Lady Vengeance Review
Park Chan Wook concluded his revenge trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy) with Lady Vengeance.
This disturbing film is more stylistically assured than Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and closer in tone to Oldboy than to Mr. Vengeance.
It tells the story of Geum-Ja (played by Yeong-ae Lee), imprisoned for kidnapping and killing a child, when in reality she was forced to participate because the real kidnapper (played by Oldboy‘s Min-sik Choi) had kidnapped her child.
She emerges from prison with a plan to take revenge on this real kidnapper, Mr. Baek.
Taken as part of the “revenge trilogy” it is intriguing to consider the different angles on revenge Park Chan-Wook has taken.
In Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance he mused on the chaos caused by revenge, it became a vicious circle of anarchic violence, and people got killed left and right.
In Oldboy Park explored the drive to take revenge (as well as deeper issues of the meaning of love) when the protagonist was released from his 15-year prison sentence with no explanation of why he was there. His drive to take revenge blinded him, and he paid a big price in the end.
In Lady Vengeance Park looks at the nature of pre-meditated vengeance. Obviously the whole film examines this as Geum-Ja has a plan for vengeance, but the final scenes of the film really take this point home.
Spoiler Alert
At the end of the film, Geum-Ja has captured Mr. Baek, and gathered together the parents of his numerous victims (all young children). She presents them with the option of turning Mr. Baek over to the police or killing him.
They choose the latter.
And these innocuous folks take turns stabbing Mr. Baek to death.
Park seems to be trying to make us question the moral rightness of vengeance, he sets up a clearly heinous act (killing kids) to be revenged.
But we see in the sadness, uncertainty, and uncomfortableness of the parents that this is not necessarily the right thing to do to take revenge in the way they do.
It’s a ten minute or so scene of stunning power.
Also worth noting
Is the almost upbeat score. Much like in Oldboy the score is not in the type of somber notes you would expect given the material, and it makes the film more haunting as a result.
Min-sik Choi must hate Park
In Oldboy and Lady Vengeance Park asks so much of this actor, it is really extraordinary. He is so thoroughly abused in both films, emotionally and physically, it really takes your breath away.
What’s pretty weird and never explained
Geum-Ja has sex with what seems like a 15 year old kid, and he kind of hangs around for the whole movie, and his youth is never really mentioned.