When you direct a film as good as 'Oldboy' early in your career I suspect it is a blessing and a curse. Park Chan-wook directed one of the greatest films of all time back in 2003. That's got to feel pretty good. The problem is that everything you produce after that is going to be compared to that masterpiece - be it right or wrong to do so.
It can go the other way too of course, where you make a mediocre film but people know what you're capable of and so give you credit for intending things that weren't actually there. I wonder if a bit of that happened with 'Decision to Leave'. I'm not seeing what other people seem to have found in this one.
The problem that I found with 'Decision to Leave' is that it heavily relies on you buying into the relationship between the two leads - and I simply didn't. I saw no chemistry and nothing else to sell it. Without that working this is an arduous 2 hours 20 minutes.
The film is quite a complex as well. There is a lot of subtlety and jarring editing. I think it's a film that would get better with every watch, however I didn't enjoy it enough the first time around to do that. 5/10.
It can go the other way too of course, where you make a mediocre film but people know what you're capable of and so give you credit for intending things that weren't actually there. I wonder if a bit of that happened with 'Decision to Leave'. I'm not seeing what other people seem to have found in this one.
The problem that I found with 'Decision to Leave' is that it heavily relies on you buying into the relationship between the two leads - and I simply didn't. I saw no chemistry and nothing else to sell it. Without that working this is an arduous 2 hours 20 minutes.
The film is quite a complex as well. There is a lot of subtlety and jarring editing. I think it's a film that would get better with every watch, however I didn't enjoy it enough the first time around to do that. 5/10.