Written by Cole Mihalich. Photo courtesy of IMDb.
“Broker” handles the toughest subject matter with a balanced touch. From humor to sadness, to humor again, the film explores an unfortunately too common position that some mothers in Korea have found themselves in. The film begins with a mother, played by Lee Ji Eun, leaving her baby outside a “baby box” which places her child in the care of the church that houses that box.
There are many churches like this across the country but this one, in particular, is being watched by the police. One of the two officers, played by Bae Doona, places the baby in the box. Later, the child goes missing only to be found in the possession of two men, or brokers as they’re called. The two men, played by Gang Dong-Won and Korean film legend Song Kang-ho, take this baby from the church with plans to sell it to parents unable or unwilling to traverse the bureaucracy of the South Korean adoption systems.
The mother later comes back for her child and when the brokers catch wind they tell her their scheme and elaborate on how they’d be willing to “cut her in.” The mother agrees, wanting to find a better home and life for her child.
The plot then thickens quickly when the audience finds out the mother is a prostitute who murdered a gang leader’s husband (the father of the mother’s child), then discovers that one of the brokers himself was an orphan to the fact that the police have infiltrated their group. All of this, somehow, is balanced very well.
This film keeps audience members on the edge of their seats, winding through twists and turns of the plot while simultaneously pulling at heartstrings.
