Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the first in director Park Chan-wook's "Vengeance Trilogy", followed by Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. As with the other two films, it resembles nothing so much as a Greek tragedy; it's violent, ironic, and inexorably grinds onward in search of a certain grim brand of natural justice.
It can be painful to watch. The theme is vengeance, so it's no surprise that the central characters -- a deaf young man and his dying sister; his anarchist girlfriend; a businessman -- are wronged in some way that demands vengeance, but these wrongs are comparatively minor, or accidental, or long-past history, visited upon the father or father's father. The vengeance is monstrous by comparison.
At the same time, it's brilliant: gorgeous to look at, cleverly and subversively scripted, brutally emotive.
It would have been a better film if the violence didn't seem so excessive. The sheer horror of it is such that -- even in light of the wrongs they have suffered -- their motivations are no longer credible. Once the characters are removed from the equation, there's nothing left but violence-porn, torture for its own sake, and that makes for less-than-compelling viewing.