20130913: Drama Review--Mr Vengeance

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance

1. Fundamentals
1. Korean live action feature length film, 2002, rated R, 129 minutes, crime, drama.
2. IMDB: 7.7/10.0 from 31,625 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 55% on the meter; 84% liked it from 38,171 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Chan-wook Park.
5. Starring: Kang Ho-Song as Park Dong-jin, Ha-Kyun Shun as Ryu.


2. Setup and Plot
1. A deaf and dumb man (Ryu) has only his older sister as remaining family.  She has helped him get into art school, but fell ill while he was still in the program.  She needs a new kidney, but his will not do, since they have conflicting blood types.  He works in a sweatshop, double shifts, and clearly does not make much money for this.  He decides to go to the black market to sell his kidney.
2. What could possibly go wrong?  He gets fired, which moves up his time table.  The organ dealers cheat him out of the money they promised him, but do take a kidney.  They leave him stark naked in the middle of nowhere.  On the other hand, they do find a compatible kidney for his sister, and have it inserted into the donor program.
3. How could this get worse? He does not have the money for the operation itself.  His girl friend recommends kidnapping the daughter of the man who fired him for the purpose of ransom.  They go through with the kidnapping.  This seems to go successfully, but his sister commits suicide over the crime.  So, all of the previous activity was for nothing.
4. What story is left?  Burying the sister; getting the kidnapped girl back home.  His carelessness does not go unpunished.  If not for a man more disabled than the protagonist, he might not have even found the body.  Of course, this same disabled man tried to steal her necklace, which woke her up, which led to her drowning.  He steals that necklace after she's dead.
5. The father of the kidnapped girl sells his company and his house.  The police find the apartment where Ryu and his late sister had lived, but they are long gone.
6. Ryu keeps following the dead girl's father around; I'm surprised the cops did not trip over him.
7. The girl's father keeps looking; he finds Ryu's sister's body, and the disabled man who stole his daughter's necklace.  The cops get closer.
8. Ryu finds the organ dealers and kills three of them.
9. The girl's father finds Ryu's girlfriend and tortures her using electricity.
10. One of the few high points of the movie was when the girl's father finds the many pictures of his daughter having a happy and fun time with Ryu and his girl friend, the one he's currently torturing.  It seemed like a revelation to him.  Then one sees it was not.
11. He turns the current back on and goes back to looking at the pictures.  She dies from it, but not before revealing she was a terrorist, at least in her own mind, and gives him a promise of retribution.
12. Ryu returns to the apartment as the police take the body out.  No one notices him.  The police find out about the organ dealers that Ryu murdered.  Ryu rides down in the elevator with them and the corpse. Still he is not noticed.
13. Ryu stakes out the girl's father, but the father outsmarts him.  He takes Ryu to the spot where his daughter was drowned.  He starts explaining, but Ryu is deaf, and he does not know sign language.
14. When he is about to bury Ryu, he gets to receive more vengeance from Ryu's girl friend's organization.  They did the job on him that she promised.  He still does not get it as he dies.


3. Conclusions
1. The depiction of disabled people was rather harsh. The depiction of non-disabled people is even more harsh.   This is the second most sad film I've ever seen; the saddest being Old Boy (2003), this film's brother.
2. One sentence summary: Life is tough; because we are stupid, it gets worse.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Competent.  In some sections, there was more than a bit of camera shake.


2. Sound: 8/10 The spoken word is Korean, and the subtitles presented seem to be OK. Some dialog and writing had no subtitles.  The actors appear to be adequately miked.


3. Acting: 7/10 Reasonable, but not the best.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The plot is clear, and the action and dialog moves it along, though slowly.  The final minutes make it clear that the build up was worth it.