It's elegant, witty, tightly plotted and absolutely gripping.
Comment
05/18/09
Mother (2009)
93
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:14
Fresh:13
Rotten:1
Average Rating:7.3/10
Reviews for Mother
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticFilled with the elegant compositions and mood-drenched cinematography which are becoming Bong’s specialty, Mother is a largely satisfying film which marks the director out as South Korea’s most versatile young auteur.
05/17/09
Mother is competent, no more, no less.
05/17/09
Kim Hye-Ja's performance is absolutely magnificent, the kind of performance that seems to radiate straight out of the actress's body.
10/15/09
Hye-ja is beautifully understated in the central role and her subtle performance alone does much to take the edge off the film's more hyperbolic twists and turns.
10/09/09
Bong is less interested in shocks than in the synergy between the country's vast fields and the equally mysterious inner landscape of the dazed matriarch making her way across them.
10/05/09
Its wizardly craft provide[s] further evidence that Bong is one of the most formidable filmmaking talents to have emerged this decade...
09/19/09
Changing pace after the entertaining horror yarn The Host, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's fourth feature is a compelling murder mystery as well as a darkly intense, splendidly acted chronicle of mother-son relationship.
09/09/09
Changing pace after the horror yarn The Host, director Bong Joon-ho's fourth feature is a compelling mystery thriller as well as a darkly intense study of mother-son relationship.
09/09/09
Korean film-maker Bong Joon-ho's fourth feature film, Mother, displays an assurance in suspenseful story telling that is remarkable.
08/10/09
Bong Joon-ho remains a filmmaker of sympathetic wit, using often-comic situations to frame the story's intense tragedy and pathos.
07/10/09
As with Bong’s other films, the genre plot is really an excuse to explore broader social issues, which he does with skill and dry wit. The result is a slightly overlong but entertaining and rather unexpected thriller.
07/10/09
A superb murder mystery, with twists coming thick and fast yet always at the right moments.
05/17/09
Top CriticLess visionary than Bong's 2003 serial-killer mystery, "Memories of Murder," but with the same skillfully natural evocation of a rural community hiding dark secrets.
05/17/09
Top Critic1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Latest News for Mother
October 13, 2009:
Bong Joon-ho Talks The Snow Piercer 
Director Bong Joon-ho is out promoting his new movie, "Mother," but he's already looking ahead to his next project -- an adaptation of the apocalyptic French graphic novel, "Le... More...
May 10, 2009:
Click for trailer and preview
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