01
A Hard Day
Why this pick
For Mother’s pressure-cooker suspense and morally compromised characters, this delivers escalating consequences, bleak humor, and tightly controlled tension.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2009 2h 9m KOR
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Mother
CrimeDramaThriller
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Mother, try these.
01
02
Poetry
Why this pick
Another quietly piercing Korean character study of an older woman confronting unbearable reality, paced with restraint and moral complexity rather than melodramatic release.
03
The Pledge
Why this pick
Its wintry murder inquiry becomes a portrait of obsessive parental devotion and ethical corrosion, matching Mother’s tragic force and refusal of tidy comfort.
04
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Why this pick
This bleak, methodical mystery shares Mother’s interest in buried violence, damaged investigators, and revelations that deepen rather than resolve the unease.
05
The Stranger
Why this pick
Its restrained procedural surface and unnerving psychological focus echo Mother’s slow-burn tension, using silences and moral ambiguity to keep the viewer off balance.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
An unnamed widow lives alone with her only son, selling medicinal herbs in a small town in southern South Korea while conducting unlicensed acupuncture to the town's women on the side. Her son Yoon Do-joon is shy, but prone to attack anyone who mocks his intellectual disability. She dotes on him and scolds him for hanging out with Jin-tae, a local ne'er-do-well. When Do-joon is nearly hit by a car, he and Jin-tae vandalize the car and attack the driver and passengers as revenge. Jin-tae blames Do-joon for the damage done to the car, and Do-joon is sued. The debt causes Mother to struggle.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Kim Hye-ja
Mother
Won Bin
Yoon Do-joon
Jin Goo
Jin-tae
Jeon Mi-seon
Mi-seon
Yoon Je-moon
Je-moon