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Posted By: ABSINTHEKITTY at 8:17am, November 7, 2009
chan wook knows what he's doing, i thoroughly enjoyed all 3 in the vengeance saga, each film stood on its own
Also my 2nd favorite of the vegeance trilogy. Chan-wook Park is a God among men. I agree, at first I was struggling to make sense of it all, but it comes together SO nicely and the ending is just awesome.
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is pathetic. I’ll just be blunt and get that out there. It’s not because of any of the technical qualities. Acting, cinematography, sound—all typical greatness for Chan-wook Park. No, Sympaty for Lady Vengeance is pathetic because the story and the characters are both flat and uninteresting. That is the sole difference between the pathetic Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and the amazing Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. The entire movie carries the “So what? I’ve seen this in every other movie ever made!” feel. Chan-wook Park was never sited for originality, but this is just so unoriginal and dull I almost pity him for making it. How can people honestly like this?
I’ve never been the person to believe Asian cinema was going to come and bring us all into the promise land like a lot of people. I find a lot of Asian cinema to be cheesy (Oldboy) and boring (Audition). There is NO WAY even half of it is better than American cinema. Why? Because American cinema has two things I have never once seen an Asian movie have: production value and variety. The former doesn’t need am explanation, but the latter is something that Sympathy for Lady Vengeance proves. The vast majority of Asian films center around the exact same plots, exact same characters, exact same themes. After you’ve seen Ringu, you’ve seen pretty much every other Asian ghost movie. After you’ve seen Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, you’ve pretty much see every other Asian vengeance movie.
There is no diversity among Asian cinema. Whatsoever. It repeats itself over and over again, and people give the copies faux “Masterpiece!” stamps because they are brainwashed into “If it’s Asian, it has to be better than American!” no matter what their real opinion on the matter is. Or better yet, “If it’s by Chan-wook Park it has to be a 10/10 . . . err, even if I really thought that was lame.” Maybe people like that are even more pathetic than this movie.
With that said, I’m sorry, but Sympathy for Lady Vengeance was pathetic. I could have told you the entire story if I’d see the trailer, much less sat through the entire movie. It was nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times before in other movies. I could care less about the characters because all they do is stare at the camera Napoleon Dynamite-style.
As with all Chan-wook Park movie, people tell me they’re violent and shocking, and they never are. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance has more violence than the other two in the Vengeance trilogy, but nothing that wouldn’t be PG-13 by American standards. The man is too much of a pansy to even point the camera at the screen when someone gets shot in the head. Last time I checked, I’ve seen headshots in movies rated PG.
So, please, someone, tell me where all this “poetic intelligence” is at? I missed it. Or more accurately, it wasn’t there for me to miss. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is just another run-of-the-mill vengeance story with nothing even slightly memorable about it. It watched it last night and I can guarantee by tomorrow morning I won’t even remember half the plot. Not that there was a plot . . .
I thought this movie was excellent. Lee Young Ae did a superb job. The movie just had a great flow to it. The acting, the camera work, and the soundtrack all fit together nicely.
4.25/5
In my opinion this is the weakest of the vengeance trilogy. Mr. Vengeance is the strongest. The best part of this film is the character study that can be seen in the parents of the victims when offered the chance to seek revenge.
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