Lady Vengeance, or 'Sympathy for Lady Vengece' if you like, felt as if it should have been a lot less underwhelming than it actually was. The film feels wavy, distant and is very airy in its approach and general atmosphere but rather than create a dreamlike or a particularly uncanny atmosphere, these things just make the film feel as if it's grinding along rather than effortlessly sailing. Similallry to Oldboy, the director's preceding film and I'm a Cyborg But That's OK, their following film, the film leaves you slightly unfulfilled because the creators are so in love with their 'off the wall' content and their bringing of bizarre style to, what are, essentially genre pictures falling amidst crime and romance, respectively.
There is, however, no denying director Park Chan-wook has a distinct style. His airy, misty and dreamlike approach to an idea or a premise as relatively simple as the one demonstrated in Lady Vengeance masks the film's short comings and presents something as familiar and, dare I say, as mundane as what's seen in Lady Vengeance which in turn disguises it as a work of high art. Really, it's anything but and whilst I'm all for a good revenge picture; some of my favourite films are revenge pictures, all the fun and all the energy, whilst quite possibly paying homage to film-noir or revenge films of old, is sapped out of Lady Vengece in one swoop, leaving an inconsistent colour palette; a lot of iffy surrealism and an uneven balance of atmosphere.
The vengeful lady of the title is a certain Lee Geum-ja (Yeong-ae Lee), who goes through a bit of an emotional grinder before practically putting someone else through one quite literally. She has a little help form a few others, in the process. As a protagonist, Geum-ja has that innocent look and the actress carries a quaint expression on her face that just makes you want to root for her. She's delicate, but versatile; smart but not overly confident and whilst not physically imposing or a typically 'hard bodied' revenge driven lead, she carries a certain menace through her determination to find who she's looking for. Needless to say, there is a lot of the 'lady' before we get to the 'vengeance'.
And what a quest for vengeance. After being falsely imprison for some years for the supposed murder of a young schoolboy, Guem-ja is released and is determined to go all vigilante on us to try and bring the real killer to justice. It's a good set up, something that on paper might have one or two groan until they learn it's not the latest American summer vehicle for an A-list star to pile up a body count, instead, it's an airy and mysterious Korean film directed by a man whose films they might've stumbled across in the past. But the film is additionally playing us, having the lead as an out and out protagonist rather than an anti-hero when it emerges she did nothing in the first place. Her quest to find the real criminal is littered with wavy incident and there's a nice idea towards the denouement linked to how Guem-ja actually chooses to achieve her vengeance and whether spiritually finding her target is more rewarding than being the one to deliver the fatal blow.
So the idea is a wrongfully imprisoned individual released from prison and out to find the real bad guys, whilst in the middle they will find time to rendez-vous with long, lost daughters and get short-term employment doing whatever as they re-build themselves and prepare for the mission. In-between all this, we'll get a few flashbacks of prison life and how certain inmates made it into jail as well. Guem-ja's rebuilding is enjoyable, if nothing spectacular as she gets a job as a baker (which itself is a very precise and creative job, echoing what she feels she must do in the long run) and revisits a couple of paroled prisoners. Her reunification with her daughter who has been adopted and lives in Australia felt as if it should've tugged at more heartstrings than it did. But it's the style that's the focus here and Park Chan-wook merely makes the process a little different than usual rather than he does make it an extraordinary piece of work.
Given its climax and what occurs during that, the film has sort of, in a very seductive manner earned the right for its lead character to ever so slightly turn to the camera and ever so slightly deliver a little speech about atoning. If this had happened in most other films of this nature, there'd be an outcry to do with how revenge is justified and how it's glamorised and put across as 'the answer' but here, we should pay special attention to just what Guem-ja's involvement in the denouement actually is perhaps she has earned the right to lecture us on atoning because her mission was to 'get' the real perpetrator but not necessarily to 'get back at' them in the physical way others are given the chance to. This means the film is suggesting Guem-ja be seen as some sort of deliverer of evil, something that really does break away from the film's 'type'. Too bad it was right at the very end.
There is, however, no denying director Park Chan-wook has a distinct style. His airy, misty and dreamlike approach to an idea or a premise as relatively simple as the one demonstrated in Lady Vengeance masks the film's short comings and presents something as familiar and, dare I say, as mundane as what's seen in Lady Vengeance which in turn disguises it as a work of high art. Really, it's anything but and whilst I'm all for a good revenge picture; some of my favourite films are revenge pictures, all the fun and all the energy, whilst quite possibly paying homage to film-noir or revenge films of old, is sapped out of Lady Vengece in one swoop, leaving an inconsistent colour palette; a lot of iffy surrealism and an uneven balance of atmosphere.
The vengeful lady of the title is a certain Lee Geum-ja (Yeong-ae Lee), who goes through a bit of an emotional grinder before practically putting someone else through one quite literally. She has a little help form a few others, in the process. As a protagonist, Geum-ja has that innocent look and the actress carries a quaint expression on her face that just makes you want to root for her. She's delicate, but versatile; smart but not overly confident and whilst not physically imposing or a typically 'hard bodied' revenge driven lead, she carries a certain menace through her determination to find who she's looking for. Needless to say, there is a lot of the 'lady' before we get to the 'vengeance'.
And what a quest for vengeance. After being falsely imprison for some years for the supposed murder of a young schoolboy, Guem-ja is released and is determined to go all vigilante on us to try and bring the real killer to justice. It's a good set up, something that on paper might have one or two groan until they learn it's not the latest American summer vehicle for an A-list star to pile up a body count, instead, it's an airy and mysterious Korean film directed by a man whose films they might've stumbled across in the past. But the film is additionally playing us, having the lead as an out and out protagonist rather than an anti-hero when it emerges she did nothing in the first place. Her quest to find the real criminal is littered with wavy incident and there's a nice idea towards the denouement linked to how Guem-ja actually chooses to achieve her vengeance and whether spiritually finding her target is more rewarding than being the one to deliver the fatal blow.
So the idea is a wrongfully imprisoned individual released from prison and out to find the real bad guys, whilst in the middle they will find time to rendez-vous with long, lost daughters and get short-term employment doing whatever as they re-build themselves and prepare for the mission. In-between all this, we'll get a few flashbacks of prison life and how certain inmates made it into jail as well. Guem-ja's rebuilding is enjoyable, if nothing spectacular as she gets a job as a baker (which itself is a very precise and creative job, echoing what she feels she must do in the long run) and revisits a couple of paroled prisoners. Her reunification with her daughter who has been adopted and lives in Australia felt as if it should've tugged at more heartstrings than it did. But it's the style that's the focus here and Park Chan-wook merely makes the process a little different than usual rather than he does make it an extraordinary piece of work.
Given its climax and what occurs during that, the film has sort of, in a very seductive manner earned the right for its lead character to ever so slightly turn to the camera and ever so slightly deliver a little speech about atoning. If this had happened in most other films of this nature, there'd be an outcry to do with how revenge is justified and how it's glamorised and put across as 'the answer' but here, we should pay special attention to just what Guem-ja's involvement in the denouement actually is perhaps she has earned the right to lecture us on atoning because her mission was to 'get' the real perpetrator but not necessarily to 'get back at' them in the physical way others are given the chance to. This means the film is suggesting Guem-ja be seen as some sort of deliverer of evil, something that really does break away from the film's 'type'. Too bad it was right at the very end.