Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Boksuneun Naui Geot

Movie Rating R Contains: Strong Language Violence Graphic Violence Sex Nudity Mature Situations

Director: Chan-wook Park Movie Genre: Drama, Revenge Country: South Korea Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance Score Card The following scores are based on a 0.0 to 10.0 rating scale Hover your mouse pointer over the name of each scoring category below for a description Direction: 7.0 Writing: 6.4 Acting: 6.6 Cinematography: 6.8 Sound and Score: 5.0 Functionality: 7.0 Presentation: 6.4 Genre Comparison: 7.0 General Comparison: 6.8 Overall: 6.8 Reviewed 2006-01-13 01:59:25

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the first movie in Chan-wook Park's vengeance trilogy. Each isolated story in this trilogy deals with betrayal, revenge, and the harsh consequences of unrestrained vengeance. The plot of this movie is about a deaf-mute man named Ryu who, after being laid off, is doing everything in his power to see that his sister gets the kidney transplant she desperately needs. When he finds out that his sister's body would reject his kidney and she is put on a waiting list for a compatible donor he tries to buy a black-market kidney for her. He has to use their life savings and one of his kidneys as payment and the organ dealers take his money and his kidney, and then leave before Ryu wakes up.

Ryu's anarchist girlfriend, Cha Yeong-mi, convinces him that he should kidnap his ex-boss's daughter, Yu-sun and hold her for ransom to get back the money for the transplant. This kidnapping starts an explosive chain-reaction of guilt and retribution.

The cinematography by, Byeong-il Kim is well done. The lighting and colors are perfectly matched to the mood of the film. The factory scenes are dimly lit and populated with muted earthtones. The post-kidnapping scenes are full of brightly lit and playful pastels.

For the most part, the narrative is solid and easy to follow. There are certain parts that are strange and/or confusing. For instance, the handicapped man near the river has almost no place in the story, and the appearance of Cha Yeong-mi's terrorist group at the end of the movie seemed to come out of nowhere.

Even though this is the first movie in the trilogy, it will undoubtedly be compared to Oldboy, which was released first in America. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was not nearly as good as Oldboy. It seems to me that a lot of the techniques that worked so well in Oldboy had yet to be perfected with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. This movie has a lot more heart than Oldboy, so it might be better suited to people who were shocked by Oldboy's violent excess.