Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Directed by Chan-Wook Park, 2005
Chan-Wook Park's revenge trilogy, comprised of
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and
Oldboy, comes to a close with
Lady Vengeance. If the two previous installments (completely unrelated in plot or characters) were any indication, Lady Vengeance was poised to be the final gauntlet of all revenge movies. For me, just with
Mr. Vengeance and
Oldboy, Park had become practically the law in regards to unflinching portrayls of the all-consuming parasite that is vengeance. He went straight for the throat early on and showed that vengeance, in all its glory, is ugly, brutal and inevitably suicidal. This is not the case with
Lady Vengeance.
I could not help but think throughout the first hour of the film that this is what a revenge movie would be like if it were made by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It was as if
Amelie,
A Very Long Engagement and
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance had a three-way that some how resulted in this child. The first hour isn't like anything Park has done before. It is whimsical. It is fantastical. He emulated Jeunet at his best, in introducing minor characters left and right that all had a quirk to them that defined them uniquely to the film, but that were ultimately unimportant and quickly disgarded. And well, honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of it - initially.
First, the story. Geum-Ja, our lady of vegeance, is imprisioned for 14 years for the murder of a 5 year old boy. She is released and as she re-encounters all the contacts she made in prison (the minor characters I made mention of above) we learn that she is seeking revenge agains the man who is the reason she went to jail. Figuring out why she is seeking revenge is almost fruitless. Doing so in
Oldboy was fun, we were greatly attached to Oh Dae-Su and wanted to know why he was putting in a cell for 15 years, but that same sense of warranted adventure was absent here. It almost felt bland, but it only felt bland because stylistically it, again, wasn't what I was expecting.
It was interesting and will often times put a smile on your face, but it wasn't the Park I knew and love. It was too stylized, but I guess this is the end result of where he wants to be as a director. All signs certainly pointed towards it.
Mr. Vengeance is cold and realistic, with little flare in regards to composition and direction. The same could be said of
JSA, though it was a little more energetic and interesting.
Oldboy certainly included many winks at the audience in regards to style - and to much enjoyment by all - and
Cut was his experimentation with CGI transitions and aided camera movements, but all of it culminates in
Lady Vengeance. It doesn't have any of the lovely fantasy of
Amelie - such as when she bursts into a puddle of water - but it does bare a striking resemblance often and I just wasn't expecting it.
I'm not sure if this is a fair criticism of the film, as Park did not at all fail with this style of subtle grandoise, it just didn't feel like Park to me. And then the film takes a turn towards the darker and I felt right at home in the realm of the reality of vengeance. I won't mention what these moments are, you'll know what I'm talking about, but they begin with the introduction of Choi Min-Sik's character and result in a sequence that is just wonderfully inspired. It is perhaps, my favorite debate in the arena of how vengeance affects people so far. This stretch of the film has some wonderful shots and seeing people in transparent rain coats to protect themselves from blood always makes me smile. It was the highlight of the film, for me.
Simply put, the movie is soft. Is this Park's way of saying a lady's vengeance is more pure and beautiful than a man's? I'm not sure, but it certainly comes off that way. Regardless of the message in regards to sexuality, I was just disappointed that it didn't knock me on my ass the same way
Mr. and
Oldboy did. It isn't powerful.
This "review" hasn't been a rave, so this may not carry the weight it should, but I
do recommend the movie. It
is a good movie - I stress again; it
is a good movie - it just isn't the closure you'd expect for a trilogy whose first two instalments were powerful portraits of forces out of control. It has great performances all around and a tremendous score. It just felt foreign and not nearly as involving as the prevous films.
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is certainly a unique bookend to Park's revenge trilogy, but feels nothing like the final word in the definition of vengeance.
If you LOVED A
Very Long Engagement and
Oldboy, you'll LOVE
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. I, however, only liked
Engagement and felt the same reasons that kept me from loving that film were the same ones that kept me from loving
Lady Vengeance.