CJ Entertainment | South Korea | 128 mins
[reposted from Hawaii International Film Festival]
The mother is the origin of all life in this world. The single point of love, passion and life from which all things can be traced back to. Our gatekeepers, guardians and guides throughout life, the mother is there whether we want them to be or not. They stand by their children regardless of fallacy or folly ready to fight to the death for the sparks of life they ushered into this existence. Bong Joon-Ho paints the story of a widowed mother and her emotionally and intelligently inept child with vivacious fervor and visceral emotion that solidly displays the immutable bond of a mother and child. How far will a mother go for the protection of her child? What sins can be committed to guard her child from harm? Bong Joon-Ho pushes the audience to the edge of this question.
Do-Jun (Bin Won) is a socially and emotional inept child trapped in a a 27-year-old’s body. He is highly functional and very simple yet seems as though he may be border line autistic. He gets by in the town along with his friend Jin-Tae (Jin Gu) who is constantly poking fun at him for never having been with a woman. It doesn’t help that his mother (Kim Hye-Ja) keeps him heavily shielded from the world — she only means to protect him.
One night Do-Jun visits one of the local bars to drink with his friend Jin-Tae; however, Jin-Tae never shows. Hours and many bottles of beer and soju later Do-Jun leaves the bar and happens to follow behind a girl on the way home. Do-Jun is drunk and trying to heckle the young girl into stopping but he is startled by something the girl does from the darkness. Confused and frightened, Do-Jun leaves the girl alone and runs home. Unfortunately, the girl is found dead the next morning in the same place that Do-Jun parted ways with her.
Did Do-Jun kill her? Surely he couldn’t. He is such a simple and innocent boy who “couldn’t hurt a fly,” as his mother frantically professes. The lazy rural cops in the small South Korean town jump on the chance to get a quick and easy confession and close this case for good. Do-Jun signs a confession but really has no idea what he is signing. In fact, Do-Jun is so tired of people telling him he is simple and “not capable of bad,” that he would confess to the murder either way just to prove that he is “capable of bad” and just like everyone else.
After the conflict has been established is when Bong Joon-Ho really excels with the exposition of the mother, her non-negotiable love and her own personal investigation to discover 
the truth. Bong Joon-Ho has established himself in the murder mystery genre already with his previous success in Memories of Murder and continues to impress easily with Mother. The audience is spoon fed the “truth” at the very beginning; however, Bong skillfully and methodically increases the doubt of the case as the facts unfold — turning up the tension between the screen and the audience. Throughout the mother’s investigation it becomes obvious that we are barreling head first into the unknown — the chain of events that seemed so clear before now do nothing but get in the way of what really happened. The audience follows along with the mother on her mission of discovery feeling every bump along the road.
Elegant and disturbing, Mother painfully puts your morals and opinions on the depth and power of motherly love and protection on parade. On the surface it is a murder mystery, but the real story is the journey of a mother to protect her son regardless of consequence or even truth. The final scene in the film is one of the most eerie and touching scenes put to film and definitely one of the greater achievements of director Bong. Playing with light, music and dance, the final scene boils down the heart of the film into its most primal state — a beacon to the last vestige of humanity: Motherhood.
8 out of 10