A Family (2004) User Reviews

tender and beautiful

[infinito2345 · 9/10 · 12 March 2006]

The film explores the tender and beautiful relationship between a father and his daughter.I Have only heard about family ties in Korea.They must be really strong.I didn't find it as powerful as failan but nevertheless it had a tremendous depth beneath the surface.The background music excellently complemented the emotional scenes.I was left with a strange happy glow in my heart after watching the movie.After watching few korean movies,I am really beginning to develop genuine respect for the values which they cherish in their society.

Korean movie makers are making excellent movies which are realistic,well directed,excellent photography,cinematography and editing.Even acting seems to be on par with Hollywood.

I will be really happy if movies like these are released and screened worldwide.They truly deserve it.

Please do see :- "taegukgi" and "failan" if you want me to recommend other great korean movies.

Highly recommended Korean drama

[divemaster13 · 9/10 · 9 February 2010]

Jeong-eun comes home after 3 years to find that her father wants nothing to do with her. And who can blame him? After all, she just got out of prison for the third time, having gone from petty theft to stabbing a guy with a knife.

The father realizes that Jeong-eun has come home after 3 years, but only to see her 5-year-old brother. She wants nothing to do with him. And who can blame her? After all, he threw his life away to alcohol and physically abused his wife (Jeong-eun's mother; now dead).

But each of them seeks redemption and atonement, and things are not all as they seem. And caught in the middle is the little boy.

Father and daughter find out things about each other that cause each of them to re-evaluate their relationship baggage. She wants to go on the straight and narrow, but her gangster ties do not allow that to happen. And he has a specific reason for needing his daughter back in his life.

The best thing about this film is the acting. Father, daughter, and little boy, as well as other major and minor characters all hit just the right notes. Absent is the overacting too common in Korean films. No 180-degree tone shifts in the middle of the movie. Yes, there is a gangster that goes around slapping his henchmen on the back of the head, but surprisingly it does not go over-the-top. Ae Su, as Jeong-eun, is a revelation in her first feature film.

The emotions that come out in the film (both in the actors and in the viewer) never seem forced. No melodrama just for melodrama's sake. Real people, facing real problems, making the mistakes real people make.

This movie is heartwarming and heartbreaking, with the two woven together masterfully. Highly recommended.

Powerful

[eldakim · 10/10 · 14 April 2005]

I like comparing this film to Failan. Both were emotionally heart-ripping. I honestly cried while watching the film. The father's belief of self-sacrifice for a daughter who betrayed him many times shows family love.

Chang Won, the gangster, was such an evil man. He showed the cruelty of someone who does not understand the meaning of love. Although I was hoping for a satisfying punishment on this evil character, the film oddly did not show this. Rather, it portrayed something better than violence. The father's death represented something very similar to Jesus's crucifixion. The girl immediately changes in attitude and characteristic as a whole. She becomes purified and also a new human being. Instead of doing the dirty work of gangsters, she cares for her brother. This movie was just hands down a masterpiece.

a powerful film

[luyendao · 9/10 · 5 October 2005]

I don't know so many Korean movies have a 'gangster' element in them, I sometimes wonder if that's really that way in Korea.

Regardless, this film is so powerful because of the relationship between father and daughter, and how they finally come to terms with each other. This is a great movie, because we can all relate to riffs in the family, and this doesn't sugar coat anything, but comes across quite raw, and sure to tug on your heart-strings.

I sincerely recommend this movie to anyone to the Korean-movie watcher or to someone who's never seen Korean movies before. It's one of the best Korean films i've seen in a while.