Mother Review: You Don't Mess with the Context

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Starring: Kim Hye-ja, Weon Bin

Rating: **** out of *****, you don’t mess with the Asian context

Kim is a window who has long been taking care of his son, Do-jun, a 27 year old adult who is amnesiac and mentally slow. Do-jun unfortunately convicted of crime in a high school girl murder case. Mother, who tries all means to protect his son, went on a mission to prove his son’s innocence. As her investigation began, the story behind the murder case started to unfolded.

Here, the singular character’s love is so identifiable, and at the same time, so intense that it almost seems distorted. What’s depressing is, Do-jun constantly failed to understand and appreciate mother’s love, injecting much pathos to this story.

This South Korean film is unique in the way it builds the story. Instead of directly telling what happened, it leaves audience much guessing under context. Intense was created under the un-seen and un-told.

My favorite scene is when the mother fed herb medicine to Do-jun while he was peeing on the street. It is hard for anybody to come up with such a picture with such bizarre arrangement. The cut intensifies the way the story was build.

Besides, it is well-acted. Kim Hye Ja, who plays the mother, might not be well-known in Western world. But having been in the industry for 40 years, Kim is a luminous and brilliant actress who serves as a benchmark for many to inspire to.

I almost didn’t recognize the lead actor Weon Bin, one of Korean’s most popular and beloved actors. Weon abandons his Prince Charming boyish image and lends his role a lot of layers, convincing me that “Weon can act”.

About the director Bong Joon-ho: I give him even more respect after watching Mother, and meanwhile find the almost typical style in his film. Country setting, grayish background, high school girl as victims, mysterious killers, and mentally illness are common tags Bong would like to use.

This is a seemingly slow but actually intense and striking film. As the story ends, you probably will find yourself sitting in the theater, shocked, with a feeling of a bottle broken, a bottle that filled with bitter, sad, question, sympathy, and probably goose bumps.

Shutter Island: talking about real art

Director: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams

Rating: ***** out of *****, the ultimate well-made movie

It is a film that is so well-crafted that you start to understand a level of perfection.
It is a film that is so deep that it requires multiple anatomies to fully appreciate it.

It is a film that can be so terrifying that you still feel the chill afterwards.

What impresses me the most is the way it intervenes reality into the play. In DiCaprio’s delusions, human beings are used as experiment items, and that was what happened with the Nazis in real life. Delusion comes from reality.

In the end, the question marks have been answered, the stories have been unfolded; but the process of revealing the story and the structure the story was build upon is what makes this real art even more intriguing and invaluable.  

It delves into human psychology, and reflects the cruel reality. More than a beloved movie, it is a masterpiece I pay my respect to.

Talking about almost flawless, it is Shutter Island.

My Name is Khan: About Humanism and Love

Director: Karan Johar

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol

Rating: *** out of ***** 

The main character Rizwan Khan grew up as a kid with Asperger’s syndrome, which brought him problems dealing with people, intimate hugs, yellow color, loud noises, and crowded spaces. He was taught by his mom at a very young age that there’s no difference in terms of the superior of one religion over another. There are only good people and bad people. Khan moved to America to look for his brother after his mother’s decease. There he met his lover and future wife Mandira, an Indian single mom who works at a salon in San Francisco. They formed a family and lived a happy life. But everything changed after 9/11. Sam, Mandira’s beloved son and Khan’s only friend, was beaten to death in a vicious race attack because his taken on surname Khan. Mandira was devastated and blamed Sam’s death to her marriage with Khan—the name Khan brings discrimination to the whole family. Khan went on a quest for humanism and justification to meet U.S. president and tell him that “my name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist”, while Mandira dedicated every effort to justify Sam’s death. Khan’s insistence attracted attention from national media and the president. He and Mandira eventually met US’s first African American president Obama in front of thousands of people and voiced “my name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist”.  

On the whole, My Name is Khan delivers a strong message of love and humanity through a love story. By revealing American’s prejudice to Muslim, this movie tries to deliver that Muslims aren’t terrorists. No religion, including Islam, support violence. On one hand, Johar ditched the old masala movies style which usually embodies mindless songs, group dances, cliché love stories, and silly comic performances. Instead, MNIK transfers a very deep message and raises awareness.

However, I understand exactly what the movie tries to say but wasn’t impressed by the way how it said. Besides New York, this is the second film I’ve seen about Indians living in a paranoid America. It is interesting to see how Bollywood understand Indians’ living reality in America from a non-Indian, non-American perspective. But same as New York, I see a strong message but also awkward affectation in delivering that message—it tries too hard to combine too many random incidents and moments together that it feels unnatural. All the elements, not tightly connected, seem to be affectedly and purposely thrown into the movie so that it flows to the ultimate feel-good ending. Additionally, I wasn’t impressed by Shahrukh Khan’s performance-- for his performance as Rizwan Khan, he did everything right but not splendid. Maybe I was expecting more from him.

My Name is Khan has the best director and filmmaker, high-profile Bollywood stars, international appeal, and Fox Searchlight’s international distribution, all of which contribute to the film’s commercial success. Overall, My Name is Khan is not a flawless movie. Granted this movie will have far-reaching influence due to its theme, it is recommended only if you want to see a not-so-Bollywood Bollywood film with high profile casts and is nothing too impressive but just properly done.