Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002) directed by Park Chan-Wook – A Film Review

Out of sheer desperation, an out of work deaf man kidnaps the infant child of his former boss to raise the money for an operation to save his sisters life. With the help of his terrorist girlfriend, they manage to snatch the young girl. However when they try to drop off the girl something goes wrong, and in the exchange the girl is killed. This in turn sets off a series of events, as this group of people begin acting out violent revenge upon one another.

Overall the narrative is quite tight. There never really seems to be a moment of dwelling to long or the story being overinflated. Although the film is two hours long, the story keeps you attentive to the action on screen. This is aided by the graceful work of the actors, director and cinematographer who all do excellent jobs here.

In the layout of the narrative there is also an interesting point to note, in the fact that the actual event in which the young kidnapped child is killed is not shown on screen. Not only does it mean we don’t have to witness the tragedy, but it also means that we have to rely on second hand information and come up with our own conclusion on what may have really come to pass.

Yet that is not to say that the film is perfect. There are some sequences where the violence or actions on screen seem a little to extreme. In particular towards the beginning of the film we see the protagonists sister moaning in pain because of her kidneys. This is then intercut with a shot of a group of young men next door circle jerking to the sound of the moaning. Personally, I found the shot gratuitous; but I do realize how the shot could be justified as symbolism of the society as a wholes lack of sympathy to other people’s pain. Other times it seems that violence is highlighted on for too long, making it seem as though the filmmakers were slightly too captivated by the acts themselves. Again, this could be explained as the filmmakers trying to show the extremities of the revenge that they seek, yet there is something about it that just seems too fetishist to convince me of this.

It seems Park set out on this film to create a clever novelistic thriller, and to that point, he mostly achieved this. He aimed to show what extremes people would go to if they felt they had no other choice and emotions compelled them to do so. And, in many ways again, the film does this. Yet there is something here that doesn’t stand quiet right. An air of exploitation stands cloaked behind this high art (to some extent societal / political) thriller. It seems to some extent that a more sensitive approach was needed in parts to the subject matter, and the times where the movie feels exploitive really take you out of the film and I believe would be off putting for most viewers.