A prostitute's desperate grab at motherhood ends exactly how society demands it should.
Young-ae is a prostitute who obsesses over money after losing her daughter to illness. Her co-workers are jealous of her. When a prostitute named Mrs. Kangwon dies after giving a birth, Young-ae takes the baby under her care and leaves the brothel district. Although she struggles to make ends meet and provide a home for the child, the child is taken away by the authorities because she is single. She decides that her old life is the only ground for living she has and returns to it.
Acting
Na Young-hee's ferocious, unsentimental maternal desperation.
Direction
Lee Jang-ho's refusal to romanticize poverty or virtue.
Cinematography
Claustrophobic brothel and tenement spaces that suffocate hope.
Director
Lee Jang-ho
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of Lee Jang-ho's 'Children of Darkness' trilogy examining Korea's underclass during rapid industrialization. The series was controversial for its refusal to offer redemptive narratives.
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