Review of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) by Lenard K — 16 Oct 2009

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Boksuneun naui geo. I first found director Chan Woo Park through his movie OLD BOY which was an absolutely incredible movie. I loved that film. So I had to see the others in this trilogy.

This is another of his grisly crime dramas. ''Mr. Vengeance" is the story of Ryu (Shin Ha Kyun), a deaf-mute laborer with toxic green hair, whose sister (Lim Ji Eun) is gravely ill from years of factory work.

A kidney transplant might save her, but the doctors deem Ryu an unfit donor, and the odds of finding a suitable match are terrible. So he goes where any desperate soul would for a kidney: to the black market.

Things there go horribly wrong (the folks running the organ ring are thieving junkie perverts), and faster than you can say ''O. Henry," a legitimate but unaffordable kidney is available.

To raise money, Ryu's budding anarchist girlfriend (the fabulously flip Bae Doona) suggests kidnapping a little girl. The girl's father, played with authoritative melancholy by Song Kang Ho, vows to kill whoever has taken his daughter.

And so what begins as a last-ditch effort descends into gruesomeness. Ryu hunts for the organ thieves. The kidnapped girl's dad hunts for Ryu. And nothing ends well for anybody- the end. is so bloody, scatological violent and consistently shocking, it seems to have no larger purpose than itself -- which is pretty grim.

This after his kidney was stolen by a black market ring (I'm not making this up). The factory owner goes all-out (and I mean all-out) for revenge. Like "Oldboy," it features stomach-churning gore, but "Sympathy" falls apart somewhat in the second half, as Park's ugly contempt for humanity kills off the goodwill he has built up with his irresistible plot, which hints at a Korean cultural divide, and for-real visual flair.

G. Cinematically is is shot and framed brilliantly In an interview published in The Hollywood Reporter in May, when "Oldboy" played at Cannes, Mr. Park explained that it would be "more accurate to see my films as ones stressing morality, with guilty consciences as the core subject matter.

" "The constantly recurring theme is the guilty conscience," he continued. "Because they are always conscious of and obsessed with their wrongdoings, which are committed because they are inherently unavoidable in life, my characters are fundamentally good people.

The fact that people have to resort to another type of violence in order to subjugate their initial guilty consciences is the most basic quality of tragedy characteristic in my movies thus far." All those poor souls who gave this movie a rotten rating? Whats wrong with them?? I admit you have to have a fairly twisted sense of humor and intellect to really get off on Park's Movies.

"Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" is a stylish bloodbath relieved by shafts of dark humor. It unfolds in a flood of striking images accompanied by a soundtrack that makes much use of natural sounds ? the plunge of an elevator, the sliding of a coffin into a crematorium oven, and countless grisly scrapes and screeches.

People hated this movie and gave it bad reviews I found it oddly intriguing-in fact I loved all of his Trilogy movies and give them 5 stars each for sheer originality and inventiveness. OLD boy is the best film and most original film I have seen in 20 years Highly recommended.