Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film ‘Broker’ draws inspiration from the controversial “baby box” founded by Pastor Lee Jong-rak’s community church in Seoul. The baby box offered a safe place for parents to leave babies they could not afford to raise themselves. This was explored in Brian Ivie’s terrific 2015 documentary ‘The Drop Box’.
Kore-eda uses this premise as the jumping off point for his latest film, and his first made in South Korea. In his typically reflective and sensitive style, he has crafted one of the oddest and loveliest films I have seen in a long time. Essentially ‘Broker’ is a social-realist thriller about opportunistic human-traffickers, but it is played with such heart, humour, and empathy, it is just a complete delight.
Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho) is a laundry owner in Busan, saddled with debt to some unsavoury people. Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) is a volunteer at a church which has a baby box. Together they are running an illegal business, stealing babies that are dropped at the box, deleting the security footage, and then selling the babies on the adoption black market.
When So-young (Lee Ji-eun) returns to the church having abandoned her baby, she uncovers what Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo are up to. However, instead of turning them into the police, she decides she wants a cut of the racket, and joins them on a road trip to interview the people they have lined up to buy her baby, and see if they will be suitable parents. All the while this is going on, two detectives (Bae Doona and Lee Joo-young) have them under surveillance and are following them across the country, waiting to catch them in the act of brokering a sale.
Following a stop at an orphanage along the way, they end up with a stowaway in the van, 7-year-old Hae-jin (Im Seung-soo). Out of this bunch of misfits and morally dubious characters, Kore-eda creates a strange little family, and before you know it you are completely wrapped up in their lives. I’m not sure there are many other filmmakers working today who can bring this much humanity to their characters.
‘Broker’ is a film dealing in unbelievably weighty themes. It’s fundamentally a film about abandonment, sacrifice, and guilt. But it’s also about family and finding bonds in the most unlikely of places. It has a lot to say about the broken legal system and social care in Korea, but in typical Kore-eda fashion, it says these things quietly. That he can make a film about the horrible choices we must face when all others have run out, and still make it so gentle and funny and compassionate, shows yet again the genius-level lightness of touch he has as a filmmaker.
There’s not a single weak link anywhere in the film. Even when the plot wheels start visibly turning, it’s handled so artfully you barely notice. The entire ensemble are note perfect, though special mention must be made to Lee Ji-eun and Song Kang-ho for their heart-wrenching and empathetic performances. One of the best films of 2023 so far.
BROKER is in UK & Irish cinemas now. For more information head to http://broker.film/
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Gang Dong-won, Lee Ji-eun, Bae Donna, Lee Joo-young Director: Hirokazu Kore-edaWriter: Hirokazu Kore-eda Released By: Picturehouse Entertainment Certificate: 12A Duration: 129 mins Release Date: 24th February 2023
