Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun Naui Geot) (2002)

Runtime: The version I saw was 121 minutes long

From: Park Chan-wook

Starring: Kang-ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Doona Bae, Ji-Eun Lim

From: CJ Entertainment

This is the end of my month of mainly watching foreign films. For the next 11 months I'll just sometimes watch them. Unfortunately I ended this on a negative note, and I am more surprised than anyone else I am not a fan of this like many others are. I explain why in the Letterboxd review below and I'll return tomorrow night.

I know, another rating and review that most will disagree with and some will even cry “blasphemer!” at me; I honestly don't believe it myself as most of the movies I see from South Korea I dig, I've heard so many good things about the director and the plot-while dark-did sound interesting in an oddball way. Unfortunately, aside from some moments this was just something that I rejected and this ends my month of foreign movie watching (at least, I watched them more often this month than I usually do; I still watch a decent amount the other 11 months) on a down note, something I was not expecting at all.

I've seen some downbeat stories in my life (the one South Korean example I can list is The Chaser) but this, this just wore me down with the ugly and quite frankly preposterous story, the repellent characters, and how bleak everything was. I didn't get too much entertainment value out of this, sadly. I guess I should have had different expectations with a story revolving around a deaf mute man with green/blue hair, a sister who needs a kidney transplant, a quite frankly preposterous set of circumstances which includes a black market selling of body organs and kidnapping a little girl... it got even more ridiculous and unpleasant from there. Those things aren't necessarily a deterrent to me but when there's nothing for me to latch onto (like a great/memorable character, at least one incredible performance or gleefully dark moments) then that will be a problem for me.

I can say I laughed at some absurd moments (which I won't spoil) but the overall story and such things as the girlfriend of the deaf mute lead being a loathsome broad stroke caricature stereotype of what “a young revolutionary person” is supposed to be... one of many turn-offs this movie provided. At least it was filmed and put together well... what I know of the other films of “The Vengeance Trilogy” of director Chan-wook Park, I think I'll put off watching them for at least some time because of the possibility I could react even worse to those sacred cows than I did this prized cattle which I just slaughtered.

At least there are still plenty of Korean films out there for me to watch, ones I am sure are more up my alley and to my peculiar tastes than what I saw last night.