, though, for it still manages to win you over with its incredibly sincere heart and hugely empathetic ensemble of characters, who are interesting and lovable enough to warrant spending an entire movie with them, even though what they are ultimately setting out to do might not fall into your preferred barrel of ethics.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Broker is a tender and effortlessly sweet South Korean drama from Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, who brings his trademark warmth to a grim subject matter that is enlivened by empathetic writing that refuses to judge those who commit morally questionable acts, and develops strong and likeable characters to completely win over your heart by the end.
