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| Lady Vengeance |
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  (9/10)
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Runtime: 112 |
| Public Rating: 9.00 (1 votes) |
Director: Chan-wook Park |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Film Noir / Drama |
Year: 2005 |
| Writer(s): Chan-wook Park and Seo-Gyeong Jeong |
| Reviewed by: Friday and Saturday Night Critic |
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Starring Yeong-ae Lee and Choi Min-sik
"Lady Vengeance" is the final installment to Chan-wook Park's "Vengeance" trilogy, following "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy." A woman framed for murder emerges from prison to track down the man who framed her. Now here’s a movie that lives up to its title: there’s vengeance, and there’s a lady. The first half of the movie frustrated me with how meandering and disjointed it is, with flashbacks jumping back and forth. I think the movie might be overall tighter and more entertaining if it had been chronological. But I think what Park wants is to give “Lady” a woman’s point-of-view, in which the way all things connect is emphasized.
Everything leads back to memories and stream-of-consciousness, whereas “Oldboy” and especially “Mr. Vengeance” are strongly male in their mechanical single-mindedness. A lone man sets himself relentlessly on a task and does so to the exclusion of all else, as if forgetting his life. I found myself frustrated with “Lady,” hoping she would just “get on with it!” but that was Park’s plan, to let us know that this would be a movie that gives pause and considers revenge rather than just carries it out. The woman’s movie is about planning and waiting and everything coming to fruition. “Oldboy” is a mystery from the detective’s POV while “Mr. Vengeance” is more spontaneous — “this went wrong, so let’s try this.”
Like in a Western, women represent the civilizing element. Lady’s revenge is cold, calculated, decided—the true steeliness of women. She wants everyone involved to fully understand why she (and eventually they) is doing it. Whereas male revenge is a kind of madness that can’t be applied to society at large, Lady wants her acts to make sense to others, launching into the film’s very creepy third act, about how much revenge is socially acceptable or justifiable. It’s a fitting conclusion, a culmination of the whole trilogy, which plays like a precursor to “Murder on the Orient Express.” Revenge is dissected to lengths which you might either consider just or horrific. That depends on you.
It’s fun spotting the players from the previous two movies in “Lady Vengeance.” Oldboy is the villain and his girlfriend is here somewhere. The villain from “Oldboy” is brought in only near the very end and his henchman is the preacher who tries to save Lady. Mr. Vengeance is one of the villain’s thugs and one of the revolutionaries from “Mr. Vengeance” is a bereaved father.
Finished Friday, December 15, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Friday & Saturday Night
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