# Mother (2009 film)

Mother (Korean: 마더; RR: Madeo) is a 2009 South Korean neo-noir thriller film directed by Bong Joon Ho, starring Kim Hye-ja and Won Bin. The plot follows a mother who, after her intellectually disabled son is accused of the murder of a young girl, attempts to find the true killer to get her son freed.
The film premiered on 16 May 2009 at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section, and was released in South Korea on 28 May 2009. It received acclaim from critics, who praised Kim's performance, direction, screenplay, and the film's uniqueness.

## Plot

An unnamed widow lives alone with her only son, selling medicinal herbs in a small town in southern South Korea while conducting unlicensed acupuncture treatments for the town's women on the side to erase bad memories. Her son, Yoon Do-joon, is shy, but prone to attacking anyone who mocks his intellectual disability. She dotes on him and scolds him for hanging out with Jin-tae, a local thug. 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. His mother struggles with the burden of the debt.
On his way home from a bar late at night, Do-joon sees a high school girl named Moon Ah-jung walking alone and follows her to an abandoned building. The next morning, she is discovered dead on the rooftop, shocking the town and pressuring the incompetent police to find the killer. Do-joon is arrested for the murder due to circumstantial evidence placing him near the scene of the crime. His mother believes he is innocent, and tries to prove he is not the murderer. However, she is challenged by her self-absorbed lawyer and the community who unanimously blames Do-joon for the crime.
Suspecting Jin-tae of committing the murder, the mother breaks into his house to look for evidence. She takes a golf club, which she believes has blood on it, but when she turns it over to the police and Jin-tae is confronted about it, it becomes clear that the "blood" is just smeared lipstick. Despite her accusation, Jin-tae agrees to help the mother solve the case for a fee.
When the mother questions the people in town about Ah-jung, they tell her the girl was sexually promiscuous and in a relationship with a boy known as Jong-pal, who had escaped a sanatorium. Do-joon attacks another prisoner who calls him "retard". On one of his mother's prison visits, Do-joon recalls a memory of her attempt to kill him and then herself when he was five by lacing their drinks with a pesticide. She tries to apologize, saying she wants to free them both from hardship, but he tells her he never wants to see her again.
The mother learns from a camera shop worker that Ah-jung had frequent nosebleeds and had pictures on her cellphone that she wanted to have printed. Ah-jung's friend is attacked by two young men who are looking for the phone, but the mother rescues her and then pays Jin-tae to interrogate the men, who claim that Ah-jung accepted rice in exchange for sex (and was nicknamed "the rice cake girl"). They say she used her phone to secretly take pictures of her partners, thus making it a potential tool for blackmailing. The mother tracks down the phone, which is hidden at Ah-jung's grandmother's house.
Do-joon remembers seeing an elderly man in the abandoned building on the night of Ah-jung's death and identifies him in one of the pictures on Ah-jung's phone. The mother recognizes the man as a junk collector she once bought an umbrella from and goes to his home to find out what he saw, on the pretense of offering him charity medical services. The collector reveals that he has been troubled since he saw Do-joon kill Ah-jung. He witnessed the two have a short conversation, during which Ah-jung called Do-joon a "retard", and Do-joon then threw a large rock into the shadows in which Ah-jung was standing, hitting her in the head and inadvertently killing her, and then dragged her to the rooftop. Unable to accept the truth, the mother frantically tells the collector that Do-joon is innocent, but the collector picks up the phone to finally report what he has seen to the police. Fearing for her son, the mother bludgeons the collector with a wrench and sets fire to his house.
Later, the police tell the mother that they have found the "real" killer: Jong-pal, who is being presumed guilty after Ah-jung's blood was found on his shirt. The police assume it got there during the murder, but the mother realizes that Jong-pal's story, that the blood is the result of Ah-jung's nose bleeding during consensual sex, is true. Feeling guilty, she visits Jong-pal, who is even more intellectually disabled than her son, and cries for him when she hears he does not have a mother to fight for him, knowing he is going to jail for a crime he did not commit.
Do-joon is freed from prison and Jin-tae picks him up. They pass the collector's burned-down house on the way home and stop to pick through the rubble. During dinner, Do-joon muses to his mother that Jong-pal probably dragged Ah-jung up to the roof so that someone would see she was hurt and help her. As the mother is about to depart from a bus station on a "Thank-You Parents" tour, Do-joon returns her acupuncture kit, which he found in the remains of the junk collector's house, and tells her to be more careful. Jarred by his discovery, she sits on the bus in shock before using the kit to blank out the memory of her son's and her guilty crime. She begins to dance with the other parents on the bus.

## Cast

* Kim Hye-ja as Mother, an unnamed widow who is extremely protective of her son and attempts to free him from a murder charge
* Won Bin as Yoon Do-joon, the adult son of Mother, who has an intellectual disability and is accused of the murder of a local girl
* Jin Goo as Jin-tae, a local ne'er do well and one of Do-joon's friends. He bosses Do-joon around, but agrees to help Mother free her son.
* Yoon Je-moon as Je-moon, the detective in charge of Ah-jung's murder case
* Jeon Mi-seon as Mi-seon, a camera-shop worker who helps Mother. She had met Ah-jung before she died.
* Song Sae-byeok as a detective
* Lee Young-suk as the junk collector
* Moon Hee-ra as Moon Ah-jung, a young girl who is murdered, leading the police to arrest Do-joon
* Chun Woo-hee as Mi-na, Jin-tae's girlfriend
* Kim Byung-Soon as the detective team leader
* Yeo Moo-Young as Do-joon's lawyer
* Lee Mi-do as Hyung-teo, Ah-jung's friend
* Kim Jin-goo as Ah-jung's grandma
* Lee Jung-eun as Ah-jung's relative with glasses
* Hwang Young-hee as Ah-jung's pregnant relative
* Kwak Do-won as charcoal fire man
* Ko Kyu-pil as Ddong Ddong

## Release

Mother competed in the Un Certain Regard category at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In South Korea, it attracted 3,003,785 admissions nationwide and grossed a total of US$16,283,879, becoming the 6th most-attended domestic film of 2009, and 10th overall. The film had its U.S. premiere in February 2010 as part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and it received a limited U.S. theatrical release by Magnolia Pictures in March 2010. In March 2015, the film was re-released in the US at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, as part of their Bong Joon Ho Retrospective (along with Memories of Murder, The Host, and Snowpiercer). A black-and-white version of the film was released in 2013.
The film was reported to have been made with a $5 million budget and went on to be the sixth highest-grossing film in South Korea in 2009.

### Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 114 reviews, with an average rating of 7.88/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "As fleshy as it is funny, Bong Joon-Ho's Mother straddles family drama, horror and comedy with a deft grasp of tone and plenty of eerie visuals." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised the performance by Kim Hye-ja and described the film as "alternately dazzling and frustrating".

#### Top ten lists

Mother appeared on many film critics' "best-of" lists of 2010.
* 2nd – Reverse Shot
* 2nd – Frank Paiva, MSN Movies
* 4th – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
* 4th – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice
* 4th – Jim Emerson, MSN Movies
* 5th – Slant Magazine
* 7th – Kim Morgan, MSN Movies
* 7th – Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
* 8th – Keith Philipps, The A.V. Club
* 8th – Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club
* 10th – Tasha Robinson, The A.V. Club
* 10th – Cahiers du cinéma
* Not ranked – Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
* Not ranked – Dana Stevens, Slant Magazine
* Not ranked – Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal

## Awards and nominations

The film was selected as South Korea's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
| Award | Category | Recipient | Result |
| Buil Film Awards | Best Film | Mother | Won |
| Buil Film Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Buil Film Awards | Best Cinematography | Hong Kyung-pyo | Won |
| Buil Film Awards | Best Music | Lee Byung-woo | Won |
| Busan Film Critics Awards | Best Film | Mother | Won |
| Busan Film Critics Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Busan Film Critics Awards | Best Cinematography | Hong Kyung-pyo | Won |
| Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival | Best Actress in a Foreign Film | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Grand Bell Awards | Best Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Grand Bell Awards | Best Director | Bong Joon Ho | Nominated |
| Grand Bell Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Nominated |
| Grand Bell Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Jin Goo | Won |
| Grand Bell Awards | Best Cinematography | Hong Kyung-pyo | Nominated |
| Grand Bell Awards | Best Music | Lee Byung-woo | Nominated |
| Korean Association of Film Critics Awards | Best Film | Mother | Won |
| Korean Association of Film Critics Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Korean Association of Film Critics Awards | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Won |
| Asia Pacific Screen Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Asia Pacific Screen Awards | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Nominated |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Film | Mother | Won |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Director | Bong Joon Ho | Nominated |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Nominated |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Jin Goo | Won |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Nominated |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Cinematography | Hong Kyung-pyo | Nominated |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Lighting | Choi Cheol-su, Park Dong-sun | Won |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Music | Lee Byung-woo | Nominated |
| Mar del Plata Film Festival | SIGNIS Award | Mother | Won |
| Dubai International Film Festival | Best Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Dubai International Film Festival | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Won |
| Chicago International Film Festival | Gold Hugo | Bong Joon Ho | Nominated |
| Women in Film Korea Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Director's Cut Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Nikkan Sports Film Awards | Best Foreign Picture | Mother | Won |
| KOFRA Film Awards | Best Film | Mother | Won |
| KOFRA Film Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Santa Barbara International Film Festival | Best East Meets West Cinema Award | Mother | Won |
| Independent Spirit Awards | Best International Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Asian Film Awards | Best Film | Mother | Won |
| Asian Film Awards | Best Director | Bong Joon Ho | Nominated |
| Asian Film Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Asian Film Awards | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Won |
| Asian Film Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Won Bin | Nominated |
| Asian Film Awards | Best Editing | Moon Sae-kyung | Nominated |
| Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Director | Bong Joon Ho | Nominated |
| Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Nominated |
| Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Actor | Won Bin | Nominated |
| Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Nominated |
| Green Planet Movie Awards | Best Foreign Culture Film of the Year | Mother | Won |
| Green Planet Movie Awards | Best International Director | Bong Joon Ho | Won |
| Green Planet Movie Awards | Best International Film | Mother | Won |
| Green Planet Movie Awards | Best International Drama (Asia) | Mother | Won |
| Boston Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Toronto Film Critics Association Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Runner-up |
| Houston Film Critics Society | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Runner-up |
| Chicago Film Critics Association | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Online Film Critics Society Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Online Film Critics Society Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Satellite Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Women Film Critics Circle | Best Foreign Film by or About Women | Mother | Won |
| IndieWire Critics Poll | Best Film | Mother | 8th place |
| IndieWire Critics Poll | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | 5th place |
| IndieWire Critics Poll | Best Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | 5th place |
| Village Voice Film Poll | Best Film | Mother | 8th place |
| Village Voice Film Poll | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | 3rd place |
| Munich International Film festival | Best International Film (ARRI/OSRAM Award) | Mother | Won |
| Munich International Film festival | Best International Film (Arri-Zeiss-Award) | Mother | Won |
| Saturn Awards | Best International Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics | Grand Prix | Mother | Nominated |
| Chlotrudis Awards | Best Movie | Mother | Nominated |
| Chlotrudis Awards | Best Director | Bong Joon Ho | Nominated |
| Chlotrudis Awards | Best Actress | Kim Hye-ja | Won |
| Chlotrudis Awards | Best Original Screenplay | Bong Joon Ho, Park Eun-kyo | Won |
| Alliance of Women Film Journalists | Best Non-English Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Alliance of Women Film Journalists | Cultural Crossover Award | Mother | Nominated |
| Central Ohio Film Critics Association | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Denver Film Critics Society | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Won |
| Gold Derby Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| Vancouver Film Critics Circle | Best Foreign Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| International Cinephile Society | Best Film Not in the English Language | Mother | 7th place |
| International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA) | Best Non-English Language Film | Mother | Nominated |
| NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture | Mother | Nominated |