In Seoul, a loan shark living an isolated and lonely existence uses brutality to threaten and collect paybacks from desperate borrowers for his moneylender boss. But he soon turns away from his violent lifestyle after he meets a woman who says she's the long-lost mother who abandoned him when he was just an infant.
The film's big reveal may not come as that much of a surprise; you may figure out where it's going well before the end. But it's the getting there that is, if not exactly fun, then certainly hypnotic.
A vicious, torture-happy debt collector with some severe sexual peccadilloes is, erm, softened by the return of his estranged mother in Kim Ki-duk's deeply unsettling Pieta.
After being subjected to disturbing scenes of abject cruelty, rape and torture, my reactions shifted from squeamish revulsion to a reluctant yet growing appreciation for Kim's thematic ambition.
Like many South Korean films, revenge is a major theme here, although the way Kim handles it is particularly subtle and surprising: It sneaks up on you.
There is a touch too much of the handheld camera, but in general one senses that the very quality of the way this film was made is one of its justifications for being and for its raw moments.