Dementia has played a significant part in South Korean cinema across genres, with works like “A Moment to Remember” using it in a romance drama setting and “Memoirs of a Murderer” using it as a plot device for a serial killer story, to give but two examples. Debutant director Lee Sang-hak too uses the illness in his first work, albeit this time for a uniquely treated thriller called “Mother’s Kingdom”, which premiered in competition at the Jeonju Film Festival earlier this year.

Mother’s Kingdom is released by Finecut

Joo Kyung-hee lives with her adult son Doh Ji-wook. Joo, a hairdresser is a well-known and liked person in the community whereas Ji-wook is an author of an appreciated self-help book called “Power of the Truth”. In their household, since Ji-wook was a little boy, Kyung-hee has set a number of rules that her son must follow, chief among which...