Japanese auteur Hirokazu Koreeda’s first Korean film to star top Korean actors

Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda will take on his first Korean movie with top-tier actors Song Kang-ho, Bae Doo-na and Gang Dong-won, according to the film’s distributor CJ ENM.

Tentatively titled “Broker,” the film is a drama about people involved with “baby boxes” -- temperature-controlled containers in which unwanted newborns are dropped off.

The Japanese writer and director, well reputed for his portraits of families that reveal their complexities and realities, balancing them gracefully with compassionate and warm narratives, is one of the Cannes Film Festival’s favorite Japanese filmmakers. His films have been in competition five times at Cannes, winning the jury prize with “Like Father, Like Son” in 2013 and Palme d’Or with “Shoplifters” in 2018.

Koreeda previously worked with Bae in 2009’s “Air Doll,” in which the Korean actress played the lead character, air doll Nozomi. “Broker” would be his first work with Song and Gang, who previously starred together in Korean thriller flick “Secret Union” in 2010.

“Back in 2009, I promised Bae that ‘we would collaborate again, next time, as a human character’ and I have come to keep this promise after 10 years,” Koreeda said in a statement released in Korean by the distributor. “Including these three actors, I am able to make this film with the help of other Korean actors and film staff who I have revered.”

According to the statement, the director has been working on the upcoming film’s script with the Korean producers for around five years already.

“I feel my heart fluttering the most right now, as I am writing the script, moving around the three veteran actors inside my mind. I hope to make a film through which I could share this feeling -- doleful, yet thrilling and heartbreaking at times,” Koreeda said.

CJ ENM, which also distributed Korea’s Cannes- and Oscar-winning “Parasite,” said “Broker” is expected to kick off production in 2021.



By Choi Ji-won (jwc@heraldcorp.com)