Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Chinjeolhan geumjassi (2005), South Korea

It's a tradition to eat tofu upon release. 

So that you will live white as snow and never sin again.

Director: Chan-Wook Park

Synopsis

In Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the protagonist Geum-ja Lee is sentenced to 19 years for kidnapping and murdering a five years old child, being released from prison, at the beginning of the film, after fulfilling 13 years of punishment. The movie serves as the third and final installment of the "vengeance trilogy" initiated years before with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.

Review

The movie deserves particular emphasis for achieving a slightly suspense-filled poetic narrative throughout the entire film, competently introducing the viewer to the deeply touching story of the protagonist. As commonly observed, similar background histories tend to naturally victimize the main character, forcing the viewer to instantly feel the desired compassion for the character. Interestingly, in this particular case, the empathy for the main character is conquered during the development of the story. The protagonist is far from being promptly characterized as a victim, as the character development is perfectly executed, allowing the viewer to fully appreciate the distinctive periods of her history. At some points, it may even be hard to feel any sympathy at all for the main character. The involving feeling of care, sympathy and compassion is nonetheless gently and emotionally constructed throughout the film. For that reason, a brilliant and incisive interpretation of the protagonist would be primordial for achieving the intended attachment. Yeong-Ae Lee delivers an extremely competent and secure performance, carefully allowing the viewer to observe the fissures of her character’s rigid personality that show her hidden fragility behind her tragic past. On a side note, and in agreement with the fact that I usually tend to dislike including foreign Languages when they are not perfectly executed (which was unfortunately the case), it must be pointed out that the dialogs in English seemed vaguely awkward.

Contrarily to Oldboy for example, the plot does not rely on shocking twists and turns. No big revelations wait at the end of the movie as on the contrary, the plot just beautifully reveals its essence piece by piece as the main events occur. The movie completes the vengeance trilogy, being aesthetically without a doubt the best achieved of the three. Beautifully shot, the particularly outstanding camera-work is only surpassed by the use of extremely contrasted and saturated colors, reflecting the beauty of the film itself. The movie reunites all the best elements Chan-Wook Park has proven to master. Filled with sporadic humorous and satiric moments as well as surrealistic settings contrasting the brilliantly executed scenes with real and extreme violence, the film transmits the usual aggressive character even though it might be considered considerably more lighten up compared with his antecessors. The superb soundtrack, for the most part composed by Choi Seung-hyun, brilliantly defines at the same time a few quirky moments and the saddest scenes during the film, embracing the nostalgic personality of the story.

Accordingly, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a brilliant ending for the proposed vengeance trilogy. Although it may not be comparable to the genius of Oldboy, as the plot is somehow inferior and does not have the impact the latter had, it seems obvious how the director intended to focus on beauty itself, constructing a feeling of nostalgia and melancholia which allowed the trilogy to end with a warm and peaceful sentiment of goodbye, as revenge and remorse appear to serenely fade away, as the characters embrace purity at the end of the film. “Big Atonement for big sins. Small Atonement for small sins”. Substance and meaning seem to be carefully injected throughout the movie, replacing the raw character of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance or the aggressive and brutally insane personality observed of Oldboy. Most importantly, the film stands on its own as an undisputable masterpiece from Chan-Wook Park.

Be white. Live white. 

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