Stylistically stringent and pitch-black tragedy crime drama from then
(in 2002) the most exciting new film director from
not just South Korea, but maybe from anywhere in the world (but film
makers as Takashi Miike and Shunji Iwai and
some others would be about on the same high level too).
Park's favourites, the very interesting or even fascinating progressive
indie band The Uhuhboo Project provides the
highly original music to the grim proceedings and i know Park used
them also in his experimental 2011 Night Fishing
(Paramanjang) highly recommended that
film too.
Park had made a huge splash in South Korea with his previous film,
his 2000 mainstream action thriller JSA (Joint
Security Area) about happenings at the border to the North, an ever
beloved theme in the South Korean film industry.
And earlier in the 1990's Park has made two very obscure and probably
unseen by most crime movies. With Sympathy
for Mr. Vengeance however he made an immediate international sensation
among the Cult Film lovers and the fans of
the Asian New wave, only to be superseded by his 2nd part of the Revenge
trilogy, "Old Boy" in 2003. I remember the
buzz in all the asian film lovers forums that existed then, aaah those
were the days, The Golden era of mind-blowing
Japanese and South Korean films.
Above: Ryu and Yeong-mi
Deaf-mute Ryu (Shin
Ha-kyun) have a sister that is dying and in need of
a new kidney and he has to take her from the
very expensive hospital care where she waits for a suitable kidney
to turn up for a transplant. Ryu can't donate his own
kidney either due to blood group differences. He must raise the money
for the transplant and he starts working double
shifts at the factory where he works. He also contacts some very shady
underground organ dealers for a great catch, he
pays them 10 million won + his kidney and they provide him with a
kidney for his sister.
The organ dealers works out of a high-rise building under construction,
on a high level with raw concrete everywhere,
and another warning sign should have been (Ryu is not very bright)
that the sleazy looking old lady who's the boss has
a really bad heroin addiction.
Ryu even shows the lady some compassion and helps
her making her shot. But to no avail as he wakes up naked on the
concrete floor and with the organ traffickers and his kidney gone.
I haven't been able to detect the name of the disgusting
lady boss (Lee Yoon-mi according to IMDB, but good luck finding that
actress with a generic korean name like that, Lee,
i can only find a much younger actress or some singer). Anyway, she
was great and frightening, kudos.
Yeong-mi , played by the amazing Bae
Doo-na (one of my favourite actresses of all time)
is Ryu's girlfriend (an old class-
mate from the sign-school where she Ryu went and learnt sign language)
and she's also a member of a revolutionary leftist
group, she says, it may or may not exist ?
She suggest a solution, to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman,
Park Dong-jin (Song Kang-ho)
and then extort a
ransom of 26 million won. There are good and there are bad kidnappings
she says, and this is the former, a socialistic
movement or transfer of money. Ryu's sister (Im Ji-eun) takes care
of the child and when she understands what her brother
Ryu has done, then this film turns into Ultra Feel Bad Tragedy.
Above: The Hong Kong DVD edition
I remember being sitting silent unable to move after
watching this film and listening to the .... harrowing sounds heard
when the end credits rolled, the gurgling sounds from a dying Dong-jin.
What an emotional impact this film had, WOW!
A film with disturbing scenes of violence, but also a film with probably
the strongest Anti-Violence effect i've ever seen.
Just thinking about violence after having watched this film makes
you feel nauseous, just like Alex after his therapy in
Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange".
When writing this in august 2020 almost 2 decades since watching it
for the 1st time, i can just conclude my earlier
assessment of the film - Sympathy for
Mr. Vengeance is a Masterpiece and among the Best Film of Park Chan-wook,
with fantastic acting from Shin Ha-kyun and Song- Kang-ho and ....
from my beloved Bae Doo-na.
The immensively talented Bae
Doo-na who here left the genre of romantic comedies,
a brand of successful korean films
that won over south-eastern asia and started the Gold Era of South
Korean film in the second part of the 1990's.
She really shows her range as an actress as the girlfriend of Ryu.
She's intensely alive in the role and her sad fate in the
film feels the more tragic because of it.
My favourite Bae Doo-na role though would probably be as Son, the
korean exchange student singer in japanese
Nobuhiro Yamashita's "Linda, Linda, Linda" one of my favourite
japanese films ever.
What about Shin ha-kyun
then ? Well, he had the main role in "Save the Green Planet",
probably the best South Korean
film ever made.
And Song Kang-ho, today
he has become the Titan actor of korean film but he also, like Bae
Doo-na, hadn't at the time
played such a demanding and difficult role. Today, he's the King Actor
in South Korea.
The Tartan Blu-ray presents the film
in anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 with a korean audio DTS-HD MA 5.1
with english
subtitles, region B.
Extras: The Process of Mr. Vengeance, My Boksu Story Retrospective,
Crew Interviews, Storyboards, Theatrical Trailer
Above: Song Kang-ho's Dong-jin
TEXT IN SWEDISH BELOW
About the film critic scandal
where Swedish asshole film critics uniformly trashed the film (Swedish
title: Hämnarens
resa) as being just another asian gore fest without any substance
and made by a hack director. According to the
swedish film critics verything was B level in this piece of trash.
Well, the problem was that Park was completely unknown for them, and
a year later when he won big in Cannes they
suddenly hailed him ang sang his praise in unison.
Till försvar
av Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance och den stora svenska kritikerskandalen
(skrivet 2004):
MEN, detta är INTE en film för
alla uppenbarligen då den - förstås - slaktades av
eliten av kultureliten: De svenska
Filmrecensenterna, ja blott Sverige svenska filmrecensenter har. Jeanette
Gentele SvD, Bernt Eklund Expressen och
Karin Linstedt Aftonbladet heter dessa .... "begåvningar"
som i sina undermåliga recensioner kallar filmen för bl.a.
"en trött utstuderad våldsorgie" i sina pinsamt
förutsägbara och rent rutinmässiga "asiatiskt
filmvåldsfixering"
vinklingar. Filmen må vara våldsam men hur man kan kalla
den för "trött" är märkligt för
någon mindre trött
våldsskildring lär man väl sällan
få se. Park visar istället hur social
utsatthet, desperation, våld och hämndkänslor
urholkar människan och att våld, verkligt våld, är
något ohyggligt och oändligt deprimerande.
Slutscenerna och den effektiva användningen av ljudet till eftertexterna
(Song Kang-ho's gurglande) måste vara en
av hela filmhistoriens mest outhärdligt deprimerande ögonblick.
Filmisk Feel Bad när den är som allra effektivast
och efter att ha sett denna film kommer ingen, garanterat INGEN vilja
skada ens en fluga. "Trött våldsorgie" -
jknappast.
Naturligtvis nämner inte dessa "elit-filmskribenter"
med ett ord att filmen unisont hyllats i resten av världen, bl.a.
med: Bästa film Grand Jury Award 2003
Philadelfia Film Festival, bästa film Audience
Award 8th Montreal
Fantasy Film Festival, bästa film och regissör
Film Critics Award 3d Pusan Film Festival, Korean Director's
Cut Award bästa regissör 2002 och hyllats som ett mästerverk
av många kritiker världen runt.
De nämner inte heller det stora skådespeleriet av t.ex.
Song Kang-ho (kanske Sydkoreas störste skådespelare),
av Shin Ha-kyun och av Bae Doo-na. Men det mest pinsamma
med våra "stora recensenters" insats är
att dem
troligen INTE (i mars 2004 när jag skrev detta
alltså) kände till att Park Chan-wook betraktas som kanske
inte bara
Sydkoreas utan även som en av världens mest spännande
nya regissörer, för hade dem gjort det så hade det
garanterat varit ett annat ljud i skällan från dessa ängsliga
och trendkänsliga fårflocks-mentalitets recensenter.
Framtidens omdömen över filmen kommer lyckligtvis att berätta
en helt annan historia och man kommer att
skratta gott åt deras rutinmässiga nedsablingar där
en regissörs kändisskap bland kultureliten avgör omdömet
om en film.
Ett annat klassiskt svenskt filmkritiker debacle är
t.ex. "mästar-recensionen" i Expressen sommaren 1978
av
Dario Argento's "Suspiria" som tilldelades en "överstruken
geting" i betyg.
Tillägg i maj 2004:
Jaha, Park Chan-wook's nya film Old
Boy vann Stora Jurypriset i Cannes, onekligen bra
jobbat, en remarkabel förbättring av en av svenska filmkritiker
utdömd kalkonfilmare och som föranledde SvD's
Genius- filmrecensent Jeanette Gentele att vid visningen av Sympathy
for Mr. Vengeance (Hämnarens resa)
.... "som recensent titta ned och rita blommor i blocket",
verkligen en banbrytande insats för filmrencensions-
konsten. Bra jobbat Gentele.
Men nu, efter att Park blivit känd så kommer vår
svenska fårflock till filmrecensenter garanterat likt Pavlovska
hundar vifta på svansen och överträffa varandra i
lovord. Urrrk, fy faan vad dem suger. Pinsamt.
...............................................................................................
Note - November 2015:
Besides Oldboy Park made the fascinating shortfilm NEPAL (Never ending
peace and love) in 2003 and one of
his best films. In 2005 he finished his famous and critically acclaimed
Revenge trilogy with Sympathy for Lady
Vengeance and in 2006 in a delightfully smaller format the still enjoyable
and quirky I'm a Cyborg but that's OK.
Then in 2009 his vampire flick Thirst (which i still haven't seen).
In 2011 he was back in Full Force with his
brother-cooperation short film filmed on iPhone experiment, the absolutely
Über great artmovie Night Fishing.
And, let's not talk about his Hollywood 2013 film Stoker as i have
nothing nice to say about that one.
Question: What will we see in the future from Park ? Great korean
indies like in the Night Fishing vein or dull
stinkers produced internationally ?
A 2020 Answer: Park made a short and a documentary
about Seoul in 2014, a TV series in 2019 and in
2016 his
latest feature film "Handmaiden" a stylish and slick looking
drama thriller, but much overrated as i found it
lacking in substance. Much better than "Stoker" though,
but i want the old Park back.
Note - August 2023:
Nope! We didn't get the old Park Chan-wook back. In
2022 he made another stylish film with considerations
to what his international audiences wanted to see "Decision to
Leave" and he was rewarded with Best Director
award. But, the film was boring and even badly acted and ditto written.
A step down from "Handmaiden".
Park took the wrong course with and after the 2013 "Stoker",
the international crap course. Will we ever see
his unique and quirky style again, as with his "Night Fishing"
or "I'm a Cyborg but that's OK" ?
