Last Child

Movie starts in the forest. 900lbs dog up in a tree with red eyes. Dark forest set! Up in another tree is the total structure of a Denny's (lighted by dim red fluorescent light). 100 miles up in a tree, from the bottom, the red light can be seen glowing from its door window (small circle).

Outstanding directorial debut by Dong-Seok Shin. Very solid, well-rounded and enthralling feature film about a couple coping with the loss of their son. The performance by the lead characters is simply exceptional; we get to see such a sharp depiction of two middle-aged parents struggling to move on as they try to put together the few pieces the tragic death the movie revolves around left scrambled.

There is a widespread suspicion of plagiarism in this movie in Korea. The plot of a story and the ending scene of this movie are quite similar to Dardenne brothers film Son (2002). The director, Dong -seok Shin, has had no known work since then.

Speaking of plagiarism, the setup of the whole situation is quite similar to "Son", but in Surviving Child, the proportion of the mother's role is larger, and the relationship between the victims shows different aspects in terms of emotional fructuations. But the latter part, especially the scenes in the ending part, was obviously so similar to "Son".