broker…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film “Broker”. It’s set in Korea and inspired by the Korean phenomenon of ‘baby boxes’ put out by churches for unwanted newborns (I’d never heard about these ‘baby boxes’ before seeing the film). Korean actor Song Kang-ho plays a volunteer at a local church that has one of these boxes -  but, in reality, he is running a ‘broker’ scam: occasionally he steals a newborn for himself – erasing the church’s CCTV footage that prove a baby was left there – and offers it for sale on the adoption black market, with potential couples lined up by his partner.
Everything falls apart when one of the mothers named, played by Lee-Ji-eun, returns to the church to get her baby back, stumbling onto the operation. Detectives are also on the case… it’s complicated, but I’ll leave it there.
Somewhat surprisingly(?), the film turns out to be something of a ‘feel good’ road movie –
featuring two lovable, flawed men who are apparently romantics at heart.
The Watershed’s blurb describes it as “heartwarming, funny and moving; a film of gentle humanity and great warmth”. However, the Guardian’s critic, Peter Bradshaw, has a slightly different view and sums it up thus (in his 2-star review): “A sudsy road-movie heartwarmer set in Korea… fundamentally silly, with tiringly shallow characterisation and broad streaks of crime-drama intrigue, which only underline the fact that not a single word of it is really believable”!
Actually, while I usually rate Bradshaw’s opinions very highly but, on this occasion, I think his verdict is somewhat harsh. I found the film very watchable and I warmed to the characters (despite their flaws). Yes, a difficult subject and, yes, the plot is somewhat far-fetched and, yes, the two blokes were trying to earn money for crimes which involved black market adoptions of newborn infants… but I enjoyed the lighter moments (and there were several).
I actually thought it was very enjoyable and quite charming… sorry Peter!