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!

Ki-duk Kim built his career on films containing bizarre motifs that outline deeper layers of human nature. However, in some of his latest works the priorities have changed. Complex themes have become superficially elaborated frameworks within which a whole range of disturbing contents has been featured. So, in his film Amen (2011), we follow the story of rape (the director himself plays the rapist) to finally understand the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. In his latest work Moebius (2013), the castration of a minor reveals to us that the family goes through a crisis, while in Pietà-I (2012.) Kim teaches us that the obedience by the suffering of rape and humiliation may warm up even the coldest hearts. But this is not where the director stops; he gives to his film a politically involved prospective, as well, criticizing the capitalist system through the mutilation of the poor.The debt collector Gang-Do (Jung-Jin Lee), fear and trembling of the neighborhood, totters through the overcrowded city suburb. He perambulates stuffy hovels of helpless debtors just following his orders. There, he mutilates them, remaining completely cold, in an ambiance filled with menacing machines that impose by themselves the variation in the choices of the ways to inflict lesions ... This established routine is disturbed by a mysterious woman Mi-Son (Jo Min- su) that abruptly enters into Gang-Do's life stating to be his mother. The son reacts to this information by raping her, as it wouldn't be okay to leave her non-raped – because in such a case the director would miss the strike combination of incest and rape! However, regardless of violence she was subjected to, Mi-Son offers unconditional love through which she gradually acquires confidence of her son.Pietà has won the Golden Lion at Venice. The film has a really intriguing plot (although the South Korean revenge film patterns were entirely followed), as well as visual homogeneity in the representation of cold atmosphere and nauseating thematic. However, shock effect is here mostly to affect the audience, and Kim uses it artfully to cover the weaknesses of the film such as poorly dramaturgically elaborated theme of empathy. Its elaboration is so shallow that the director resorted to an awkward explanation of his work. We had to endure the final monologue of the female protagonist who in an outburst of pathos explains from alpha to omega motives of the film and its punch-line. Through the accentuation of flaws present in the character of victims (wimps, invertebrates, people with a lack of morals ...) he supports his misanthropic vision of life and thus calls into question the alleged message of the film and whether the motives of the director were indeed humanistic.

Violence is a key theme running through the movie, but since this is a Kim Ki Duk movie there is more to it. He's not going to take an easy way to tell a story or make it a comfortable watch either. There are some very disturbing scenes in here. Even when he's not explicit, what is implicated is really something that might get imprinted in your mind and you won't be able to shake some of it off.Character may act "irrational" (might also have to do with mentality, but they often do so when in Duks movies), but they all serve a purpose. While the story is not overly complex, the way to its conclusion (which you might guess early on) is very well made. We get some resolutions we might not have needed, but we also get questions that will not get answered entirely. You can also interpret things/meanings, especially towards the end of the movie. Great watch, but not easy at all

Pieta is a Korean crime drama dealing with a guy who is a collector for a loan shark. His methods are unconventional, as he repeatedly has the people who owe large debts cripple themselves in order to cash insurance claims. This occurs over and over again, until he is suddenly followed everywhere by a strange woman who claims to be the mother who abandoned him at birth. She moves intro his apartment to cook and clean for her now grown up son. He is a vicious criminal with a sadistic streak. The lead actor and actress are very good, but the story meanders as we wait for the conclusion. This is the often told tale of revenge, but I found it slow and repetitive. Pieta is technically well made but not worth it in the end.