"Listen carefully. Everyone make mistakes. But if you committed a sin, you have to make an atonement for that sin. Atonement, do you know what that means? Big Atonement for big sins. Small Atonement for small sins."After thirteen and half years in prison for kidnapping and murdering the boy Park Won-mo,
Geum-ja Lee is released and tries to fix her life. She finds a job in a bakery; she orders the manufacturing of a special weapon; she reunites with her daughter, who was adopted by an Australian family; and she plots revenge against the real killer of Won-mo, the English teacher Mr. Baek. With the support of former inmates from prison, Geum-ja seeks an unattained redemption with her vengeance. REVIEWPark Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy is amazing. Mr. Vengeance broke new ground, Oldboy added a deranged hidden element, and Lady Vengeance takes a moment away from the momentum and hard-edges of the latter two to add a very charismatic character with some intriguing development. The three shine like a beacon of light into a world of "Transporter" movies and their ilk, presenting a chance to actually submerge into a world of obsessive revenge and try to breathe through the thick layer of blood.Lee Geum-ja gets out of prison and shocks everyone by throwing aside their chance at redemption as she finally takes matters into her own hands--but matters have kind of been in her hands for a while. She has a plan, and its execution goes rather flawlessly, but like a roller-coaster ride set on a track you can see before you get on, the anticipation itself adds to the fun. This film would pretty much be worth it just for the scene with the family members near the end. But what rounds it out and makes it more appealing is the slightly chaotic personality of Geum-ja, how she strives for redemption, and the surprising way she actually gets it.I do kind of miss the roughness of the other two films in this one. The digital editing was pretty, and sometimes did some very amazing environmental/psychological things, but it felt so clean compared to the blood-splattered past of the other two. That's okay, though, as these films do stand alone and do have their own things to offer. Most important about them is the different approaches to vigilantism and what it means to the society it's enacted within. Once again, the scene with the family members makes this movie entirely worth it, but this time even more so as it does ask one of those important questions that society's struggle with today: do we give him over to the law and hope due process gives us our vengeance, or do we take it into our own hands?
April 4, 2009
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