Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

An Exercise In Nonsense

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I place myself on the average scale when it comes to patience, but I could only tolerate the first 5 minutes of this waste before switching it off and deleting the file from my hard-drive forever! Good riddance!

As a massive fan of Korean director Kim Ki-duk - I've never seen a film of his I haven't loved - I was eager to see what delights his new film PIETA had in store for the viewer. In some ways it's similar to a lot of his previous filmography, like BAD GUY, in which the protagonist is also the antagonist, and also similar to other Korean films I've seen like BREATHLESS.The main character is a ruthless loan shark who makes a living from crippling those who owe him money; he gets the money back from their insurance claims. The glacial Lee Jeong-jin gives an icy turn as a truly horrible creation, but inevitably he thaws a little once you get to know him, and once the plot kicks in. This is a revenge story, but one done in a way that's both subtle and convoluted; it's a film that rewards close attention, else you won't have a clue what's going on.Jo Min-soo bags the film's most interesting role of the long-lost mother who turns up seeking reconciliation. It's a difficult, unsympathetic part to play, and there are one or two sexual situations which go way beyond the realms of bad taste into some of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. As ever, though PIETA isn't really an explicit film, despite the sheer quantity of violent incidents that happen during the running time, and as a story it gets more and more engrossing as it goes on. The end is particularly profound, and the lush cinematography on a tiny budget makes this a beautiful film to watch, despite the depravity.

Essentially I'm a great fan of Kim Ki-duk since I was fifteen and a teacher brought my literature class to see Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring, so when he won the golden lion in Venice I was really excited that finally this great film-maker earned the praise he deserves from the western world. Unfortunately in my humble opinion he earned it with the wrong film. Pietà is shallow, weak, the cinematography is awful and annoyed me a lot. This film tries hard being something new compared to the previous production of Kim Ki-duk but misses unbelievably the spot. It's predictable, prosaic, and it owns Park Chan-wook too much without being able to reach his poetic peaks; the squalor, the violence are faked and almost for their own sake. The major twist is clear from the beginning and the entire script could have been handled in a better way. Jeong-jin Lee (Gang-do) had one facial expression all film long, he looked like someone injected him with botox few minutes before the shoot. Min-so Jo struggled to make some efforts but unfortunately the Italian dubbing killed her performance for good (by the way dubbing is going to kill me too). This film is overrated, plagiarized and also boring. Don't waste your time : choose to watch and prepare yourself to love instead one of the great works of Master Kim such as 3-IRON, The Bow, or the Samaritan.

Review originally posted at The Frame Loop. Visit www.theframeloop.com - Even before the first image of an ominously hanging, rusty hook, Pieta comes to CPH PIX Film Festival with a great deal of infamy. The latest from South Korean, art-house provocateur Kim Ki Duk (3-Iron, The Isle) this unnerving revenge drama wowed last year's Venice Film Festival jury so much that it went on to beat Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master to the coveted Golden Lion award. Is it a better film than that aptly titled PTA project? Absolutely not. Is Pieta a gritty, harrowing and wholly engrossing exercise in cinematic tolerance? You're damn right it is.Li Jung-Jin stars as Kang-Do, the merciless henchman to a crooked Seoul loan shark. Living in a threadbare apartment, with a diet consisting of half-cooked meat, he scuttles across the city, ruffling up people's feathers and making sure they pay up their debts, or else suffer the brutal consequences. His lonesome, pitiful existence is transformed by the arrival of Mi-Sun (Jo Min-Soo), an elderly woman claiming to be his estranged mother. Seeking repentance and the love of the inhumane monster she birthed and abandoned, the disbelieving Kang-Do puts her through a slew of horrific tests that will prove their bloodline, from eating dismembered body parts, to unsolicited incest. Boundaries are crossed, taboos busted open, and a repugnant relationship ensues.Despite the industrial slum setting and the subtext of tooth/limbless capitalism, Pieta conforms to a typical Greek tragedy plot line. With each revelation more traumatic and sickening than the last, Kim tells the story with brute emotional force and savagery, without ever resorting to the ultra-violence made so common in South Korean cinema from the likes of Park Chan-Wook and The Vengeance Trilogy. While Jo Young-Jik's curious hand-held cinematography may look away from the most distressing of graphic acts, the pain lingers on the screen through Li and Jo's fantastic, expressionistic acting. The pair have a terse, inflammatory chemistry which is so enthralling that the mother-son relationship is all the more sickening.Perhaps the film's success in Europe isn't all that surprising. Tackling the cruel storyline through emotional heft – without the archetypal glossy production values of the region - Pieta could be mistaken for a Lars von Trier or Gaspar Noé project. With a sublime first act, Kim gets lost in the knotty narrative he has laid out before him, and ties everything up in a stirring denouement that brings some genuine heart to the otherwise pitiful portrait of dog-eat-dog, Seoul city-living.In that brilliant opening third, Mi-Sun turns to Kang-Do to denounce money as the 'beginning and the end of all things: love, honour, violence, fury, hatred, jealousy, revenge, death.' Unsavoury topics abound, Kim Ki-Duk combats them all with severe conviction in Pieta. If you can stomach such callousness, then this is diatribe is well worth a watch.Review originally posted at The Frame Loop. Visit www.theframeloop.com -