Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu at the Cannes Film Festival with BROKER.

Title: Broker

Directed by: Kore-eda Hirokazu

Kore-eda, who won the Palme d'Or at the 71st Cannes Film Festival for his film Shoplifters, has proved his status as a world-class master. In films like Nobody Knows, Like Father, Like Son, and Our Little Sister, he has moved audiences across the world with his humanistic stories about marginalized people.

In Broker, Kore-eda again picks on themes of unconventional families, parenthood, and poverty. The story begins with the abandonment of a baby at a baby box, a kind of orphanage-cum-adoption service.

Two friends, Sang-hyun and Dong-soo, who are desperate for cash, spot a way to make money out of this situation. They grab an abandoned infant before he is collected, erase the CCTV evidence, and set about offering it to couples looking to adopt. Their plans go awry, however, when the child’s mother has second thoughts and returns to retrieve her offspring. But these three woebegone individuals come to an agreement and embark on an impromptu road trip to find the boy suitable parents.

The three become a de facto family. They have their own reasons. Sang-hyun, whose laundry business was piled high with debt, justifies his action as a benevolent effort to find the baby new parents who will raise him well. Dong-soo, who grew up in an orphanage and knows better than anyone about the pain of being abandoned, and So-young, who feels unable to bring up the child herself. Meanwhile the police detectives on their tail, Su-jin and Detective Lee, keep the narrative tense.

Director Kore-eda bestows his distinctive warm yet sharp insight to the situation. Through the observation of everyday details, he captures the process of gradual intimacy and change among people who have each suffered their own misfortunes. Later, when new parents are identified, it becomes a story of how two women ‘become mothers’ through their relationship with the baby. And thus, we an ending where the abandoned children might regret being born, or the mother regret having the child. It evolves into a film that provides comfort to all those born into this world.

It is a deeply optimistic film, and a personal one—Kore-eda had recently become a father—in which the director attempted to look directly at life and step into the characters to speak directly with his own voice. He also opens argument and debate on adoption, a current issue in Korea, as well as Japan. The film was shot in Korea, with leading Korean actors and crew, a collaboration that transcends language and culture.

The pace is slow, and not above a certain ponderousness, but the visuals are so beautiful and its authenticity so thorough that one remains hooked from start to finish.