Reviews
I agreed with Nobuya's remark that while acts like theft and confinement of corpses are wrong and deserve punishment, they maintain a stronger bond precisely because they are not related by blood. It makes me think about the various forms of families.
If only the cross-section of Shota's house had been included in the book, lol. It was less moving than the movie. After watching the film, it seems there are limits to one's imagination. The scene where Nobuyo cries in the interrogation room was so sad, so I bought the book because I was curious about the psychological portrayal of that moment. It was good.
This book is a novelization of the film *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Although the domestic media predicted that Director Lee Chang-dong's film *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* would win, the result was Hirokazu Kore-eda's. It is notable that the film's domestic release title differs from the original. Of course, this was likely done to consider domestic sentiment, but as film critic Kim Se-yoon noted, it leaves a sense of regret
It makes me reflect again on what family is. Just because you live together doesn't make you family. This book made me realize that we become a true family when we care for one another and show love and consideration.
I bought and am reading this after watching the movie. Perhaps because the director wrote the screenplay himself, connecting the characters in the novel with those in the film makes reading it exceptionally enjoyable. I plan to finish reading it during the upcoming holidays.
The Petty Thief Family. When I first received it, I thought the title was "Aging Family," but as I read on, I realized it was "The Petty Thief Family." Then again, "Aging Family" has been out for quite a while. As I read through the story, I just felt that they were a truly peculiar and hopeless family. In particular, the part where they teach the children to steal from stores—even though they aren't a real family—felt unsettling, as it felt akin to systematically forcing young children into
There is a rather peculiar family. To outsiders, the members are perceived as an ordinary family: a grandmother, a father, a mother, an aunt, and a 10-year-old boy named Shota. However, they are quite different. It is a household where petty theft is commonplace; the father and son team up to steal daily necessities every Wednesday, taking advantage of the supermarket events. What about the grandmother? She lives on a pension, which is a significant help to the family, but even that becomes
There is a family that lives by stealing most daily necessities. Furthermore, there is a man named the father who feels absolutely no guilt about his actions; on the contrary, he celebrates his success by high-fiving his son. The attitude of the rest of the family towards this father and son is also different from that of ordinary families. With a naturalness that is almost as if they are welcoming a head of the household returning from work, they appear to be a family consisting of a married
Having seen the movie and read the book *Like Father, Like Son*, I was really looking forward to this book when Director Kore-eda visited Korea. It is a book that makes you think about what family truly is.
I have been eagerly awaiting the book and movie *Shoplifters*. Through Director Kore-eda's original novel of the same name, I have come to realize that this serves as an opportunity to deeply understand and feel the precious meaning of family as a means of healing the wounds of being alienated and abandoned by society. I look forward to this being a valuable time to explore the love of family and the inner lives of the characters in detail, aspects that were not fully felt in the movie.
Hirokazu Koreeda: A family of petty thieves
The film *Shoplifters*, crafted by Director Hirokazu Kore-eda after ten years of contemplation, portrays a family where the grandmother, father, mother, and son are all connected by crime. This work won the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the 71st Cannes Film Festival. The novel *Shoplifters* captures the family's secrets and the details of pivotal moments that could not be fully depicted in the film, revealing Director Kore-eda's unique and poignant family aesthetic even more vividly. Here, a family lives. There is the grandmother who nonchalantly steals pachinko balls from the next table, the father who habitually steals while squandering the grandmother's pension, the mother who rummages through customers' pockets at the dry cleaner, the mother's half-brother who sells romance while swaying his heart, and the son who earnestly learns the art of petty theft from his father. Although there were five members, a small girl joins the family one winter day, completing a family of six. People living together bound by a bond more affectionate than anyone else's, even though they are not related by blood. However, the world says that they are just complete strangers and can never become a real family…
Korean title: 좀도둑 가족
Korean author: 고레에다 히로카즈
Korean publisher: 비채
ISBN-13: 9788934982241
Reviews
I agreed with Nobuya's remark that while acts like theft and confinement of corpses are wrong and deserve punishment, they maintain a stronger bond precisely because they are not related by blood. It makes me think about the various forms of families.
If only the cross-section of Shota's house had been included in the book, lol. It was less moving than the movie. After watching the film, it seems there are limits to one's imagination. The scene where Nobuyo cries in the interrogation room was so sad, so I bought the book because I was curious about the psychological portrayal of that moment. It was good.
This book is a novelization of the film *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Although the domestic media predicted that Director Lee Chang-dong's film *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* would win, the result was Hirokazu Kore-eda's. It is notable that the film's domestic release title differs from the original. Of course, this was likely done to consider domestic sentiment, but as film critic Kim Se-yoon noted, it leaves a sense of regret
It makes me reflect again on what family is. Just because you live together doesn't make you family. This book made me realize that we become a true family when we care for one another and show love and consideration.
I bought and am reading this after watching the movie. Perhaps because the director wrote the screenplay himself, connecting the characters in the novel with those in the film makes reading it exceptionally enjoyable. I plan to finish reading it during the upcoming holidays.
The Petty Thief Family. When I first received it, I thought the title was "Aging Family," but as I read on, I realized it was "The Petty Thief Family." Then again, "Aging Family" has been out for quite a while. As I read through the story, I just felt that they were a truly peculiar and hopeless family. In particular, the part where they teach the children to steal from stores—even though they aren't a real family—felt unsettling, as it felt akin to systematically forcing young children into
There is a rather peculiar family. To outsiders, the members are perceived as an ordinary family: a grandmother, a father, a mother, an aunt, and a 10-year-old boy named Shota. However, they are quite different. It is a household where petty theft is commonplace; the father and son team up to steal daily necessities every Wednesday, taking advantage of the supermarket events. What about the grandmother? She lives on a pension, which is a significant help to the family, but even that becomes
There is a family that lives by stealing most daily necessities. Furthermore, there is a man named the father who feels absolutely no guilt about his actions; on the contrary, he celebrates his success by high-fiving his son. The attitude of the rest of the family towards this father and son is also different from that of ordinary families. With a naturalness that is almost as if they are welcoming a head of the household returning from work, they appear to be a family consisting of a married
Having seen the movie and read the book *Like Father, Like Son*, I was really looking forward to this book when Director Kore-eda visited Korea. It is a book that makes you think about what family truly is.
I have been eagerly awaiting the book and movie *Shoplifters*. Through Director Kore-eda's original novel of the same name, I have come to realize that this serves as an opportunity to deeply understand and feel the precious meaning of family as a means of healing the wounds of being alienated and abandoned by society. I look forward to this being a valuable time to explore the love of family and the inner lives of the characters in detail, aspects that were not fully felt in the movie.
