Poetry (2010)
Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 60
Fresh: 60 | Rotten: 0
Poetry is an absorbing, poignant drama because it offers no easy answers to its complex central conflict.
Average Rating: 9.1/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 0
Poetry is an absorbing, poignant drama because it offers no easy answers to its complex central conflict.
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Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 5,452
Movie Info
A sixty-something woman, faced with a crippling medical diagnosis and the discovery of a heinous family crime, finds strength and purpose when she enrolls in a poetry class. Lee Chang-dong's follow-up to his acclaimed Secret Sunshine is a masterful study of the subtle empowerment - and moral compass - of an elderly woman. -- (C) Kino
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Cast
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Yun Junghee
Mija -
Lee David
Wook -
Kim Hara
M. Kang, The Preside... -
An Naesang
Kibum's Father, Le p... -
David Lee
Jongwook, Wook -
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Poetry Trailer & Photos
All Critics (60) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (60) | Rotten (0) | DVD (1)
True to the title, writer-director Lee Chang-dong is principally concerned with rendering emotions that seem inexpressible.
Top CriticThose with an eye for reading between the lines can find layers of meaning.
A deceptively gentle tale with a tender ache at its center, as well as a performance from Yun Jung-hee that lingers long in the memory.
Anyone who starts a film going to poetry classes is eventually going to come up with a poem. The one Mija finally delivers will rip your heart to shreds.
Writer and director Chang-dong Lee's film is moving without ever stooping to melodrama; Yun is the main reason why.
"Poetry" is daring in the ways only quiet, unhurried but finally haunting films have the courage to be.
Lee is concerned with beauty in much the same way a philosopher might be -- its transcendent nature, its presence in nearly everything.
A valiant and touching psychodrama about an aging woman who takes on the challenge of writing her first poem from the experiences that stir her heart.
A beautifully acted, deeply moving tale that brings a lump to the throat.
A fascinating, satisfying film with a remarkable central performance.
In the way of good cinema, the full experience is entirely unsentimental and poetic.
It is a picture of something inexpressibly gentle and sad, something heartbreaking and absolutely normal, but something stirred up by a violent, alien incursion.
Beautifully shot, brilliantly written and featuring a terrific lead performance from Yun Jung-hee, this is a thought provoking, emotionally engaging drama that would make a superb double bill with Bong Joon-ho's Mother.
How many times have we seen the components of this plot? The crimes of the young; the trials of the old; the lone individual fighting for truth and decency. But they were never mixed like this before.
What makes Poetry so involving is that it's never clear how the story will be resolved.
From Alzheimer's, rape and suicide, Lee has created real poetry.
Yoon's performance, nuanced and subtle, is superb, while the film is long and languid so adjustments and allowances must be made both for its pace and, at times, for its poetry. But the effort is well worth it.
[Yun Jung-hee's] quiet gestures, gentle gaze and tender pose transform themselves into stanzas as they rhyme with Lee's cinema.
Devoid of the ultra-violence so often associated with Korean cinema, Poetry is quiet and unhurried, making its portrait of social bleakness all the more impactful.
Well-crafted and compelling, if a little inaccessible to western audiences...
Sensitive, almost to a fault, Lee Chang Dong's Poetry is a well-observed but minor effort from one of the top Korean filmmakers.
Poetry possesses a lyrical delicateness that marks it as something special, different and thought-provoking.
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