Mother is a murder mystery, a melodrama, a black comedy, a keen social satire and much more. Bong's work is layered with the skill of comedy and drama ,both often so dark and thick that you can put ur hand in and not feel the bottom.
An unnamed widow,living alone with her only son,sells medicinal herbs in a small town in Southern South Korea while doing unlicensed acupuncture to the town's women on the side. Her son Do-joon is shy, but prone to attack anyone who mocks his intellectual disability. A school girl has been found murdered,her body dangled off a roof for the whole town to see. With only circumstantial evidence placing Do-joon near the scene of the crime, the police are happy with their investigation and arrest the boy. The police trick Do-joon into signing a confession, leaving him facing a long-jail sentence. Her quest to prove his innocence forces her to take up arms against an all male-establishment ,the dead girl's enraged family and Don-Joon's duplicitous pal Jin-tae,an amoral layabout who provides some of the films shocking moments.
Kim's performance captures perfectly the sense of a woman at odds with a society she can't or doesn't want to understand,her doomed quest leading her into even more uncompromising situations. Bold,unpredictable and quietly devastating,Mother is Bong's great creation.
Kitano's nihilistic 1989 directorial debut is one of the rawest, most uncompromising films ever made, and, at the same time, arguably one of the most promising debut films ever delivered. This film bears some resemblance to Dirty Harry but here the lead character is bit psychotic as well. The plot is nothing new but the stylised and arranged presentation made this film so great.
Kitano plays sociopathic detective Azuma,whose single-mindedness leads him to self-destruction. After the suicide of his cop friend Iwaki (who was involved with drugs too) , Azuma breaks all the rules of ethical conduct. Unlike Kitano's other films for which Kitano himself wrote the stories, this is an adaptation of a novel by Hiashi Nozawa. Kitano's work, however, is ingenious, as screenwriter, director and leading man of this film. Violent Cop" is greatly shot and accompanied by an insanely brilliant score. Kitano's use of music in his films is another part of his brilliance.
It follows a year in the life of a sixtysomething couple , Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). He is a commercial geologist and she is a counsellor : a member of "the caring professions". They live together in a home on a quiet street somewhere in suburbia that reflects their settled, earthy personalities. They are social creatures and it's their interaction with friends and family that Leigh focuses on , mostly in their home ,over lunch,dinner or a drink at their table. Tom and Gerri are happy couple. The same can't be said for almost anyone around them. Tom's pal Ken ((Peter Wight) is an overweight,chain-smoking alcoholic. Gerri's secretary Mary (Lesley Manville) drinks far too much wine ,she babbles on nervously about insignificant things , and she is obviously painfully lonely. She wants to connect with someone, but she also wants that person to be something special. Out of a script developed over months with his cast, Leigh creates a universe we can all find a place in. All the actors are sublime . But Manville shines brightest.
Strength of the lead couple's bond ,the warm ease of it, is absolutely necessary as a counter balance to Mary. Another Year" is just that — time passing through lives, relationships shifting, some spirits flailing while others rest happily within one another.
