Pieta
Pieta Image
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critics What's this?

User Score
5.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 7 Ratings

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  • Summary: In this intense and haunting story, a loan shark living an isolated and lonely existence uses brutality to threaten and collect paybacks from desperate borrowers for his moneylender boss. He proficiently and mercilessly collects the debts without regard to the pain he causes his countless victims. One day, a mysterious woman appears in front of him claiming to be his long-lost mother. After coldly rejecting her at first, he gradually accepts her in his life and decides to quit his cruel job and seek a decent, redemptive life. However, he soon discovers a dark secret stemming from his past and realizes it may be too late to escape the horrific consequences already set in motion from his previous life. [Drafthouse Films]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 17
  3. Negative: 1 out of 17
  1. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Jeannette Catsoulis
    May 16, 2013
    100
    Morally cunning and with a tone as black as pitch, Pieta, the 18th film from the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, is a deeply unnerving revenge movie in which redemption is dangled like a cat toy before a cougar.
  2. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    May 16, 2013
    88
    Pieta is one of Kim’s most complex and mature efforts, melding violence and humor into dark entertainment.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Abele
    May 17, 2013
    80
    Pieta, which won last year's Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, is disturbing, for sure, but its larger points save it from being a quick and dirty wallow.
  4. Film.com
    Reviewed by: William Goss
    May 17, 2013
    77
    Not as touching or boldly transgressive as its ultra-violent peers.
  5. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    May 15, 2013
    67
    The performances of these two leads are compelling and the Cheonggyecheon area can almost be seen as another character in Kim’s morality tale. And even if forgiveness is not always possible in the human condition, Pieta allows that expiation of one’s sins is within the realm of the possible.
  6. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Nick Schager
    May 14, 2013
    60
    After establishing a central parent-child relationship rife with wacko biblical undertones, the director finds nowhere to take his story except into standard vengeance territory.
  7. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: John Semley
    May 14, 2013
    12
    Kim Ki-duk's film makes an exaggerated, undeserved show of its cruelty, indignity, and aspirations of importance.

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