This movie is the second in a revenge trilogy from Japanese director Chan-Wook Park. The movie, obviously centered around the theme of revenge, follows Dae-su Oh who is mysteriously kidnapped and imprisoned in a room for 15 years without knowing why and then framed for the murder of his wife. He is then just as mysteriously released and given 5 days to either seek revenge or truth from his captor. He seeks assistance from a waitress in a café and then embarks on a surreal journey to discover the truth of his imprisonment which will lead him to places from which he can never return.
The plot was very dark and twisted but really brought a lot of questions to the audience to ponder on. The plot wasn’t straightforward and slowly revealed itself through the different scenes, flashbacks, and actions of the characters. There was a huge amount of symbolism in this movie and probably even more that was over my head. Although the plot doesn’t really deal with everyday situations, it does make you put yourself in the character’s shoes and you empathize with his feelings and actions. Even though the plot points are dark and heavy, its not sick and demented which is something I feared while watching this movie. Some of the subject matters are taboo but they’re essential to the plot.
This movie had some really great camera angles in it which I really appreciated. It’s nice to see dialogue shot with unique angles instead of just the standard alternation between mid and close up shots as we see in most movies. The movie flowed nicely through time and was only slightly confusing but I was aware this was going to be a movie that required my complete attention and it was necessary with this movie. The editing was done nicely and there is a fight sequence that was filmed in one continuous shot which was just amazing. I love it when movies to a Hitchcock-type shot like this, most notable the beach scene in Atonement. That was probably my favorite scene in the movie. The color correction of the movie was also centered on symbolism and went along with the tone of the movie. It was obvious that the director was very detail oriented when it came to the allusions and symbolism in this movie.
Unfortunately, the version I saw was dubbed and I really don’t see a need for dubbing in most cases. The dubbing was pretty awful in this movie and I would have much preferred subtitles. That being said, the actors did convey a lot of emotion with their facial expressions mainly and also body language. The main character did a fantastic job with his facial expressions and was able to express a lot of emotion in his face that did not come across from the dialogue. The female lead Mi Do was a little too animated and stereotypical but it wasn’t too terrible. I really enjoyed the villain, Lee Woo-jin, in this movie. He was cool and calculating at the same time. He was one of those cool bad ass villains. It was also nice to see his motivations and through his performance you could tell that his character really believed in what he was doing.
Overall, this was a very memorable movie. This is one of those movies that poses a lot of questions and leaves it up to the viewer to form their own opinion. This is not to be confused with one of those frustrating movies that purposely leaves loose ends, this movie just poses different ideas for us to think about. The end was also subtly left up for interpretation for the meaning of a smile/cry. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys Japanese films or anyone would enjoy dark plot heavy foreign films. Be prepared though there is a small amount of graphic violence and a larger amount of sexual material. “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone” – Oldboy.
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