Mother

Variety“An engrossing portrait of a feisty Korean widow...” "Mother" will prove a tougher sell than Bong's hit monster movie, "The Host," but should get a warm embrace from upscale auds, despite having been unjustly denied a competition berth at Cannes...

The Observer“Hye-ja Kim is immensely sympathetic as the mother...” Korean film-maker Joon-ho Bong's accomplished new film, a psychological thriller, resembles its predecessors both in being overlong and in mocking pompous, ineffectual coppers, but has some excellent and highly satisfying twists.

Channel4 Film“An expertly executed piece of filmmaking...” Bong helps maintain the reputation of contemporary South Korean cinema for oddity and excellence with a blackly comic murder mystery that dances around social mores, genuine tragedy and blind loyalty, guided by a piercing eye for the absurd...

The Independent“No image, no moment is wasted...” With its quiet visual brilliance and relishably sombre comic sensibility, Mother is poignant, compassionate and ultimately disturbing in its conclusion that perhaps a detective needs to be deluded to get to the truth. The thriller of the year...

Total Film “Playfully off-kilter Hitchcockian thriller...” If the detective plot is overly contrived… well, so were many of Hitchcock’s. Still, there’s ample conviction in Hye-ja’s pitch-perfect anti-heroine, a model of frazzled motherhood worthy of Joan Crawford...

Time Out film“Bold, unpredictable and quietly devastating, Bong’s first masterpeice...” Bong juggles styles with insouciant skill, infusing his classic noir plotline with hints of Douglas Sirk melodrama, rainswept US indie realism and a brooding, blackly comic and almost Lynchian sense of a world spiralling out of whack...

The Telegraph“Cracking stuff from one of Korea’s most skilled filmmakers...” The off-kilter story logic, pitch-perfect editing and beady compositional panache make it stylistically pleasurable...

Guardian“Exotic, bizarre and challenging...” Unanswered questions are part of the film's mystery, taking it above and beyond the normal thriller. I have a sinking feeling that this might be one of those films that gets a slack Hollywood remake. See the shimmeringly strange original now...

Empire“A chilling, intense character study...” Like Bong’s previous films, it has an aspect of straight-faced, absurd humour but plays a chillingly serious game as the terrifying heroine learns more than she wants to about her son and the strata of tossed-aside, broken-minded people all around.

Little White Lies“Another quality Bong hit...” Writer/director Bong Joon-ho’s new movie is an elusive genre hyphenate: horror-comedy-mystery-thriller. Don’t be fooled. It might look more reserved than a B-flick about a giant flesh-eating tadpole, but Mother is just as dark, gripping and prima