BROKER

Korea, 2022, 129 minutes, Colour.

Song Kang-ho, Gang Dong-won, Bae Doona, Ji-eun Lee.

Directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu.

Over several decades, Japanese writer-director, Kore-eda Hirokazu has made quite a number of striking films, including Nobody Knows, Like Father Like Son, Shoplifters.

One of his major interests is family, the young children abandoned in Nobody Knows and having to fend for themselves, the family problems with the Shoplifters. And this is his theme here, abandoned children, couples wanting to have children, and a kind of black market in selling off abandoned children.

Most of the director’s films are set in his Japan but, this time, the location is Korea, in fact, something of a road movie around various locations, cities, countryside, a fair in Korea. And the cast is Korean, especially Song Kang-Ho, promminent in many films including the Oscar-winning, Parasites.

The audience is immediately jolted when a young woman abandons her baby at an institution, the camera focusing on a sign, a lid, Baby Box. Young mothers abandon – and the film often uses the phrase “throwaway” - the babies. The abandoned children are cared for in an orphanage and we see many of them, especially at play. However, the meaning of the title comes into force when we see two men intercept the baby in the Baby Box, delete the video surveillance, and prepare to go on the road, using links to sell off the baby to needy couples. They are “Brokers”.

One is an older man, running a laundry, able to give advice when needed, alienated from his wife, at a meeting with his daughter who does not bond with him. The other is a younger man, working at the orphanage, abandoned himself when a baby, and bearing the resentments all his life. The older man also has a gambling problem and is pursued at times by thugs.

As they go on the road, they are joined by the mother who has second thoughts and returns to find the baby, not attached to it, but growing somewhat attached, young, prostitution, exploited by a married man, defying the advice from an abortion. However, she is somewhat hardened and interested in how much money her baby will sell for. There are various scenes with prospective parents, haggling about prices, wanting better prices, avoiding being caught by the police. There is another human face with them on the road, a young boy from the orphanage, streetsmart, who insinuates himself into the journey.

And the police are after them, an obsessed detective and her offsider, following the van everywhere, even coaching a man and woman to present themselves as buyers. Later, there is a genuine couple, their child stillborn, there being eager to buy this baby.

While the brokers are criminals, as the film goes on, there is a complexity in their characters, criminal intent, but each of them with a deep humanity in their way, making it difficult for the audience to judge them harshly. But the film does end in images of hope, especially for the future of the baby.

A humanistic perspective on a social problem, Korean and universal.

1. The work of the director? Japan? Korea? Humane values? Family?
2. The Korean setting, the city, the Institute for the babies, the baby box, the interiors, the laundry? On the road through the country, the fair, the venues for meeting clients? The musical score? Korean atmosphere?
3. The opening, the baby box, the situation for unwanted children, the woman, putting the baby on the ground, then the baby in the box, Sang-hyun and his laundry, getting the baby, his collaborating with Dong-So? Taking the babies, acting as brokers, selling the babies?
4. Sang-hyun and his background, failed marriage, alienation from his wife, the meeting with his daughter, her alienation? Dong-So and his background, abandoned, the effect on him?
5. The police, the detective and her associate, anti-brokers, personal investment in the crusade, following the van, plans to trap the brokers, setting up the couple in training them in acting, the failure? The continued travel, the visuals? The interview with the young woman, her story, the setup, betrayals, promises, lesser sentence in jail?
6. The travels, the personality of the two men, criminal yet becoming more sympathetic as the film went on? Their plans, the money, the older man and his gambling, debts? Thugs pursuing him? The young man, his prospects?
7. The mother, leaving the baby, going to the shops, returning, wanting to see the baby? The background of the father, married, wealthy, his wife and her wanting to have the baby (to bring it up or to sell it)? Her name, the background to her prostitution, the visit to the madam?
8. Her joining the group, travelling with them, her age, experience, changing attitudes, dealing with the baby, some bonds? Yet her interest in the money from selling the baby?
9. The young boy, from the orphanage, playful, mischief, travelling with the group, the episode in the car wash and the water, going to the fair, fear of heights on the Ferris wheel, being sick? His astute observations, knowing what was going on, his contributions?
10. The interview with couples, the criteria for testing whether they were genuine or not, the range of couples and their situations, the false couple, the rehearsals for their performance, failing, badly interpreted by the man? The meeting with the couple who had lost their child? Genuine? But the detectives following them, the arrest?
11. The years passing, the detective and her caring for the child, playing in the water, the visit from the mother, her job? Dong-So joining them? And the invitation for Sang-huyen to join them, his observing?
12. A humanistic, sympathetic observing of a powerful social issue?