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There’s a certain performance to family gatherings, a kind of unspoken agreement to keep things pleasant. Director Hur Jin-ho’s A Normal Family understands this social contract intimately, and its opening movements are dedicated to showing us the polished surface just before it shatters.

The film, whose title drips with irony, introduces us to two brothers living starkly different lives. Jae-wan is a high-powered, wealthy lawyer, the kind of man who smooths over ugly problems for his even wealthier clients. His younger brother, Jae-gyu, is a pediatrician, a man whose life is built around a rigid code of ethics. The film wastes no time in placing them on opposing sides of a crisis.

A shocking act of road rage leaves one man dead and his daughter fighting for her life in Jae-gyu’s hospital, while the perpetrator turns to Jae-wan for legal protection. This initial setup is perfectly calibrated,...

“A Normal Family” begins with the death of a family, but not the one you might expect. Before his film turns its attention to the family alluded to by its title, director Hur Jin-ho revs out the gate with a case of road rage that ends in murder. Or maybe not, if the lawyer defending the driver in question has his way.

A man is dead and his eight-year-old daughter is critically injured in the hospital, but self-interested criminal lawyer Jae-wan (“Kill Boksoon‘s” Sol Kyung-gu) is more concerned with saving the wealthy executive’s son who’s responsible for the killing. Meanwhile, the attorney’s younger brother, doctor Jae-gyu (“Arthdal Chronicles'” Jang Dong-gun), is working tirelessly to save the victim’s daughter at a nearby hospital.

The pair couldn’t be more different at first, a contrast that becomes sharper during meals they share with their wives and each...

Four years ago, before Covid turned everything upside down, a new Asian masterpiece world premiered virtually unnoticed at the Toronto Film Festival. That film was “A Sun,” a multifaceted Taiwanese family saga from director Chung Mong-Hong that seemed to shift and evolve as it unfolded, challenging what audiences thought they knew about the characters. Tucked away in TIFF’s overcrowded (and under-promoted) Contemporary World Cinema section, the film easily slid under the radar.

Toronto programmers weren’t about to make the same mistake with “A Normal Family,” a film of similar force from South Korea, giving it a coveted Gala spot. Director Hur Jin-ho’s complex, complacency-shattering moral study boasts a heightened yet easily relatable premise, and strong potential to play well around the globe. Like “A Sun,” the movie comes roaring out of the gate with a shocker of an opening scene: An aggro jerk in a blood-red Maserati...

First things first, apologies for the delay with the latest iteration of this article detailing the best of the Korean New Wave. Let’s get back into this Korean article. In which we look at the Korean new wave, from the nastier and more misogynistic movies from Korea’s provocative director Kim Ki-Duk to musicals, Korean musicals are something of a unreal proposition. Now without any further preamble or distractions, here is part two of the look into the work of Joon Ho-Bong.

The Host

Directed by Joon-ho Bong

Written by Joon-Ho Bong, Jun-Won Hah and Chul-Hyun Baek

2006, South Korea

The Monster Movie was a huge icon of the 1950s and 1960s, now not so much. Most movies of this distinction have been distilled into pure horror films, more interested in the violence and the gore in the man vs. nature situation than anything subversive that the lost genre was renowned for.

Best Movie - Winter’S Bone Buried Treasure – Dogtooth Best Documentary – Marwencol Best Director - Debra Granik for Winter’S Bone Best Actress – Hye-ja Kim for Mother Best Actor – (Tie...

Korean film-making has been a hotbed for interesting horror films, but none had the instantaneous impact of Joon-ho Bong's The Host. Making Cloverfield look like a Mystery Science Theater punching bag waiting to happen, the director settled in to make a disturbing murder mystery in the vein of Hitchcock with Mother (Madeo). The titular character sets out to prove the innocence of her only son, the mentally simple Yoon Do-joon, after the authorities have locked him away after coercing a confession out of him. Do-joon's mother wanders the countryside, seeking answers wherever she can find them, begging on her hands and knees, sacrificing any length to free her darling boy. The complexity of the story is phenomenal -- even elements that seem cookie-cutter are given extra depth and luridness. Instead of relying on some sort of clever twist or flaring showdown, the film quietly plods along to its conclusion.

Rating: 9/10

Director: Joon-ho Bong

Writers: Eun-kyo Park, Joon-ho Bong, Wun-kyo Park

Studio: Magnolia Pictures

There is a suitably dark song on the classic Kate Bush record Hounds of Love. “Mother Stands For Comfort” is told from the eyes of a possible psychotic that “mother stands for comfort… mother hides the madman…” Well, what would a mother do for a man who is clearly mentally unbalanced? That is what is behind the latest film from Bong Joon-ho, the director who recently brought us the ferociously entertaining, The Host. While both films focus on family, Mother deals with a more realistic tone (no mutant creatures here). Yet it all begins with a dance. Kim Hye-ja as Mother is in an open field, she begins to sway and move in a strange and lonesome dance. There seems to be a sense of whimsy and joy, even though you know that something is just not right.