Review Broker – Review on FilmTotaal
Director: Hirokazu Korean | Screenplay: Hirokazu Korean | Cast: Song Kang-ho (Sang-Hyeon), Dong-won Gang (Dong-Soo), Ji-eun Lee (Sun-Young), Bae Doona (Soo-Jin), Seung-soo Im (Hae-Jin), Ea | Time to play: 129 minutes | Year: 2022
Many Bollywood movies are three hours long. And it has songs. This is mainly because there are many people living in India for whom a movie ticket is a luxury, so they want to be entertained for a long time. Would that also apply in a more moderate way to East Asian films? Those also usually take a little longer than necessary. too Runner it lasts more than two hours when the message has already been squeezed before that time.
A young woman leaves her baby in a church at night. Dong-Soo and Sang-Hyeon, two criminals who illegally sell foundlings to childless couples, take the baby away. Then it turns out that the young woman wants to get her baby back. However, when she finds out what is happening, she travels with the men to find parents for her baby. But she finds any interested buyer unsuitable, and during the trip the group becomes almost like a family. Meanwhile, two policemen try to catch them in the act.
A baby hatch, it has been around since the Middle Ages. In the Netherlands we have a variant where women can leave their baby anonymously in a room. In South Korea they have the literal hatch and it’s used quite a bit. Happy Runner No allegation against abortion. One of the policemen rightly wonders if the birth of a child is desirable if he is almost certainly in for a depressingly bad life.
The film is steeped in a theme, and not in a subtle way. The woman who left her baby has no parents, Dong-Soo comes from an orphanage, Sang-Hyeon hardly ever sees her daughter after her divorce, and along the way, a funny orphan joins her. others. Naturally, they tell each other how their situation seems to them, what effect it has on their identity. Are you yourself if you have a name that you did not get from the person who gave birth to you?
The initial shot of Runner it promises you’ll get some powerful cinematography: in the background, the Busan city nightclub, in the foreground, a deserted alleyway where the rain falls. And suddenly someone approaches from a distance. A few minutes later, Sang-Hyeon gets out of her truck at a different location. It’s still dark, but the red brake light from another car illuminates the background.
He soon learns that it was a false promise. It’s still professional camerawork, but the thoughtful art is gone. Everything is presented clearly, but it’s not that it visually impresses you anymore. Was it a conscious choice to start strong and then move to an easy standard, or was it too much work?
The same goes for the script. The first half plays out very well; it’s a quiet movie, but each event is a progression to the next, and the characters begin to unfreeze each other. Then there comes a point where everything becomes repetitive, the plot comes to a standstill, there is nothing left to go off topic.
from then on feel Runner as a feature film, as if a minimum duration of two hours was an obligation of the film studio. Or the filmmakers really believe that every scene is essential. Because of this stretch, the highlight doesn’t hit very hard, and the finish is just that: we’re weaving in a finish, guys.
Still, you don’t walk out of the theater feeling like you’ve seen a bad movie. There were moving moments and human suffering. and humour, Runner It’s not a dreary drama that takes itself too seriously. Characters go on and on about that baby’s eyebrows, and that orphan kid clinging to others almost looks like a cute cartoon character. It was a pretty nice road trip.