PREPARE to shed a tear or two when you see “Treeless Mountain,” directed by So Yong Kim, a South Korea-born Brooklynite.
Only a Republican could not be moved by the plight of two young girls in Seoul (the older is 6) who are given up by their troubled mother while she hunts down her runaway husband.
Mom gives the children a piggy bank and promises to return when it is filled. Then she turns them over to Big Aunt, a drunk and two-bit swindler completely lacking in maternal instinct.
The story is partly based on Kim’s real childhood, which helps explain why “Treeless Mountain” feels so authentic.
It doesn’t hurt that Kim coaxes heart-tugging performances from two real-life sisters who had never acted before.
You have to feel the girls’ unspoken pain as Kim’s handheld camera relentlessly fixates on their faces.
This is Kim’s second feature, following the worthy “In Between Days” (2006), in which a teenage girl from South Korea struggles to survive in a frigid, snowy North American city (not New York).
With “Treeless Mountain,” Kim establishes herself as a first-class filmmaker.
vam@nypost.com
TREELESS MOUNTAIN Where’s Mommy? In Korean, with English subtitles. Running time: 89 minutes. Not rated (mature themes). At the Film Forum, Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue.