My view of the main character changed drastically throughout the movie. As she sets off to prove her sons innocence she may seam overbearing but very caring for her son, doing all that she can to provide for them. As the movie goes on and we learn of her attempt to murder her son I started to see hear overbearing nature as a guilty conscience for what she had done. It’s possible she even caused his brain damage while attempting to poison him. The way she also tells her son to seek vengeance and to worse on to others that take insult him shows how she created the explosive anger in her son. By the end I felt the mother was truly being motivated by her own pride and couldn’t bear that people thought her son was the murderer, even if he truly was.

This movie portrays a lot of injustice. Even Jin-Tae who in the end helps the Mother begins by taking advantage of her. The rich officials treat her as a child, refusing to deal with her or listen to what she has to say. At the beginning of the movie the Mother sets out to bring justice for Ah-Jung’s murder. By the end she’s finding justice for herself, willing to do anything for her own sense of justice.

I believe the needles represent the Mothers own guilt. Throughout the movie the Mother is talking about the meridian point, the point that loosens the muscles of the heart so you can forget. I believe that the Mother carried the guilt for murdering her son, using the needles to try and forget what she’d done. The irony is that the needles will continue to remind the Mother of exactly what she’s trying to forget. The fact that the needles serve as a reminder of her guilt  is exemplified when as she tries to go on a tour to relax her son returns her needle case to her; reminding her of the murder she committed to save her. We see the mother use the meridian point on herself by the end of the movie, but I doubt this is the first time the Mother has used this point on herself. And I doubt its the last time she will have to use it to try and forget.

1. How does your view of the main character change throughout the course of this film? What does this movie say about its the themes of motherhood and justice? And what do you think the mother’s small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes?

From the beginning of the movie I found the mother to be a caring character. When her son was hit the by car during the hit and run she completely sliced her finger running to check on him. Throughout the course of the movie the only thing that changed was the limits she would push to help her son out. For example when her son was going to be released from prison and the old man who was a witness to the murder was going to call the police to tell them they were making a mistake she took matters into her own hands as she had been doing during the whole movie and killed him and burned down the junk collectors house. This movie says that a mother will do absolutely anything to protect her children even if that means putting herself into harms way. I think the mothers small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes all the sins she has committed. She is able to treat herself and cause memory loss with them. The end scene of her dancing makes me believe that she caused herself to forget everything after saving her son.

1. How does your view of the main character change throughout the course of this film? What does this movie say about its the themes of motherhood and justice? And what do you think the mother’s small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes?

At the very beginning of the video I thought that the main character, the mother, was a little over protective of her son. However, after he got arrested she did what any mother would do and tried many different options in order to prove her son’s innocence. Then as the movie continues I started to think she was a little crazy. My overall opinion of the mother stayed pretty consistent through out the later part of the movie. She was a mother who just wanted to protect her kid, and although crazy she just loved him immensely.

When considering the themes of motherhood and justice in this movie I think it was showing that the definition of justice depends on your relation to the accused. A mother’s love for her child is so great that sometimes even if their kid did something wrong they believe that it is their job to prove that they didn’t. Sometimes even the facts will not convince them that their child is guilty. I think that’s exactly what happened in this movie. The mother could not/ would not believe that her child could kill the girl.

I think that the small tin of acupuncture needles that the mother has is a symbol for the bad she’s done. The conversation of her illegal use of them is mentioned at the prison when her son brings up the fact that she tried to kill him when he was younger. Then her son finds the tin at the junkman’s house and brings it back to his mother.

The demon in the story symbolizes change. This is because the only thing that the demon leads to in the story is change for all of the people that are involved with it both directly and indirectly. For when the fisherman first finds the demon any of the choices that he is presented with do not lead him back to his old life. Then as soon as the fisherman is able to wrangle a reward out of the demon he changes the life of the king and all of the people that the king interacts with. Meaning that the only thing that the demon truly represents is change.

Two allegories that I noticed in the story presented were that you are treated based on how you treat others and that if you treat people badly that treatment will come back to harm you also. How you are treated is based on how you treat others is first shown in the story of the demon and the fisherman. When the fisherman treats the demon politely and tries to reason with him instead the demon only wants to kill the fisherman and due to this gets imprisoned back in the jar. Then is only released when he promises instead to reward the fisherman for freeing him instead of killing him. When the demon then keeps his promise he is rewarded with his freedom.

That your treatment of others will come back to hurt you is shown at several points in the story. One of the best examples of it though is the end of the story about prince and his wife. After his wife lied to him, cheated, imprisoned and turn the entire population of a city into fish, and tortured the prince. She had the love of her life killed and then was killed herself as punishment for her crimes.

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The Demon symbolized blind pride and vengefulness. He was going to kill anyone who released him from the jar, despite the fact that it would be easy to assume that the people releasing him were doing him a kind service. He admitted to having originally wanted to reward the people kind enough to free him, but grew bitter at his trapped state and decided to kill whoever freed him.

This is a direct comparison to the King in the base story of 1001 Nights. One woman wronged the king and he proceeded to punish citizen after citizen, just as the demon was punishing anyone who freed him, just because previous possible saviors had not succeeded in freeing him.

The story is an allegory for the king to realize that he is being irrational and blind in his treatment of his citizens. The fisherman tricked the demon just as she tricked the king – with a story and with reason.

1. How does your view of the main character change throughout the course of this film? What does this movie say about its the themes of motherhood and justice? And what do you think the mother’s small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes?

Mother

My perspective of the mother did not really change throughout the course of the film. At the beginning, we see her dancing in the middle of the field, which seemed odd to me and left me with a sense of foreboding that something was off with her. Going back to the beginning, she is definitely a protective and slightly overbearing mother who has made her son her sole purpose in life. The mother’s near fixation on everything he does has manifested into a warped dependency on him as her purpose in life. While it’s arguable that any mother would be unwilling to believe that her child is capable of murder, her fanatic search to find the murderer further shows her inability to continue on without her son.

The movie exhibits how poorly women are viewed, and the difficulties of single mothers in this culture. In terms of justice, supposedly there is none. Do-joon is released, after which he admits to the murder, and the Mother has killed the innocent junkyard man.

I think the needles symbolize criminality and perhaps of intentional ignorance. We are told that she does not have a license to practice acupuncture, but she still does and continuously denies it. She also drops the tin at the scene of the crime, and her son gives it back to her. She uses the needles on herself and medicates herself into presumed memory loss, and I think the following dance is of obliviousness.

1.  How does your view of the main character change throughout the course of this film? What does this movie say about its the themes of motherhood and justice? And what do you think the mother’s small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes?

My view of the mother changed slightly throughout the course of the film. In the beginning of the movie, which she is just a normal mother trying to protect her son and trying to do anything that she can in order to prove that he is innocent from the murder charges that he was arrested for. She quickly gets herself involved in looking for the real killer and trying to solve the case. When searching for answers, she meets the old man which she is then blinded from the truth when he tells her about her son. After she gets mad at what she hears and murders the old man and burns down the junk yard, I think she then feels very guilty of her actions and the fact that she thinks her son murdered the girl. I think that the box of needles represents that guilt and that she is hiding from her life in a way because she wants to forget and after she uses them she starts to dance like nothing is wrong.

1. How does your view of the main character change throughout the course of this film? What does this movie say about its the themes of motherhood and justice? And what do you think the mother’s small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes?

The mother in this film starts off as a protective mother trying to find justice for her son whom she believed was innocent of the murder he was arrested for. This could possibly be as a result of guilt from her past failures as a mother. At the end of the film when faced with the possibility of her sons guilt given to her by the old man in the junk yard, she becomes   enraged/defensive (possibly at the truth being spoken, and that she maybe knew this all along). Then when told by her son about his guilt in the murder, she wishes to forget. This movie seems to show the blind love mothers feel for their child, the compassion given when it may seem none should exist. I believe that the love a mother should have no bounds, that a mother can love her child without condoning or approving of it’s actions and choices. I feel that the small tin of acupuncture needles represents her guilt or secrets whether it be as   a mother or legally. She practiced acupuncture without a license, so hidden from regulation and the law, and she herself committed murder leaving it at the scene, then finally full circle the son admits his guilt and hands her the tin.

2. What do you believe the demon symbolizes in The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon? What allegories do you read in this story?

This story starts off by explaining the present life of an old fisherman. He was married with three daughters. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any money. They didn’t even have enough money for food. The fisherman went to a nearby water hole where he would cast his net four times every day. On this one particular day, he was determined to catch something. Each cast brings him nothing, but he recites a verse after opening the net. Finally, on the fourth cast, he catches a very heavy jar! He was very happy! He was plotting different ways to take it to the copper market. He decided to remove the stopper and shake out of the contents. In doing this, nothing came out. Eventually, smoke began to come out of it and spread everywhere. There, in front of him stood a demon. The demon wanted to know how the fisherman wanted to die. The fisherman gave him his life story and the demon changed his mind. He decided to grant him the wish of making him a rich fisherman to help out his family!

I think that he demon symbolizing all of the fisherman’s doubts. When the fisherman couldn’t catch any fish, he was feeling defeated. When he finally caught the demon, he had to convince him that his life did matter. The demon gave in and helped him, which helped his family greatly!

In this story, I thought that the demon was the perfect example of an allegory. I’ve always been told to “face my fears’ and this story kind of showed that. The fisherman was in a terrible situation then faced his demon. He conquered him and ended up with a very happy ending.

1. How does your view of the main character change throughout the course of this film? What does this movie say about its the themes of motherhood and justice? And what do you think the mother’s small tin of acupuncture needles symbolizes?

In the beginning, I thought that the Mother was a normal overprotective mother. But over the course of the film, I found that the mother was blinded by her own demons to see that her son needed help, along with herself. I feel that she was blinded because she couldn’t realize that her son could have murdered that girl and started searching for a killer, and when she kills the man in the junkyard. Even when her son confesses to the mother, she just doesn’t seem like she comprehends that her son really killed the girl. I feel this theme of motherhood and justice is correct. Any mother will do whatever it takes for their child, its a motherly instinct. Also many mothers are blinded thinking that their child could never be the bully, or the mean child at school as they feel their kid is a perfect angel. I feel the mothers acupuncture needles symbolizes her tunnel vision of her life. She uses them to forget that she tried killing herself, her son, the man in the junkyard. But yet uses them and then is dancing as if nothing is wrong. She has a tunnel vision and can’t see that her life is a mess.

2. What do you believe the demon symbolizes in The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon? What allegories do you read in this story?

The demon in the story was determined to kill everyone that releases him from his jar. But once the demon is trapped again in the jar by the fisherman he changes his mind about killing him. I feel that the demon symbolizes that you can’t not punish others for what someone else did. The fisherman did nothing wrong but was going to be punished for this. Every day we see people who are grumpy or angry and treat others poorly because of this. But if there is an act, the fisherman sealing him back up, we can change our ways.

The allegorie that I felt was in the story was that we all have the face our inner demons. The fisherman had to face his demons in order to go on and live a better happier life. No one can live a life running from our demons and feel that they are truly happy. In order for a happy life you must face these demons.