# "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance"(From the Director of "Old Boy")



## MartialHorror (May 11, 2006)

Saw it, liked it. Not quite as much as Oldboy.......

Oldboy was more of a mystery, this one was more of a character understudy in which 2 men driven by revenge basically take the last road to hell by stopping at nothing to destroy eachother.

oldboy- 8/10
Mr. Vengeance- 8/10

This is sort of a trilogy from the director. Its Mr Vengeance, Oldboy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance(havent seen yet). They have little to do with eachother other than being the directors "Revenge Trilogy"

Sort of like John Carpenters "Apocalypse Trilogy"(Prince of Darkness, Mouth of Madness, The THing)


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## CrazyMoronX (May 11, 2006)

Well I saw it the other day, it was quite weird at first, but you get the idea after a while. Pretty interesting movie, and hilarious at times.

I liked Old Boy much more though. I have Lady Vengeance saved in my Netflix queue, can't wait!


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## MartialHorror (May 11, 2006)

Havent seen Lady Vengeance yet, but so far I love both Oldboy/Mr Vengeance so it has to be at least a decent movie(Its recieved good reviews from what I've seen)


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## Dopefish (May 12, 2006)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance are all great in their own respects. They all contain things that are better than each other.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance has such a great narrative on revenge, and a pretty decent social commentary as well. One of the biggest problems the film suffers from is the slow-pacing. That really hurts it. Though, Park was trying an interesting concept by making a deaf-mute character to diminish so much talking. There are also a few scenes that just beg the question, "did Park really have to include this scene?" Such as the daughter burning, that wasn't all that necessary. We know what is happening once the coffin enters already, we don't need to see a child burning. There are some great performances here though. Song Kang-ho is a great actor and plays a very emotional father consumed by revenge, but at the same time somewhat regrets his decisions. Shin Ha-kyun just adds to his portfolio of great characters with this film.

Oldboy is a great film, but sometimes I think it is a bit overrated. The cinematography is great. Oldboy is just brimming with style, but lacks character development. We are introduced to Oh Dae-su, but we don't get a very good introduction. We learn his wife is murdered and his child is kidnapped, but we don't care. We know nothing about this man and his family life. From the bit of an introduction we do get, we can't help but really just think, "well this guy was a drunk moron anyway". I think Park makes up with this though, because it wasn't the character Park was trying to get us attached to in the first place. Park was trying to get us attached to the idea and the quest for revenge and he succeeds without any problems. This film's brutal violence is handled much better than what we see in "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance". He isn't showing us stuff that isn't important. He is displaying a great use of visual-storytelling. There is one minor problem in this film though, we don't get as much of a narrative of revenge in this film as we do in "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" or "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". The narrative is just somehwat implied to us, but doesn't really tell us much.

"Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" is, in a way, an example of style over substance. There are a few problems with the editing. The first time we cut to the past is a bit awkward. Rather than a hard cut, we should've been given a fade to the past. None of the cutting between time periods is as awkward as this one, but they still pose a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, Park has decided to go the route of "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and show us more useless imagery. The rape scene in the jail and the rape scene at the dinner table are both, completely useless. The scene of the overweight woman eating her BBQ'd husband is enough for us to make us really see how sick she is. Rather than showing us the over-weight inmate forcing a girl to perform oral-sex, he could've presented this issue in a number of ways. It's also a bit strange because he uses this same tactic again later in the film - The rape scene with Mr. Baek. The final act alone shows us how much of an evil bastard Mr. Baek is. This is also probably the least human of Park's trilogy. This film presents us with some pretty one-dimensional characters. Especially with Choi Min-sik's character. Aside from these flaws Park has given us a very visually impressive film. It is also the film that has the best narrative on revenge of the two other films and some more social commentary. You get an even better narrative if you watch the "fade to black-and-white" version of the film.

All in all the trilogy is a great piece of work. Unfortunately the final installment of the trilogy has many problems, but makes up for it with it's great narration on revenge. If I were to rank best to worst, it would probably be the order the trilogy was released: "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", "Oldboy", "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". If I were to rank them as my favorite to least favorite, it would be: "Oldboy", "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", then "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance".


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## narutorulez (May 12, 2006)

I love the revenge movies in chan wook parks revenge trilogy the same, they are all awsome


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