Mother (Joon-ho Boon, 2009): South Korean

Reviewed by Zi Huang. Viewed at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre during Afi Film Festival 2009.

The South Korean director Jooh-ho Bong’s film Mother has become my favorite movie in 2009. It is the best mystery and suspense movie I have ever seen. Before watching Mother, I thought it was a touching film referred to the relationship between a mother and her son or daughter due to the simple name of the film. Surprisingly, the movie is not simply presenting a affecting family love story, and horror, mystery, suspense, humor are combined together in the film additionally which appeal to different people.

Mother is not the first Korean movie I have watched, and I am always a big fan of Korean film because I like the particular Korean humor sense of the characters based on the culture. The director Jooh-ho Bong creates a stupid character (Bin Won) and a cool tough character (Jin Goo). The stupid character Do-Joon is a mentally disable young guy who lives with his mother (Hye-ja Kim). He is a simple-mind man in his twenties, but he always gets in trouble because he hangs out with his good friend Jin-Tae, an aggressive hooligan, hits Do-joon’s head and bawls him out because of his foolish behaviors. They are always captured to the police department. Therefore, Do-joon’s mother has to take care of Do-joon all the time after he makes a trouble and never knows how to get rid of it. Those images for the characters are very Korean and funny.

Once, Do-joon and Jin-Tae make a trouble and captured to the police station. All the police officers know them well. When the mother comes to the police station for Do-joon, she doesn’t look surprising or vexed. She is just experienced to put the canned food on the desks of each officer. I didn’t understand immediately why she was doing this, but I laughed as other audiences when I figured out the reason. She gives the gifts because she feels sorry about his son bringing out a trouble to the police again, and hopes the polices not to put it to heart and treat his son too badly. It’s a part of Asian culture and a way to express humor. Another scene to present she’s an over-protective mother is when Do-joon pissing on the street. The mother comes to him with a bowl of soup but doesn’t stop his uncivil behavior. Instead of blaming him, she even gets closer and checks the development of his genital. After that, she feeds Do-joon drinking the soup even though he is still pissing. It’s a really hilarious scene that Do-joon is drinking and pissing and the piss is flowing on the floor.

The mother always cleans up the mess which Do-joon left. He finally gets into a big trouble – a murder case. He just signs up on the confession to admit that he kills the girl in a school uniform even though he doesn’t remember what happened in the moment he was drunk and the girl was killed. The mother believes her stupid and simple-mind son is innocent for sure, so she tries hard to find out the real murderer and proves her son’s innocence.

The film has turned the tone from humor to horror, mystery, and suspense since the murder occurs. Nevertheless, the ridiculous scenes and funny dialogues still go through the entire film. The story ends up unexpectedly and ironically. It’s a strongly recommended movie.