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Through an interview titled "Fan's Pick: Noh Hee-Kyung Issue" by oh my HK!, Avida Zain uncovered her deep-down emotion about her favorite drama series by Noh Hee-Kyung, Dear My Friends. Avida has fancied Noh Hee-Kyung's works since she watched Our Blues (2022), and it prompted her to watch Noh's other dramas, including Live (2018), The Most Beautiful Goodbye (2017), Dear My Friends (2016), It's Okay, That's Love (2014), and That Winter, the Wind Blows (2013). “I love her dramas because the stories she made are not grandiose. Most of them are slices of life dramas, so they are about ordinary people that relate to our lives,” she said on Saturday (20/5/2023) at her boarding house, “And what's special is she dug deep inside topics that—I don't know how to say it—but (what I mean is) topics like mental illness, teen pregnancy, disability, chronic illness, and so on,” she added. Among the Noh dramas she has watched, Dear My Friends is her favorite. This drama follows a group of friends, consisting of Jang Nan-Hee (Go Du-Shim), Jo Hee-Ja (Kim Hye-Ja), Moon Jung-A (Na Moon-Hee), Lee Young-Won (Park Won-Suk), and Oh Choong-Nam (Youn Yuh-Jung), who rediscover themselves through love and family in their golden years. This sixteen-episode drama highlights the stories of each of them. Jang Nan-Hee is the backbone of his parents and his younger brother, who cannot make a living for himself. Her mother, Oh Ssang-Boon (Kim Young-Ok), was abused by her father in the past, but Jang and his mother still take care of him in his old age. Her daughter, Park Wan (Go Hyun-Jung), is a single forty-year-old writer and translator. Because Jang's ex-husband cheated on her and her brother is disabled, she wants Park not to marry a married or disabled man. However, what happened was ironic. Park once almost had a relationship with her married boss, and the man she loves is disabled due to an accident. This drama also shows the stories of the other members of the group: Jo Hee-Ja has dementia; Moon Jung-A wants to live freely by divorcing her husband, who always takes her for granted; Lee Young-Won hides her cancer from her friends, and she wants to fix her friendship with Jang Nan-Hee; and Oh Choong-Nam becomes the breadwinner for her huge family, so she never finished her school and got married. “So, when I watched this drama, I felt the worries of older people about what might happen in their future lives, their past regrets, their desire to fix or end a relationship, and their efforts to protect their children from things that once ruined their lives,” Avida stated what she felt about Dear My Friends. Directed by Hong Jong-Chan, Dear My Friends won the Best Drama and Best Screenplay categories at the 53rd Baeksang Arts Awards awards. The original network of this drama was tvN, and it is currently available on Netflix. To access the full interview between Avida Zain and oh my HK!, please watch the attached video or click the following link: https://youtu.be/nWy5qs4iW-Y.

Through an interview titled "Fan's Pick: Hirokazu Koreeda Issue" by oh my HK!, Theresia Pradita shared her impressions and feelings about her favorite Hirokazu Koreeda's work, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House. Theresia is a fan of a Japanese director and screenwriter, Hirokazu Koreeda, who started to fall for his works after she idly watched Broker (2022). She revealed that she immediately sought out Koreeda's movies as soon as she left the theater at that time. Basically, she always has been fond of slow-burn dramas that deliver stories of heartwarming human relationships. "Through Koreeda's works, my watching preferences and expectations are fulfilled," she said on Sunday (14/5/2023) at her boarding house. Some of Koreeda's movies, besides Broker, that Theresia has watched are Shoplifters (2018), Like Father, Like Son (2013), Our Little Sister (2015), Still Walking (2008), Nobody Knows (2004), and so on. She also looked forward to watching Koreeda's old movies, such as After Life (1998) and Maborosi (1995). After she was done watching the latest Netflix series directed by Koreeda, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, she intended to watch other series he wrote, such as Going My Home (2012). Among these movies and series, Theresia's favorite is The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House. This series revolves around two best friends, Kiyo and Sumire, who decide to move from their hometown of Aomori to Kyoto to pursue their dream of becoming a maiko. In Kyoto, the two sixteen-year-old girls live in an all-female maiko house called Saku and start participating in various training, particularly dancing. Despite how hard Kiyo and Sumire try to advance their skills together, they still have different capabilities. Sumire shows excellent progress and even surpasses the performance of her seniors. Meanwhile, Kiyo has difficulty concentrating and keeping up with every dance move taught. The maiko coach and Saku's manager suggest that Kiyo return to Aomori and continue her study in school. However, destiny does not simply separate Kiyo from Sumire. Saku officially assigns Kiyo as the makanai—cooking is her actual talent—replacing the previous one. As for why Theresia chose this series that was adapted from Aiko Koyama's manga, Kiyo in Kyoto, she said, "This series has a unique combination of topics. It is teeming with maiko culture combined with the visual delicacy of food's cuisine and is wrapped in a friendship story." She then added an analogy representing this series's story: "It is like a sandwich: two loaves of bread flank meat and vegetables. So, the main topics of The Makanai (Cooking for the Maiko House) are about maiko and cuisine covered in the friendship between Kiyo and Sumire." To access the full interview between Theresia Pradita and oh my HK!, please watch the attached video or click the following link: https://youtu.be/ZStTy0J1AIo.

Dedicated as a tribute to Noh Hee-Kyung's mother, The Most Beautiful Goodbye (1996) served as the first milestone in her career and grew to become her most memorable work. Noh Hee-Kyung, a well-versed screenwriter, made her debut in 1995 with Mom's Gardenias, and The Most Beautiful Goodbye (1996) marked her first hit and renown in the television and film industry as it harbored two remarkable things. First, this series was intensely personal to Noh because she presented it as a tribute to his mother, who died in 1994, two years before its release. Second, it had a heart-wrenching story that left the audience with deep sorrow and heavy tears, leading Noh to her first Grand Prize at the 1997 Baeksang Arts Awards. The Most Beautiful Goodbye was subsequently adapted into a novel (1997), a stage play (2010), and a movie titled The Last Blossom (2011). Even in 2017, twenty years after the original series was released, a television company negotiated with Noh for a remake of this series. So, how is the storyline of this series that it becomes an exquisite tearjerker? The story follows a staunch middle-aged mother, wife, and daughter-in-law, Kim In-Hee, who cares for every member of her family even though they always take her for granted. When her family finds out about her terminal cancer diagnosis, they begin to unite and appreciate her exceptional love for them. Although they know In-Hee does not have much time to live, they try their best to repay her lifelong sacrifice for them and learn to let her go, embodying the most beautiful goodbye for her. The last version of The Most Beautiful Goodbye (2017) stars Won Mi-Kyung (In-Hee), Yoo Dong-Geun (In-Hee's husband), Choi Ji-Woo (first child), Choi Min-Ho (second child), and Kim Young-Ok (mother-in-law). As for previous versions, the character Kim In-Hee is also played by veteran actresses, including Na Mun-Hee (original series), Bae Jong-Ok (movie), and Jung Ae-Ri and Song Ok-Sook (stage plays). Directed by Hong Jong-Chan, the remake version was initially scheduled to air on MBC to commemorate the original series. However, it was transferred to tvN, airing from 9th to 17th December, 2017, due to the MBC employees' strike. Unfortunately, this four-episode series is not available on any streaming platforms. Nevertheless, Apple TV users can watch it through their set-top box. The movie version, The Last Blossom, is also available on the platform Prime Video.

Portraying the joys and sorrows of the Hongil Patrol Division members in their routines, Live voices a simple yet profound message that police officers are ordinary people. Live revolves around each individual's professional and personal life within the Hongil Patrol Division, which comprises fourteen members of various ranks. Han Jung-O and Yeom Sang-Soo come from the same police academy, where a strict instructor, Oh Yang-Chon, trains them. Both live with their single mothers and previously had difficulty finding jobs. After they graduate from the academy, they decide to choose the patrol division and are stationed in Hongil, where they meet another first-year police, Song Hye-Ri. They then reunite with Oh Yang-Chon and find out that he is an accomplished detective from the Violent Crimes Division. Regrettably, Oh receives a demotion to the patrol division due to an unexpected incident. His wife, An Jang-Mi, is also a police officer in the Woman and Child Protection Division, and their household is on edge because of Oh negligence to his family. Throughout the eighteen episodes, the audience can discover the stories of other police officers: the love triangle between Yeom Sang-Soo, Han Jung-O, and Choi Myung-Ho; the pessimism and concern of the sensitive older police officers, Ki Han-Sol and Lee Sam-Bo, about their declining performance and health; the presence of Eun Kyung-Mo in the middle of Oh Oh Yang-Chon and An Jang-Mi's susceptible household; Song Hye-ri's enviousness of Han Jung-O's achievements; the dispute between Kim Min-Seok, Ban Jong-Min, and Kang Nam-Il over who deserves to be sacrificed to endure suspension for a mistake, while the three have their respective urgent necessities; Han Jung-O's trauma from sexual assault in the past; and so forth. Live definitely involves diverse criminal cases, but it emphasizes more on how police officers take action amid the obligatory to comply with the rules and the uproar of their own emotions, how they work together professionally without entangling personal affairs, how they set priorities between work and family, how they find a way out of joint problems, how they learn to understand when to give up or fight for something, and how they deal with themselves. This series points out that irrespectively of their work of maintaining order and upholding justice in society, they are ordinary people—part of society—who go through ups and downs in their everyday lives and have fear, even towards the criminals they face. The writer of Live, Noh Hee-Kyung, revealed why this series highlights the day-to-day lives of police officers instead of the criminal cases: "The people who change the world are the majority, the ordinary people. It is not one hero, but the story of the common man that I tried to deal with. Through the drama, I wanted to convey hope to the society of today and the future.” She also reportedly penned this series script based on her interviews and consultations with real police officers, which she did for one year. This series stars well-grounded actors, including Jung Yu-Mi, Lee Kwang-Soo, Bae Sung-Woo, Bae Jong-Ok, Sung Dong-Il, and Shin Dong-Wook. Directed by Kim Kyu-Tae, Live managed to open new perspectives for the audience regarding the lives of police officers behind their neat uniforms, threatening pistols, and courageous attitudes. Noh and Kim previously worked together on It's Okay, That's Love (2014), That Winter, The Wind Blows (2013), Padam Padam (2011), and Worlds Within (2008). Live was aired on the Korean television channel tvN from March 9th to May 6th, 2018, and all episodes are now available on the streaming platform Netflix and iQIYI.

Enraptured by his filmmaking experiences in France (The Truth) and Korea (Broker), Hirokazu Koreeda is interested in making a movie in Taiwan by engaging its features, particularly Taiwanese actors. Through the 16th Asian Film Awards winners interview, Koreeda revealed this vision, which is tightly related to his passion for delivering a message over a get-beyond culture and language movie. "This award (the Best Director) is an encouragement to continue making films that transcend cultures and languages, just like this internationally co-produced film (Broker), so I'd like to do my best from here on," he said. Concerning the reason he is enamored with this country in East Asia, he stated that it is solely because his father was born there. He also mentioned several eminent Taiwanese actors he would like to work with, including Tony Leung (Where the Wind Blows), Gwei Lun Mei (A Leg), and Zhou Dongyu (Ancient Love Poetry). Koreeda attended the 16th Asian Film Awards held at the Hong Kong Palace Museum on March 12, 2023, and won Best Director with Broker (2022). This marks his second win in this category at the Asian Film Awards, where he previously prevailed with Still Walking (2008). Koreeda expressed his surprise at winning this time, considering he did not think up a speech beforehand. Instead of the award, he uttered that his primary purpose for attending this annual award ceremony was to participate in the Asian movie industry confluence, which was seen as the industry resurgence after the Covid-19 pandemic. This seasoned Japanese director currently prepares for the release of his forthcoming movie, Monster, which is now in post-production. He said there is not plan to direct a movie overseas again, but he is looking forward to the right time to do so in Taiwan.

A Japanese actress, Ai Hashimoto, voiced her concerns about the concept of public facilities, especially bathrooms and toilets, where cisgender and transgender women share the same spaces. The 21st Century Girl (2019) and Pareto's Miscalculation (2020) star posted her thoughts on her Instagram account on March 4. According to an enhanced translation by Bounding Into Comics, Hashimoto stated: Her opinion teed off Japan's transgender activists and made her the target of hate speeches. These activists assumed that Hashimoto was a transphobic bigot because she brought up the topic of "transgender in biological women's spaces." They concluded that her attitude amounted to unfair transgender discrimination and that they had to defy it. One activist wrote on his Twitter account as follows: Similar remarks kept popping up, forcing Hashimoto to take down her post and apologize to those offended by her statement. She posted again on her Instagram on March 5, expressing her regret and commitment to learning from this experience. Meanwhile, many people questioned why Hashimoto apologized for telling the truth. They were the ones who supported and agreed with her idea of classifying public places based on biological sex. They believed men with wigs, make-up, and skirts should not use women's spaces. The president of general associations of LGBT-JAPAN and transgender men, Ryo Tatsuki, was one of these people. He stated his support for Hashimoto through his Twitter account as follows: This issue also drew the attention of international netizens, one of whom owns the YouTube channel atraes. He uploaded a video entitled "Trans Mafia Forces Japanese Actress Ai Hashimoto To Bend The Knee" on March 18. In the video, he confirmed his support for Hashimoto's opinion through a potential case example: "Do you really want to live in a world where your daughter goes into a locker room, and she is trying to take a shower, and there is a man sitting in the back watching her take a shower like this [grinning]? But he has on a wig, so it is cool” After posting her apology statement, Hashimoto has given no sign of responding to this issue again. Ai Hashimoto is one of the casts in Hirokazu Koreeda's Netflix original series, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, released last January. She seized fruitfulness early in her acting career by winning the Newcomer of the Year at the 36th Japan Academy Film Prize and Best New Actress at the 86th Kinema Junpo Awards.

Monster is a collaboration result of a stellar Japanese writer, director, actor, and composer, becoming one of the most anticipated movies in 2023. Written by Yuji Sakamoto, Monster is the first movie that Hirokazu Koreeda did not write himself since his 1995 Venice Film Festival-winning movie, Maborosi (Yoshihisa Ogita scripted it based on Maboroshi no Hikari, a novel by Teru Miyamoto). Koreeda is a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, where his most recent participation was at last year's premiere of his all-Korean features movie, Broker. Monster marks his return to Japanese features filmmaking. Meanwhile, Sakamoto is a veteran screenwriter known for his hit TV series, including Mother (2010), Quartet (2017), and We Made a Beautiful Bouquet (2021). According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gaga Corporation revealed on November 29 last year that legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto joined Monster, participating by composing new music and featuring his previous ones. Sakamoto's debut as a movie composer was in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), and he became the first Japanese composer to win Best Original Score at the 1987 Oscars with The Last Emperor. Furthermore, Gaga also mentioned that Shoplifters (2018) star, Sakura Ando, will be cast as the lead in Monster. This movie also stars Nagayama Eita, Mitsuki Takahata, Akihiro Kakuta, Shido Nakamura, Yuko Tanaka, and child actors Soya Kurokawa and Hinata Hiiragi. Genki Kawamura is the lead producer of Monster, along with Kenji Yamada. Famed a leading producer, he made his directorial debut in A Hundred Flowers and won best director at the 2022 San Sebastián Film Festival. His box office anime movie, Shinkai Makoto's Suzume, is currently showing in many countries, including Indonesia. He previously worked with Koreeda on Netflix's original series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, which premiered on January 12 this year. While Monster is Koreeda's second collaboration with Ando and Kawamura, it tags his first joint effort with Yuji Sakamoto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Monster is the work of renowned movie industry players. That is why it is one of 2023 highly anticipated movies and is hailed for its potential premiere at Cannes in May. Under the auspices of the production studios Gaga, Toho, Fuji Television Network, AOI Pro., and Bun-Buku, Monster will release on June 2 in Japan. As for distribution, Gaga will take hold of sales in Asian territories, and Wild Bunch Corporation will carry sales worldwide, exclusive of Asia. The two companies previously collaborated to distribute Koreeda's I Wish (2011), for which Koreeda won Best Director and Best Screenplay for the umpteenth time. Being in post-production since the second half of last year, many have been wondering how the outline of Monster's story will be as it is still being concealed. However, the 30-second teaser below may liven up the picture of this movie for every fan's mind.

The highly awaited drama series, Here (working title), has been in production postponement status since July 2020. Heretofore, neither Noh Hee Kyung, the screenwriter, nor Studio Dragon, the production studio, has yet to reconfirm the continuation of this series production. Noh and Studio Dragon have arranged the schedule for Here: filming in the second half of 2020 and broadcasting on the JTBC network in the first half of 2021. Here was also supposed to be the sixth collaboration between Noh and director Kim Kyu Tae after they worked together on Live (2018), It's Okay, That's Love (2014), That Winter, the Wind Blows (2013), Padam Padam (2011), and Worlds Within (2008). However, the parties involved in the production were concerned that this series would be impossible to carry out the overseas filming schedule – initially set in Italy – due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, the option of filming only domestically was hard to consider as Here follows the story of international non-governmental organization workers. With these deliberations, Studio Dragon, through SPOTVNEWS, announced that Here perforce delayed filming and other production processes. Fans regretted the most that they fizzled out to see the A-list actors – the term for outstanding actors – in Noh's drama, including Lee Byung Hun, Han Ji Min, Shin Min Ah, Nam Joo Hyuk, and Bae Sung Woo. The rise of the coronavirus in 2020 has affected the film industry worldwide, including in South Korea. It has hampered the projects of filmmakers, studios, and actors, especially those that required overseas settings. As a result, they have had to rearrange their schedules for another upcoming project. After the production delay of Here, Bae Sung Woo was cast for a lead role in Delayed Justice (2020-2021) and Nam Joo Hyuk for Twenty-Five Twenty-One (2022). Meanwhile, Lee Byung Hun, Han Ji Min, and Shin Min Ah have joined forces in Noh's subsequent work, Our Blues (2022). Since there is no further news regarding Here, many fans have speculated that this series will not proceed. They concluded that Our Blues was a replacement for it, given that several actors previously confirmed to be cast for Here became exodus for Our Blues. Even so, some still expect the resumption of Here's production and release.

Dealing notably with slice-of-life movies that wrap pseudo-family stories, the protagonist's emotional journey serves as the foremost thing for Hirokazu Koreeda in building story structures. “How to draw the emotional curve is the most important thing for me when I am writing a screenplay,” Koreeda stated in his lecture session at the BAFTA Screenwriters’ Lecture Series. He outlined how he created the curve using his fingers, pointing at his imaginary curve: “Their feelings start up here and then down here (where) they are at their lowest, and they go up again from there.” He used one of his movies, Like Father, Like Son (2013), as an example. The movie begins the curve with a well-to-do man who thinks he is the ideal father and husband to his five-year-old son and his wife. However, the day when he finds out that his son is switched comes, and he starts losing things. He blames his wife for the incident and explicitly expresses his dissimilarity to his son, driving a distance between him and his family. That is when he hits the bottom of the curve. His realization of his mess and his endeavors to fix himself and his family make the curve go back up. Koreeda partially explained how he divided the time for each up and down curve in the same movie: “It is about 60 minutes in when he realizes he was the cause (of the mix-up) and by around 80 minutes his son is estranged, and then it is about how he recovers.” He emphasized that he tends to think about the duration of each emotion within the entire 120-minute movie. Not finding a specific reason why the emotional curve is vital, Koreeda said: “I have never really read a book on how to write a screenplay, but one thing I keep in mind when I am coming up with the structure (of a screenplay) is the protagonist’s emotional journey.” Prior to this, Koreeda talked about his favorite screenwriter since he studied at the university, Sô Kuramoto. Back then, he always bought and read one book out of 30 volumes of the Sô Kuramoto Collection every month, got ideas, and wrote his own stories. “For the most part, Sô Kuramoto wrote about ordinary people. That’s what I like most about him and what influenced me,” he said. His other favorite screenwriter is Kuniko Mukōda, who is in the older generation than Kuramoto. Koreeda also talked about his turning point: he shifted his dream of becoming a novelist into a screenwriter and director at 19 or 20. During his literature course, he realized that the university classes were not really teaching him how to write novels. He then started going to cinemas and was interested in getting involved in movies by writing screenplays. “(I) realized maybe novels were not for me, but movies were,” he said. He did not miss discussing his movies –which might be called a fun fact session. In Nobody Knows (2004), the first scene that came to his mind was of a brother stuffing the body of his dead sister into a suitcase and driving to the airport, where his biological father works, by monorail to bury her. Moreover, the first scene he wrote for Shoplifters (2018) was of a father and a son fishing with a stolen fishing rod. He then decided to make the father and son not related by blood. He revealed that the original title of Shoplifters was Call out Loud and showed the audience the notebook he used to write the movie's screenplay, which contains dialogues and the charts that break up the scenes. Koreeda has been a mainstay of Japanese cinema for almost 30 years and is a milestone in its global presence. He attended the BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture Series based in London, England, on 4 December late last year remotely, along with Lena Dunham (Catherine Called Birdy), Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness), and Tony Kushner (The Fablemans). A 25-minute recording of his lecture is available on BAFTA's YouTube channel.

The most recent Noh Hee-kyung's series, Our Blues, wraps up its story in an omnibus or anthology, covering prevalent and taboo societal themes. Leading screenwriter Noh Hee-kyung previously had a hit with Dear My Friends (2016), The Most Beautiful Goodbye (2017), and Live (2018). In her written interview with The Korea Times, Noh revealed why she decided on the omnibus as her new series format: “At some point, writing a story with two lead characters no longer interested me. We are the heroes of our own story, aren't we?” Setting out from this reason—that she was tired of centralizing a story on only one male and one female leads, she contemplated finding a breakthrough idea. Thus, she went with the omnibus. “I craved a new genre, new storyline, new perspective, and as a result, chose to go with the omnibus style,” she said. Writing a set of stories has never been as easy as turning one's hands, and Noh needed to watch a hundred documentaries to draw up the story and characters of Our Blues. As for the story's setting, she picked out Jeju Island because of her fondness for and personal experience on the island. "I lived in Jeju for a couple of years and fell in love with the island—not just with the beautiful landscape but with its unique culture that encourages communal life," she said. A series in omnibus style means that it consists of many stories, each with a different theme, conflict, and major character. With a total of twenty episodes, each story in Our Blues takes part in one to three episodes. This twenty-episode omnibus drama series follows the sweet and bitter everyday life of a group of people in Jeju that are linked in family, friend, and lover relationships. It brings out lighthearted themes, such as old love and friends, adolescent and adult love, small and warm families, and enjoyable jobs, and bitter ones, including economic difficulties, teen pregnancy, disability, strained parent-child relationships, mental illness, and cancer. These diverse themes generate significant essential messages, especially to be grateful for life. Our Blues encourages its audience to be honest about their pains and joys, admit shortcomings that one is not necessarily ashamed of, and take care of what they have since long ago. It also provides perspectives on coping with societal taboos, prejudices, and stereotypes, such as schoolgirl pregnancy, single and widowed marriage, and rumors of a new society member. Our Blues stars renowned actors, including Lee Byung-hun, Lee Jung-eun, Shin Min-a, Han Ji-min, Kim Woo-bin, Kim Hye-ja, Uhm Jung-hwa, Cha Seung-won, and others. Directed by Kim Kyu-tae, director of Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (2016), and produced by Studio Dragon, this series won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2022 Asian Academy Creative Awards (AACA). Several actors have also won awards, such as Shin Min-a (Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Miniseries at the 2022 APAN Star Awards), Roh Yoon-seo (Rising Star Award at the 2022 Busan International Film Festival), and Choi Young-joon (Excellence Award, Actor at the 2022 Korea Culture and Entertainment Awards). Apart from being broadcast on the Korean television channel tvN last April 9 to June 12, 2022, Our Blues is also available on the streaming platform Netflix in various countries, including Indonesia.

"Thank you for being born" is one of the highlight lines from Broker, a 2022 movie by Hirokazu Koreeda, inclining that every human is precious. Broker is Koreeda's first movie involving entirely Korean elements, from the language, casts, and places. He previously worked on the 2018 Palme d'Or of Cannes Film Festival-winning movie, Shoplifters (2018), which share the several same themes with Broker, including social outcasts, criminal acts, and an unusually formed family. In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Koreeda said he developed Broker and Shoplifters plots simultaneously and viewed the two movies as siblings. They are indeed siblings with different personalities: Shoplifters conveys its storyline heavily and darkly, while Broker presents more light and funny scenes. The story begins on a rainy night when So-young leaves her baby boy, Woo-sung, in front of a church in Busan. Dong-soo, a church worker, and his partner Sang-hyun, a launderette owner, take the baby and remove the footage. They plan to sell Woo-sung to couples desperate for a child through illegal child trafficking. Meanwhile, So-young changes her mind and heads back to the church to pick up Woo-sung, but the baby is not there. To evade police involvement, Dong-soo approaches So-young outside the church and takes her to Sang-hyun's laundrette house. After some argument, So-young agrees to find adoptive parents for Woo-sung, and they set off on their trip. They run into one family after another, but none fit So-young's criteria. The trip adds another member, a boy named Hae-jin, after they visit the orphanage where Dong-soo grew up. A subplot is also in play, following two detectives, Soo-jin and Detective Lee, who stake out Sang-hyun and Dong-soo's illegal business that automatically involves So-young, Woo-sung, and Hae-jin. Criminals and situational family: social outcasts and humanism The 'broker' group members come from a variety of backgrounds. So-young is a prostitute and has a "mother" who has taken care of her since she ran away from her home. One of her clients was a married man who tended to force something or two on her and died at her hands. This man is Woo-sung's biological father. Sang-hyun separates from his daughter and wife, who no longer need to see him. Dong-soo grew up in an orphanage after his mother left him with a letter containing the same promise as So-young wrote to Woo-sung: "I will come back for you." However, Dong-soo's mother never came back for him as So-young did for Woo-sung. Just like Dong-soo, Hae-jin has never seen his parents' faces. One thing they have in common is: they are outcasts. So-young got involved in a prostitution ring, committed murder, and abandoned her child. Sang-hyun and Dong-soo are black-market players. These place them as criminals. However, their acts hold humanism flakes that cannot be overlooked. It is not shown in the movie whether So-young ever held her child's father accountable, but she clearly wanted Woo-sung to be with her. She refused to give birth to him when her "mother" told her to. She courageously took care of him even though she did not know what kind of future awaited her. The urge to leave him was only there after he killed his father in a hotel. Dong-soo is the one who makes this clear and convinces her that she deserves forgiveness from Woo-sung someday. "You abandon Woo-sung because you do not want him to be the murderer's child." Sang-hyun and Dong-soo know when it is time to put humanity above money. They do not mind when So-young decides not to let Woo-sung go to the first customer because they judge Woo-sung's facial appearance. They refuse to hand over Woo-sung to the second customer --the actor the detectives prepare to frame them-- because they suppose they are resellers who will sell Woo-sung back abroad. They also support So-young not giving Woo-sung to the third customer because they do not allow Woo-sung to meet his biological mother again. Moreover, Sang-hyun sacrifices himself to defeat the gangster ordered by Woo-sung's father's widow to take over Woo-sung. Dong-soo explicitly --through words-- tries to formalize the family's construction: "We could just raise him (Woo-sung) ourselves. The five of us. I will be Woo-sung's father." Hae-jin is the icebreaker and initiator of the unique warm that encourages them to start sharing anything and everything. The scene in the car being washed marks his role, in which Sang-hyun and So-young concede their real names. Each of them takes on the part of protecting the other in their way. Parenthetically, the detectives often represent the audience's feelings through their point of view. One minute, they resentfully witness how ambitious the gang is in selling Woo-sung for money, but the next minute they question their credibility: "I guess I was the one who wanted to sell him the most. "We are more like brokers." Koreeda once again manages to wrap up the criminal and outcast themes in an unconventional family, which this time is set in a road trip concept. This slow-burn movie gets on the audience with complex emotional changes that open up society's perspective on whether a person can be wholly evil or good. For people with abandoned experiences like Woo-sung --who, when they are old enough to understand, like Dong-soo, tend to wonder, "Was I supposed to be born? Did I belong in the world?"-- Broker is a solace emphasizing that there is no need to do it all by themselves; they are not alone and are as precious as the people who grow up in their biological families. With his first Korean flick, Koreeda works with several big actors, including Song Kang-ho (Sang-hyun), Lee Ji-eun aka IU (So-young), Gang Dong-won (Dong-soo), Bae Doona (Detective Soo-jin), and Lee Ju-young (Detective Lee). He also explores local landscapes in Busan, Yeongdeok, Uljin, and Wolmido through his characteristical lens and touch. His work returns to compete at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Ecumenical Jury Award and being shortlisted for the Palme d'Or nomination. After its release in theaters in June 2022, unfortunately, this movie is unavailable on Indonesian streaming platforms, like other Koreeda movies.