Pieta

Money Makes One Reap What They Had Sown
I have seen the majority of Kim Ki-Duk's films. He was one of the South Korean directors that first got me into the "Korean New Wave" some years ago. There is something to be said for his works, and no one could argue that his stories are creative, if not original. His films such as "Bad Guy", "3-Iron", "The Isle", "Spring, Summer, Fall, Spring", "Samaritan Girl" and "The Bow" had characters that barely talked, immersed in symbolism and the emotions were expressed through action that spoke a lot for its intended narrative. Kim's films are different and he proved me it once more with "Dream" and "Time", albeit I was a little disappointed with "Breathless" and his experimental film "Real Fiction".

Winner of the top prize of several film festivals such as the "Golden Lion" award in Venice, as well as being the first Korean movie to win top honors in Vienna, Cannes and Berlin. "Pieta" is Kim's 18th feature that he directed as well as written. Once again proving that he has the...

Morally depraved and existentially passionate.
Pieta, at first watch, is both malicious and discomforting both in plot and in aesthetics. The mood is a constant state of depravity and joylessness, encompassed in a dark and impoverished setting. However, immediately upon completion, you can feel the dark humanistic reality of the film begin to settle within you.

As the final scene fades, the screen remains black for quite a while as the music escalates, and an uneasiness crawls over you as you come to realize that this film is much more than a one-dimensional dark and twisted film. It has existential meaning and passion that resonates with the things we define our lives by: "Love, honor, violence, fury, hatred, jealousy, revenge, death." Labeling the film as either morally depraved or morally passionate is a matter one's experience of the film, which is astounding despite its resonating misery. This is one film in which you won't smile a single time, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Stark, Violent, Cruel, Mesmerising and Brilliant Korean Cinema.
Korean cinema has a way of coming up with original stories told in visceral ways with inventive plots and stupendous acting and this is no exception. Director and writer Ki-Duk Kim (‘The Coast Guard’ and ‘3 Iron, to name but two) sets his latest film in the world of loan sharks and these guys make the pay day loan companies look like philanthropists by comparison. Jung-Jin Lee plays Gang-Do a ruthless enforcer who helps a shady loan company lend money to poor business people and force them to sign personal injury insurance documents. Once they have their money they then ramp up the interest payments so that a 3,000 loan becomes 30, 000 in one month.

Then he arrives and when they can’t pay, he works out how to maim them to get the money they are owed from the insurance company. This is really brutal and involves a manner of nasty tortures. Then one day a woman turns up at his door, she asks for forgiveness for abandoning him as a child and now wants...

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