SYMPATHY FOR MISTER VENGEANCE (Park Chan Wook)
*May contain spoilers Vengeance is always a fascinating theme for cinematic exploration, because it lays the groundwork for a moral debate, and moral debates are among those which I look for in movies. Of all the noted Korean filmmakers whose films I've seen, Park Chan-wook is clearly the one with a tendency, no make that an assured delivery to shock you out of your senses. His ideas, and his visual translation of those ideas birth compelling results. I only saw two of his films previous to this; THIRST was a hysterical yet blood-soaked vampire movie, while JSA (JOINT SECURITY AREA) is a stirring political thriller that evoked so much emotion in me, even though I'm not Korean. SYMPATHY FOR MISTER VENGEANCE, the first installment of his now famous "Vengeance Trilogy" starts out slow, but gets real serious and interesting during the second act. It is a story headlined by antiheroes, and like THIRST and JSA, the ending is governed by force majeure, an undeniable tr...