Sympathy for Mister Vengeance

Chan Wook Park's SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE is a beautiful, horrifying, depressing, and thoroughly successful picture. With the exception of a final scene so implausible that it drew me out of the movie, SFMV captured and held my attention and imagination, even when I wanted to look away.

Park, the director behind JSA and OLDBOY, knows how to compose a scene. The color palette (Does green have special significance in Korean iconography?), set decoration, and placement of the actors themselves work together time and again to not only drive the narrative but generate stills I'd be happy to linger over in book form. While Park's composition can deliver real beauty, it can also deliver real horror. Be warned: SFMV is a horrifying movie, with many shots more akin to Miike than Malick. You may want to think twice before screening it for your friends, and I had to flip the screen down on my portable DVD player more than once to avoid disturbing those around me on the Metro.

As Don alluded in his comments on HOSTEL, horror works best when we've invested in its characters. SFMV's cast, including JSA's Kang-Ho Song (also excellent in MEMORIES OF MURDER) and Ha-Kyun Shin, bring their characters fully to life and give us people for whom we hope and fear. I'd like to take special note of Shin, who says more with his deaf-mute character than some actors do with 90 minutes-worth of dialogue. This investment has a downside, however: SFMV is just plain depressing. It gives us people we like and proceeds to punish them, punish them, and punish them some more. But here's the brilliance of this movie: just when things are at their worst, it gives us a chance to say, "Wow, what a shot!" Its artistry actually serves to give us the distance to stay engaged in the film. Without it, the experience would be too much.

SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE works. It just plain does. On every level. This is the kind of movie I could watch again and again, finding more in the composition and structure, more in the events and performances. Rent it today.

Joint Security Area

Chan Wook-Park's JOINT SECURITY AREA is a noble, and reasonably successful, attempt to grapple with issues of power, warfare, and common humanity. It doesn't say anything new or particularly startling about the human condition, but it does a fine job of capturing its time, place, and people. For a movie billed as an action thriller, this is a pleasant surprise.

Here's the setup: a Swiss major of Korean ancestry (and a Korean accent, but watcha gonna do?) reports for duty at the Joint Security Area, the zone in Panmunjong that's run by Switzerland and Sweden and serves as a meeting point and negotiating center for the Koreas. There's been a border skirmish that could get ugly, as the South accuses the North of having kidnapped one of its men and the North accuses the South of violating its territory. There's an injured South Korean sergeant who was either a victim or provocateur, there's a Northern sergeant who was either a victim or provocateur, and there's a guardpost full of dead communists. This being Korea, everyone's hewing to their respective party lines. What happened? Who was to blame? Can the major avert a war?

JOINT SECURITY AREA proceeds along the lines of an investigative thriller, building tension in anticipation of the inevitable skirmish as it meditates on the nature of nationalism, friendship, and human nature. We get to know both sergeants, we get to like them, and we come to mourn the requirements of patriotism and power. JSA puts us in that guardpost and it breaks our hearts. Not bad for an action thriller.

Lady Vengeance

I was all set to love Chan Wook Park's LADY VENGEANCE. I thought SYMPATHY FOR MISTER VENGEANCE was excellent, and I think OLDBOY is one of the best films of the decade. When the beautifully stylized opening credits rolled, I sat back and got ready to wrap myself in the world of a master.

But here's the problem: people have been telling Park (Or is it Chan? I wish we could all settle on a Western standard.) that he's a genius, and he's starting to believe them. LADY VENGEANCE spend so much time cycling into and out of normal narrative time, its subnotes are so cute, and its flights of fancy so indistinguishable from mental instability, that LV fairly screams, "Look at me! I'm the work of a genius, dammit! A genius!" I could not immerse myself in its world because it couldn't quite decide in which world it wanted to immerse me. I could not empathize with its protagonist because by the time the film gave me enough material to do so, I had ceased to care. I could not enjoy the film because the film gave me no cause to do so.

LADY VENGEANCE is the kind of film in which the production designer seems to struggle with the lighting guy, who struggles with the cinematographer, who struggles with the director, who struggles with the actors. They're all trying to one-up each other, all trying to showcase their Genius. But they forgot about me, Joe- Guy -on -the -Couch -Whose -Back -Hurts -from -Raking -Leaves. Entertain me, people. Make me think. Hell, dazzle me. But don't distract me with your Genius.

Just tell me a story.