Sympathy For Lady Vengeance

[modage]

Preceded by the films 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance' and 'Oldboy', this final installment of director Park Chan-wook's vengeance trilogy finds a woman seeking revenge after she is framed and betrayed by a co-conspriator.

Genres: Drama and Thriller
Release Date:  February 3, 2006 Limited.
MPAA Rating:   Not Rated
Distributor:   Tartan Films
Starring:    Lee Yeong-ae, Yeong-ae Lee, Choi Min-Sik, Min-sik Choi, Su-hee Go
Directed by:    Park Chan-wook

Trailer here: http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2005/STUVWXYZ/Sympathy-For-Lady-Vengeance/trailer.php

i saw this tonite at the NYFF.  for anyone paying attention, i'm conflicted on Park.  i WANT to love him, i REALLY want to love him and i almost do, but his scripts always seem to get in the way.  by far the strangest of the 3 revenge films, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance combines the themes of kidnapping and imprisonment but gives us a film completely unlike what we've seen before.  for one thing, Park said he wasn't interested in violence for this film after he got kind of burnt out on it during the last two so he doesnt focus on it as much here.  what does that leave?  a very bizarre story featuring an almost all female cast (though a few familar faces from Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy pop up throughout). 

during the beginning of the film there is a very dark sense of humor going on, combined with the framing of some shots, the music cues made it seem like Park making a very dark Wes Anderson movie.  which i kind of liked.  and like oldboy where certain cultural barriers make me think if this had been in english, it might've sucked make me want to cut this some slack because of the things it had going for it.  the themes get a little heavy handed at the end where the film almost crosses completely into satire but the way the film is put together its not too bad.  so i guess i still feel the same about park.  i love his stories/atmosphere/cinematography/characters, i just dont love how the final product comes together.  C+

[cron]

that poster's very beautiful

[modage]

yes, the movie's shot very beautifully too and the credits are especially pretty.

[MacGuffin]

Asian cinema is finally being released correctly in the United States and Tartan Films is at the forefront of that revolution. They have released wonderful DVDs of Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Acacia. Now the most popular director to come out of Korea, Park Chan-Wook is getting his due. Chan-Wook’s Oldboy was given an amazing DVD release and his latest film Lady Vengeance is hitting theaters early next year. I got a chance to speak with Chan-Wook while he was on a short publicity tour in New York City.

Daniel Robert Epstein: My question is about Lady Vengeance’s master plan. Was her master plan to drug the guy that framed her, kidnap him and then shoot him? I thought it was going to be more wild than that.

Park Chan-Wook: No, that was pretty much it basically. There was no elaborate torture scene or creative way to kill him. Basically her plan was a single bullet behind the head and that would have been fine but this movie was more of failure of revenge because you can’t really say it was a successful plan. The pleasure of revenge is it’s got to be done by your hand otherwise why not just give him over to the police and have him state executed.

DRE: Lady Vengeance completes your vengeance trilogy which started with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and went to Oldboy, What made you decide to change to a female lead for the third movie?

PCW: When I first announced to the Korean audience that we’re going to do a new revenge movie with Lee Yeong-ae as the lead character, there’s a saying in Korea that once a woman has set her eyes on vengeance then snow will fall even in June. That’s a very literal translation. But people thought it would be more cruel, more violent especially since Lee Yeong-ae’s image was very clean, very innocent and sweet. They were thinking she was going to transform and be the angel of vengeance but that’s not the reason why she was cast. I didn’t use a female lead because women are more vengeful, rather the opposite. I felt like only a woman would have certain virtues that this character needed.

DRE: Given Lee Yeong-ae’s previous image, how did you help her take on this character?

PCW: As a star she had really only been doing a certain kind of role. Therefore she herself wanted a change so she came to me, who’s known for making such violent films. She was ready to take this on so I didn’t have to do anything special to get a certain type of acting out of her. Rather she would actually take it a step further sometimes, startling me and I would find new chilling aspects to her that I wasn’t expecting.

There is a scene where she is cutting off the man’s hair with a knife and the editor came to me and said something was wrong with the film because her movements were so fast. But that was in real time. She’s so crazed and moving so fast that the editor thought the speed of the film was different. Also Min-sik Choi, the actor who’s hair was being cut off, said he had never felt more frightened in his acting career. He was convinced that this knife was going to go into his head.

DRE: In this film you brought back many actors that you’ve worked with in the past, why did you decide to populate this cast with so many familiar faces?

PCW: Even though these three films are a trilogy, if you look at the characters in the story, there’s no continutiy or reoccurring character. So in a way I was kind of like finishing up a nice chunk of time in my career and there was this personal wish to make this last one cathartic with everyone together.

DRE: When you come up with an idea like cutting off someone’s fingers and putting them in a blender, does that shock you or do you think it’s just a good idea?

PCW: When I think of these scenes, they don’t make me happy or anything like that. I don’t feel overly thrilled. But when it comes to portraying such cruel violence, I do feel a sense of responsibility. I ask myself if this violence is justified. If I feel satisfied that it is justified it’s only then when I will put theses scenes in.

DRE: Both Joint Security Area and Oldboy are both being remade in America. Do you think that Joint Security Area can work outside of Korean context?

PCW: When I heard from America that they wanted to remake that movie, it was interesting news. But it peaked my curiosity more than an Oldboy remake because Oldboy is very general, it could be made anywhere. I’m actually very curious to see a remake of the more “Korean” JSA.

DRE: Would you want to make a film in America?

PCW: I don’t have a strong urge to make a film in Hollywood. But on the other hand I would not turn it down. I think I can do it. So if I do make an English speaking film, I would like two things to fall in place. The first thing is a good script. But right now I don’t have the luxury to write a script in English, that may or may not happen. Secondly, what’s most important for me is working with good actors and that’s actually where I get the most joy so casting will also be a very important part of that decision.

DRE: When I spoke with Takashi Miike I asked him if he had ever been to a psychiatrist and he said he only goes to the dentist. Have you ever gone to a psychiatrist?

PCW: Actually I did some research for my next film which takes place in a mental institution. I wanted to go and meet with psychiatrists but failed unfortunately. The patients actually recognized me. The hospital wants to cooperate and help me out, unfortunately they have to think of their patients first. But down the line I would like to go as a therapeutic method but even then I would think that somehow it would turn into research with “How is this doctor treating me, how is this doctor doing?”

As I make more and more films and the more interviews I’d given, I’d get asked a lot of stuff like “What kind of dreams do you dream”, “How were you brought up?” and “Is there something that happened in your life that makes you burn with such vengeance?” Sometimes I feel like I’m being interrogated by an FBI serial killer profiler so I just want to say that nothing in my films is personal. I take nothing from my personal life.

DRE: What are you working on now?

PCW: The next film deals more with the confusion of identity. The film after that will be about the existence of the devil, like God versus Devil. It’s more of a religious type theme.

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ghostboy, did you see this at BNAT and if so, what did you think?

[Ghostboy]

Yeah, I saw it. I really liked it quite a bit. It's much more mature and graceful than 'Oldboy,' and in many ways much more disturbing. It's almost ridiculously complex, but it manages to stay light on its feet. It's certainly entertaining, but it doesn't have the same 'show-off' sensibility that 'Oldboy' had (no hammer fight, in other words, although there is a hammer in the film).

The last shot, both hilarious and deeply haunting, is a masterpiece all by itself.

[MacGuffin]

Charlize Theron Wants Some 'Sympathy For Lady Vengeance'
Source: MTV

It's one thing to feign "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance," but try to muster up some of the real thing for Charlize Theron, who's remaking the 2005 Park Chan-wook insta-classic – but only because she was asked to!

"He made an almost perfect film [but] he came to me and said he really wanted us to do this. He wanted to see that story told in an American society," Theron said of Park Chan-wook, whose "Lady Vengeance" completed a revenge trilogy that included "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Old Boy." "If he wasn't so encouraging I don't think I could go through with it. We're intimidated almost beyond belief."

The original Korean flick follows Lee Geum-ja, an angel-faced young girl sent to prison for a crime she didn't commit. When released, Geum begins a crusade of revenge, calling in favors, getting training, brutally kicking the crap out of anyone who stands in her way.

Theron will play the central role of Geum-ja, made famous in the original by Yeong-ae Lee. But that's about the only sure thing for now, the Oscar winner clarified, insisting that they were "still in the very, very early stages of development right now."

"But I'm very excited about it," she said. "I'm a huge fan of the director. I love that whole trilogy but REALLY love that last one."

According to Ms. Theron, they're still looking for a director.

[last days of gerry the elephant]

It's only a matter of time before they announce Mr. Vengeance up for a remake.

[john]

It's only a matter of time before they announce Mr. Vengeance up for a remake.

...and Seann William Scott fully intends to bring a real emotional weight to the role that the original lacked.

All Theron and Co. are gonna do is hammer this film into the straightest line possible, the most pedestrian, and forgettable film they can make. Nobody will realize it's a remake and, six months from then, people won't even remember this remake existed.

For the most part, I'm pretty indifferent about these sorts of things. But, for some reason, this one strikes me as particularly useless. And I was even, momentarily, excited about Nicolas Cage's supposed involvement in the Oldboy remake.

[MacGuffin]

EXCLUSIVE: Danny Boyle Not Directing 'Lady Vengeance' Remake
Source: MTV

Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle may hold Asian cinema in high esteem, but that doesn't mean a hotly rumored remake of Chan-wook Park's "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" is next in line for him to direct. In fact, it doesn't sound like the film was ever in line at all.

"I've seen the movie. I've seen [Park's] 'Oldboy' and 'Lady Vengeance,'" the "Slumdog Millionaire" director told MTV News in an exclusive interview outside this year's Oscars. "But no I was never going to do that. I don't know where that story came from."

The original Korean film in question, "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance," follows a falsely accused young woman after she is incarcerated for murder, only to be released and sent on a mission of revenge against the people who framed her.

Boyle previously mentioned being asked to do a "Lady Vengeance" remake in an interview for Empire, where he also talked about his plans for the next "28 Days Later" sequel. With his recent Oscar win for Best Achievement in Directing, his options are likely wide open.