“The Bros” (부라더)

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
November 13, 2021

☆☆☆☆
Lee Seok-Bong (played by Ma Dong-Seok)
Lee Joo-Bong (played by Lee Dong-Hwi)
Oh Ro-Ra (played by Lee Hanee)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

Seok-Bong and Joo-Bong are estranged brothers who reunite for their father’s funeral. Neither one remembers having a close relationship with anyone in their family and dread the thought of spending time with them. They don’t want to partake in rituals with people they don’t particularly like.

Still, Seok-Bong is the oldest son and is expected to carry on the tradition of leading the multi-day funeral rites to honor their father.

Both men are a bit of a mess. Seok-Bong is a teacher who tries to make his dreams happen by throwing money he doesn’t have at schemes he thinks will make him rich. Joo-Bong is a lower-middle management employee for a construction company. He is tasked with getting villagers to sign consent forms that’ll allow expansion in that area. Coincidentally, the village is where he and his brother grew up,

While bickering (and slapping each other) on the drive to their father’s funeral and not paying attention to the road, their car hits a woman. Miraculously, she is alive! Her name is Ro-Ra, she tells them, and aside from suffering from a bit of memory loss, she is physically unharmed. She refuses to go to the hospital, so they drop her off somewhere that appears familiar to her. But she ends up finding her way to the funeral, where her knowledge of the mourners and the area proves to be an asset to the brothers.

“The Bros” is part comedy and part drama. The humor is of the silly slapstick kind, but it will make you laugh. The film’s strength is its dramatic moments but, unfortunately, there’s too little of that. Three quarters of the movie is spent dealing with the family’s old-fashioned ways, which are couched as tradition, but is in reality deeply misogynistic. The women are expected to do all the thankless cooking for the feasts that accompany celebrations and memorials. The film makes it clear that being married to the eldest son is a burden, rather than an honor, because of all the responsibilities that fall upon the daughter-in-law to handle all the domestic obligations for her in laws.

There is also a subplot, with Seok-Bong trying to unearth hidden treasures on their family’s land. But even after digging up a good chunk of the property, all he finds are urns filled with junk: their childhood toys, cheap gifts they had given their mother when they were little — things like that.

There is a surprise element that I didn’t anticipate, which helped tie up loose ends nicely. And no, I’m not talking about Ji Chang-Wook’s cameo as the younger version of the brothers’ father (although that was nice, too).

Ma Dong-Seok and Lee Dong-Hwi are an unlikely pair to cast as brothers. They look nothing alike, but therein lies the genius. Familial ties can be a curse, but woe be the outsider who tries to come between family. Ma and Lee take the roles they’ve been given and carve out relatable characters who are trying to preserve what there is left of their family: each other.

Theatrical release: November 2, 2017. The film has a running time of 102 minutes.

The “Squid Game” connection: Lee Dong-Hwi (“Reply 1988“) has been dating “Squid Game” star Jung Hoyeon since 2015. Heo Sung-Tae (“Beyond Evil,” “Racket Boys“), who played the thug in the hit series, plays a monk here.

Spoiler Alert: The brothers were bitter that their father didn’t take better care of their mother, whose funeral they hadn’t known about. In reality, she had Alzheimer’s, and every time their father tried to take her to the hospital, she refused to go. He took care of her until the end. Before he died, he documented their life together. He wrote that he hoped his sons would follow their dreams.

The woman who they ran over with their car wasn’t a real person, but the ghost of their mother. Remember the junk Seok-Bong found buried on their property? As she was losing her memory, she had her husband help her bury her treasures. She couldn’t remember much by then, but she knew that the toys had been her children’s favorites when they were little. That was her way of preserving what she couldn’t remember.

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