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This is the story of Ryu, a deaf man, and his sister, who requires a kidney transplant. Ryu's boss, Park, has just laid him off, and in order to afford the transplant, Ryu and his girlfriend develop a plan to kidnap Park's daughter. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.
Kang-ho Song: Park Dong-jin
Boksuneun naui geot translating as Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance(2002) is the first part of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy. The next being sensational Oldboy in 2003 and the third being the equally riveting Lady Vengeance released 2005.
According to certain notes from the time, this was indeed Korea's first delving into hard-core, hardboiled, violent drama. As the title implies, there is a sense of poetic irony at play; This is indeed a dark and twisted psychological thriller.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance continues to explore new ways of filming deafness. Instead of muffled audio every time we adopt Ryu's point-of-view, a favoured Western approach, Park amplifies his handicap through heightened ambient noise. Downstairs they fight, upstairs they screw and a sitcom across the hall provides an accompanying amusement. Spared the annoying, chaotic noise of thin-walled apartment dwelling, Ryu is equally oblivious to his sister's sickbed cries. They don't go unnoticed as four neighbours, believing the groans to be of a sexual nature, line up for a masturbation session.
The film utilizes a subtle use of green and orange to shade both story and character. Ryu's green hair meshes with the factory's neon hues making him little more than a merging part of his surroundings. Transitioning firstly from green then to orange, Park highlights the father's path to pay the ransom as skillfully as one would show a negotiator in a hostage situation. The relationship between the young hostage, wearing an orange outer-coat, and her kidnapper with a spring-green dye-job are mirrored by a televised fox and frog cartoon.
When a filmmaker chooses to adopt an anamorphic lens, one hopes the decision was premeditated. Even a genius such as Wong Kar-wai impressed with his surreal realization in 2046. On the basis of three unique trilogy films, Park has proved to be a master of widescreen utilization. Note the way he composes around a dresser when we first encounter Ryu and Youngmin in bed together. More than merely confined to arty playfulness; The whole scene presents a couple separated by an indescribable boundary which succeeds in being shown by the small confinements that life and the filmic frame affords them.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance has cinematic vision backing it up. It has a blunt, unrelenting truthful approach of showing the complexities of revenge and Vengeance. You already have a predetermined feeling of dread in your gut that any outcome for any of the main characters will not result in being favourable for them. The paradox resulting in a domino effect of myriad imagining. For example, the killing of one will trigger the later killing of another, later resulting in the last being killed. Sympathy is the ripple effect of vengeance, and ultimately the viewer will feel sympathy and sorrow for the tragic protagonist.
''''I know you said not to, that you'd rather die...than be a burden. But you know I never do what I'm told.''
10/10
