Broker

The first time I saw a "baby box" in a news report, I thought it was the plot of a dystopian sci-fi novel. It’s a literal slot in a wall where parents can anonymously leave infants they can't care for. In Broker, Japanese maestro Hirokazu Kore-eda (the guy who broke our hearts with Shoplifters) takes this polarizing real-world fixture in South Korea and turns it into the starting line for a crime-riddled road trip. It sounds like the setup for a gritty, sweat-soaked thriller about human trafficking, but because it’s Kore-eda, it’s actually a gentle, occasionally hilarious, and deeply moving film about people who are essentially the world’s most polite kidnappers.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while my neighbor was seemingly trying to assemble an entire IKEA warehouse next door. The rhythmic thwack-thwack of his hammer actually synced up perfectly with the windshield wipers in the opening scene, and for a solid ten minutes, I thought it was part of the score. It’s that kind of movie—it invites the world in, messy edges and all.

The Most Relatable Human Traffickers in Cinema

The story centers on Sang-hyun, played by the endlessly charismatic Song Kang-ho (you definitely know him as the father from Parasite), and his partner Dong-soo, played by Gang Dong-won. They operate a side hustle that is legally horrifying but narratively charming: they steal babies left in the box, delete the security footage, and sell the infants to wealthy parents on the "black market" for adoption.

Their logic? They’re just skipping the red tape to find these kids a home. It’s a Robin Hood vibe, if Robin Hood dealt in toddlers. Things get complicated when the mother of their latest "acquisition," So-young (played by K-pop-superstar-turned-powerhouse-actress IU, also known as Lee Ji-eun), actually returns for her kid. Instead of calling the cops, she joins them on a road trip to vet the potential buyers.

IU’s character has more chemistry with a beat-up minivan than most rom-com leads have with each other. She plays So-young with a jagged, defensive edge that slowly softens, and her performance is the secret weapon of the film. She isn't a "perfect victim" or a "saintly mother"; she’s a woman who has run out of options and is making the best of a series of terrible choices.

A Masterclass in the "Found Family" Trope

In our current era of franchise fatigue and $300 million CGI spectacles, Broker feels like a relief. It’s a film that trusts its audience to sit with ambiguity. Are these guys "good"? Probably not. Are they trying their best in a system that failed them first? Absolutely. Kore-eda is the king of the "found family" narrative, and here he expands it to include a stowaway orphan named Hae-jin (Lim Seung-soo), who provides the kind of chaotic kid energy every road trip movie needs.

The film also follows two detectives, played by Bae Doona (the badass from Cloud Atlas and The Host) and Lee Joo-young, who are tailing the group. This is where the movie gets interesting in a contemporary context. The detectives are waiting for the "broker" deal to happen so they can catch them in the act, but as they watch from their car, eating convenience store ramen and judging the group, they start to realize that the "criminals" are actually taking better care of the baby than the state ever would. The cops are actually the most annoying part of the movie, serving as a proxy for a society that loves to judge morality but hates to fund the social safety nets that would prevent these crimes in the first place.

Why It Works Now

Released in the wake of the pandemic, Broker hits a specific nerve regarding our need for connection. It’s a Korean film directed by a Japanese filmmaker, funded by major studios like CJ ENM, and it feels like a truly global piece of art. It lacks the cynical edge of many modern dramas. Instead, it offers a sequence in a darkened hotel room where the characters take turns saying "Thank you for being born" to one another. In the hands of a lesser director, it would be sappy enough to cause cavities. Here, it feels like a necessary exhale.

The cinematography by Hong Kyung-pyo (who also shot Parasite and Burning) makes the South Korean coast look lush and melancholic. It’s a beautiful-looking film that never feels "pretty" just for the sake of it. Everything—from the cramped interiors of the van to the sterile lights of the baby box facility—feels lived-in.

If you’re looking for a high-octane crime caper, keep scrolling. But if you want a film that treats its characters with an almost radical amount of empathy, Broker is the one. It’s a movie that asks us to look at the people we usually look past. It doesn't offer easy answers, but it does offer a really great scene involving an automatic car wash that might just be the most therapeutic thing I've seen on screen in years.

Ultimately, Broker is a movie about the families we choose when the ones we were born into aren't an option. It manages to be a crime story where the biggest stakes aren't whether the "bad guys" get caught, but whether a tiny baby gets to grow up knowing he was wanted. It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking, and it’ll make you want to call your friends—or at least be a little kinder to the next person you see driving a dented van.