Uri hyeong

Bloody, just watched this Korean movie I downloaded recently, My Brother (우리형), and.. well. I suppose tear-jerker’s a good way to put it. And no, I didn’t cry. (I feel like asserting this fact not because it’ll make me feel more ‘macho’, but I have never been able to render tears at extremely sad movies at all.) If there’s one thing Koreans are adept in doing, it’s making such movies that tug at your heart-strings.

The story goes about Sung-hyun (Ha-kyun Shin), who was born with a cleft lip, a deformity that makes him unable to suckle on his mother’s breast, and hence was weak. His father threw him out when he was a baby when he discovered his condition, out of embarassment, but his mother took him back. Jong-hyun (Won Bin) was born years later, after his father died.

Sung-hyun (Ha-kyun Shin).

Both brothers are naturally different; Jong-hyun was always the handsome, strong and independent one, while Sung-hyun was the studious, weak type who loves poetry and drawing. Because of Sung-hyun’s condition, his mother tended to shower him with more affection and care, and caused his younger brother to be jealous and bitter. And because of this, Jong-hyun has never ever called his elder brother “hyeong”, a term used to call your elder brothers in Korea.

Jong-hyun (Won Bin)

I don’t feel like indulging you people with more details and spoilers, since I’d prefer you watch it yourself. If you are a girl or someone likely to cry, one particular simple scene will make you break: the mother after being overtly depressed with one of the brothers’ demise (yay I spoiled it minorly. Not exactly a spoiler lah, in Korean and Japanese movies, they almost always kill off their characters [realistically] so you can almost expect to see a death to the main character coming, compared to Hollywood movies where, wah, Tom Cruise can zip and dodge tons of bullets effortlessly and can even be brought back to life. Like wtf wei), a bouquet of roses were sent to her from one of the dead brother for her birthday, which he had prepared in advance before his death. Sound like a stupid scene to make people bawl their eyes out, but you’ve to watch it to understand what I mean. :) Character development was excellent as you see them grow up with increasing maturity, soundtrack was great as usual, and the acting was brilliant.

In the end, it hits out a strong, convincing message that love towards siblings and parents should be expressed before it’s too late. It’s clich?d (and something I should probably do, in increasing frequency), but I’ve never seen movies with similar themes designed better than this particular one.

My rating: 8/10

(Small unimportant note: I always thought Won Bin resembled a little like Ryui Bynn, name and all.)