Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Directed by Park Chan-wook. Starring Shin Ha-kyun, Song Kang-ho, Bae Doona, Im Ji-eun, Ryoo Seung-bum, Han Bo-bae, Lee Dae-yeon, Gi Ju-bong, Lee Yoon-mi. [R]

Park Chan-wook’s first entry in his thematic “Vengeance Trilogy” (followed by Oldboy and Lady Vengeance) offers up the usual message on the hollowness/futility of revenge—and its unforeseen consequences—in the director’s exacting yet flamboyant style of gorgeousness and brutality. After falling victim to a black-market organ-swapping scam, deaf and mute Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun) resorts to kidnapping the daughter of his former boss (Song Kang-ho) to raise money for a kidney transplant operation his little sister needs, but things go from bad to worse, sending the father on the no-turning-back path for revenge. More systematic than organic, more darkly humorous than deeply troubling, its wrenching tragedies treated as cold ironies; no matter the diabolical twists in store for its two chief characters, it’s too calculated and inescapably (and repetitiously) lethal to really surprise: only bad things happen, one after the other. Although the final act does its two-pronged job well—demonstrate the self-destructive no-win toll of revenge, and unsettle the audience with numerous acts of unflinchingly gruesome violence—it left me feeling more arms-length admiring of its craft and its layers than properly disturbed or reflective.

68/100