Shin Su-won

Madonna (마돈나)

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Director Shin Su-won Composer Ryu Jae-ah Cast Seo Young-hee, Kwon So-hyun, Kim Young-min

Edition 2022

Classics Focus on Korean Cinema

120' - 2015 - Drama - Dialogue: Korean

This brilliantly directed thriller is also a virulent indictment of the ruling elite in a ruthless class society that a nurse goes to a war against and a prostitute falls victim to.

This medical thriller from director Shin Su-won is also a virulent indictment of Korean society's totalitarian militarism and of a world in which arrogant corporate executives are the new heroes, and where health care divides the poor and the rich. In the first part, we follow Hae-rim, who, as a nurse in the VIP department of a private hospital, cares for an elderly billionaire who has gone through life as a plant after a stroke. He also owns the exclusive hospital and regularly needs a new heart. His son keeps him alive for profit and finds a new donor in a comatose pregnant sex worker. Hae-rim tries to save the baby and expose the machinations. In the second part of this surprisingly constructed film, a flashback shows the fall of sex worker, nicknamed Madonna.

"For those who can take its flurry of gut-punches, the film offers a bold, challenging take on modern Korean society, and is one of the few of its kind to truly attempt to depict the despair and hardship endured by outsider figures in the country." - easternKicks