Broker (South Korea, 2022)

A baby box is a small space, where parents can leave behind their babies anonymously. Sang-Hyun (Song Kang-Ho) finds new parents for a baby left in a baby box and makes a special deal with them. He calls himself a broker of good will. Sang-Hyun works with Dong-Soo in this endeavor. They get involved with So-Young, who placed her baby in the baby box, but has now come back for her baby. Meanwhile, Detective Soo-Jin and Detective Lee chase after Sang-Hyun and Dong-Soo.

While doing research for his film Like Father, Like Son (2013), director Hirokazu Koreeda came across the concept of a 'baby box' operated by a hospital in Japan, and decided he one day was going to make a film based on it. Later he learned that the number of babies left in baby boxes over in South Korea was larger, so he shifted his attention to their shores and put together an all-star cast for his first Korean film.

 

Just like in Shoplifters (2018), Koreeda looks at family and relationships in an unconventional way (he views the two movies as siblings due to developing them at the same time) and wanted to explore different sides of motherhood. The result is a beautifully shot journey and a reminder of why Koreeda is one of the best directors of contemporary Japanese cinema.

  

Genre: Drama. 2h 9min.

Shoplifters (Japan, 2018)

A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and hence inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The younger and the older of the household are in on the act. The unusual routine is about to change from care-free and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, however, as the couple open their doors to a beleaguered young girl.

Shoplifters made a huge splash when released in film festivals, winning prizes left and right. It was a film  about family that director Hirokazu Koreeda (Nobody Knows) had wanted to make since his last film Like Father, Like Son (2013). The goal was to explore the bonds that ultimately makes a family, and shed light on the people in Japan who lives on minimum wages and/or are homeless, who're only growing in numbers. With an important theme, Koreeda shows us love and death beneath our modern society, and portrays joy where I reckon most people don't even think it exists. 

Genre: Drama