Lady Vengeance (2005)

2/5

Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance is his third and final film about vengeance. I don't know why he has fixated on vengeance, nor have I ever found his trilogy to be especially provocative or necessary. The films are mostly just disturbing and horrific without much value or entertainment. What I do appreciate in this film that I didn't get in the previous ones is a rather unique thematic twist as we approach the finale. Park doesn't make the movie a question of personal revenge, from some fictional character who was wronged, but a communal one. We are the community; what would we do, being reminded of our violent past after we've moved on? Take justice into our own hands or let old wounds heal?  But after the initial spark of that promising thought fades away, Lady Vengeance becomes just another bloody fantasy once again and I become disappointed by Chan-wook Park once again.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451094/

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

1/5

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a traumatic, searing film. It is brutal and unsparing. It delivers hit after unfortunate hit, for our story's protagonists and for our own sense of hope and joy. The movie is bleak and dreary, violent and sadistic. It manages to be viscerally intense without being visually graphic. It hits you with ideas and horrors that you wish you will never imagine again. It reminded me of I Stand Alone, but without much to say, kind of like Audition. It is haunting, to be sure, but not in a meaningful way. I abhor violence in movies for violence's sake. It is an assault on my eyes and my mind, so it should serve some function or be overcome by an equal and opposite force. That is not the case with this movie, and so I am left a victim of the film.

I was not particularly impressed with the cinematography. The director is trying too hard to be artistic and has forgotten that movies are supposed to flow. The acting, which for all I know might be categorically stellar in a vacuum, is absolutely ridiculous in the context of the events that take place in this film. I have no real-world comparison by which I can judge their performances. Also, not that I really cared, but there are some pretty gigantic plot holes that are simply not addressed (ones that are crucial to the progression of the story). All in all, I have no idea to whom I might recommend this film. I feel like doing so would make me a masochist.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310775/