Review of Lady Vengeance (2005) by Gareth J — 13 Aug 2008

This third instalment of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy is not as uncompromising or crowd pleasing as Oldboy but it is still a welcome addition to his cannon. Considering the uncompromising viciousness of Oldboy's cruelty, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance seems to be an exercise in restriction for Park who has chosen to use a more subtle, camera provacateur approach to his renowned pretensions of violence.

However,this subtlty has done nothing to shake Park's desire to strike social issues head-on; ranging from lesbianism, rape, blackmail and moral law vs. sourthern justice. Still it is still questionable as to whether this helps the often confusing narrative.

What starts as a cross-cultural search for redeption which seems to take the nature of revenge away from the pulp gangster violence of Oldboy and Beat Takeshi, soons abandons most of the previous plot in favor of a strange cross between Hostel and Twelve Angry Men that seems to come from an entirely different film altogether.

On the other hand, Park's direction and artistic style is still second to none. Decided to recycle the majority of Oldboy's cast was definately a smart move, particularly regarding the always brilliant Choi Min-Sik who once again pulls out all the stops as a filthy twisted child killer.

Park's use of symbolism is always a welcome change too, with set designs and colour schemes which delve deep into the psychology of his characters. The streets of Seoul are shrouded in shadow and shades of red are spliced through out, symbolising Guaom-Ja's underlying hatred in the same way in which purple is used for dirty secrets in Oldboy.

Perhaps the defining moment of the film is a blue screen sequence where Yeong-ae Lee's protagonist Guem-ja executes a dog with Choi's head, which constitutes the turmoil boiling beneath her otherwise Kind exterior.

All in all, the only foreeable flaw to Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is Park's lack of experience in pursuing his themes from a female perspective although in the hands of a less capabel director, this film could have been far worse.

Newcomers would be best suited to watch Oldboy but fans of Park's own cinema of cruelty will enjoy this regardless.