Song Kang-ho – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

COBWEB (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

April 14, 2023August 20, 2023 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Cobweb, Jeon Yeo-been, Kim Jee-woon, Melbourne IFF 2023, Song Kang-ho, South Korean film

Cobweb is Fellini’s 8½ run amuck and reimagined through the eyes of Kim Jee-woon in this retro film world set comedy that reflects on art, the artist and the volatile terrain of the South Korean film industry. Cobweb is very, very funny – a fast-paced comic romp through the movie-making process, with Song Kang-ho’s signature pathos sitting in dazzling contrast with the film’s cheekier, over-the-top melodramatic excesses.

Reviews

BROKER – Review by Diane Carson

January 2, 2023January 6, 2023 Diane Carson Broker, Gang Dong-won, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Song Kang-ho, south korea

Broker reveals loving families through baby brokers. In South Korea, Japanese writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker follows Sang-hyeon who runs a baby broker operation. The sympathetic twist is that Sang and his younger partner Dong-soo sell abandoned newborns only to deserving couples who will love and care for the babies. Subplots involve the recent mother So-young returning, police tailing her, mobsters owed money, and a stowaway orphan boy.

Festivals Reviews

BROKER (MIFF 2022) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

August 9, 2022August 20, 2022 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Broker, Gang Dong-won, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hong Kyung-pyo, K-pop star IU, Lee Ji-eun, melbourne international film festival, MIFF 2022, Song Kang-ho

As seen most famously in his Palme d’Or winning 2018 film Shoplifters, there is nothing Hirokazu Kore-eda seems to like more than tales about grifters told with compassion and humanity. Once again, the notion of “family” – defined in its loosest sense – lies at the heart of Broker. What is being brokered here are babies, but as one of the police women central to the film’s plot notes, to frame what is happening here as a “professional child trafficking ring” may be reductive and missing the point entirely of what is really at stake. Broker is a film about grifters, sure, but at its core it is a low-key but heartfelt, sincere and totally unique exploration of the wondrous, nuanced complexity of how people both survive and connect on a fundamental level.