Synopsis
Director JANG Jin creates a humanitarian drama using the motive of "father," recently emerging rapidly as the topic of Korean films, and the technique of "twist ending." This is a story about a man serving life sentence who gets one day out of jail for the first time in 15 years to meet his son who is a high schooler. The film focuses on their meeting and the 7 days before the meeting. CHA Seung Won and RYOO Deok Hwan, the two actors with real acting credentials play the role of father and son respectively, and that is why the audience show interest in the movie which is not free from the suspicion of "a project to follow the recent trend." Despite the public attention, My Son ends up as a halfway success. This is because of the twist in the end which goes as far as being criticized "too reckless." It is true that what the director wants to say is clearly shown with the twist ending, but the twist ending neutralizes the accumulated strong impression in a moment, weakening or eliminating many virtues of the movie. As the director said, My Son is not a "twist ending" movie. It might be hard, but the best way to enjoy movies is maintaining a certain distance from the twist and minimizing the impact of the twist. In other words, it would be better to fully enjoy the attractions of the movie such as the impressive performances of the two actors or the unique humor of JANG Jin-esque which is noticed in many scenes including the migratory birds sequence, than to confront the twist ending directly. If it had been made in that way, the movie could stand out as a controversial work like Family Ties, distinguished from the other so-so "father movies." (JEON Chan Il)