Heobeu (2007) Reviews

• Beautiful movie

  a_crow_quilled_threnody2007-08-10

  Very emotional movie about a controlling, protective mother, and an officer that falls in love with her mentally handicapped daughter. To give away more details would possibly spoil the movie, since it is a very simple, focused movie on her, her mom, and the man she falls in love with; all I can say is it is a very depressing film, well worth seeing, and what I believe to be a decent portrayal on the way people (mis)treat and care for handicapped people, and how hard love is when the people they like are ashamed to be seen in public with them. My only gripe is the occasional behavior that I disagree with. For example an off duty officer getting beat up by girls and instead of taking the logical route (threatening them perhaps?) he goes the emotional, whimpering and telling them to leave. This happens throughout a lot of Korean movies, "overly dramatic" is a term I would use. People getting smacked on the head and across the face seems to be popular In Korea, but it pesters me that no one attempts to at least block it, which seems like human instinct. Minor gripes, and obviously cultural differences that are hard for people like me (American) to understand and tolerate. After all, critics knocked on Brotherhood of War for being too melodramatic, but this is trend in most every single Korean film, so what may seem "melodramatic" to us, is the dominant behavior for their countries. Directors of these movies obviously bring true to life behavior and Korean society into their movies, just as we do with ours, so when watching movies like this try to keep that in mind, that way the "corny" factor wont bug you so much.