Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
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| Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance | |
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|---|---|
| Directed by | Park Chan-wook |
| Produced by | Studio Box |
| Written by | Park Chan-wook Lee Jae-sun Lee Mu-yeong Lee Yong-jong |
| Starring | Song Kang-ho Shin Ha-kyun |
| Distributed by | CJ Entertainment Tartan Films |
| Release date(s) | 2002 (South Korea) |
| Running time | 129 min. |
| Language | Korean |
| Followed by | Oldboy |
| IMDb profile | |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul: | 복수는 나의 것 |
| Hanja: | |
| Revised Romanization: | Boksuneun Naui Geot |
| McCune-Reischauer: | Poksunŭn Naŭi Kŏt |
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a 2002 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook. It is the first part of his "vengeance trilogy" and is succeeded by Oldboy (2003) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005).
The original Korean title means "Vengeance is Mine", but the alternate English title was ostensibly chosen to avoid confusion with the Japanese film of the same name.
The film was declared the best movie of 2002 by Harry Knowles. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Synopsis
A young deaf-mute man's failed plot to obtain a kidney for his ailing sister sets in motion a chain of events ending in a series of vengeful murders.
[edit] Story
The film opens with a letter written by Ryu, a deaf-mute, being read aloud on a radio show. He explains that his sister needs a kidney, and that he has quit school to get a job at a factory to support her. Later we see Ryu speaking, through a combination of lip reading and sign language, with a doctor who explains the difficulty of finding the new kidney that his sister needs. He had intended to donate his own kidney, but he is not a matching blood type.
In bed with his girlfriend, a radical leftist named Yeong-mi whom we see typing what appears to be a polemic calling for the deaths of capitalists, he wonders what he can do.
When he is fired from the factory where he works, he contacts a black market organ dealer; if he pays the equivalent of $10,000 (10 million won) and lets them have his kidney, they say, they will find a kidney for his sister. In an abandoned building, he hands them the money and they put him to sleep; he awakes naked, in pain, and missing a kidney. He never hears from them again, and the loss is compounded when the doctor jubilantly reports that a kidney has been found and his sister can have it - but only if Ryu produces $10,000.
He and his girlfriend hatch a scheme to kidnap the daughter of his former boss in order to demand a ransom. However, after witnessing a confrontation involving his boss's neighbor, Park Dong-jin and a former employee, Ryu and Cha Yeong-mi decide that his recent firing would make his involvement in the kidnapping too obvious. Through methods unseen, the duo contrive to kidnap Mr. Park's daughter instead. The girl stays with his sister, who plays with her and keeps the girl from realizing that her father is looking for her. The distraught father agrees to pay the ransom, but when Ryu goes out to collect (leaving Park tied up with a plastic bag over his head) his sister finds Ryu's termination notice and quickly figures out what he has done. Ryu returns to find her floating, wrists slit in the bathtub, leaving behind a note that she no longer wants to be a burden to him.
Ryu takes the girl and his sister's body into the countryside to bury her by a riverbed, a favourite place of theirs to play when they were both children. While he covers her body with rocks, the little girl falls into the river and drowns. Ryu, hearing nothing, fails to notice until it is too late.
Ryu and Dong-jin swear vengeance on those who have taken their loved ones. Yeong-mi arranges a meeting with the organ dealers, but Ryu goes in instead and slaughters them, taking and eating their kidneys. Meanwhile Dong-jin, having pieced together the mystery of what happened to his daughter, finds Yeong-mi and tortures her with electric shocks that eventually kill her. Before she dies, after telling him how sorry she is and begging him to stop, she claims that she belongs to a terrorist organization and gave them his picture. She warns him that if she dies, he will be killed.
Ryu and Dong-jin stake out each others' homes, each waiting patiently for the other to return. Ryu gives up first, goes back to his apartment, and sees Dong-jin asleep inside. He tries to ambush him, but Dong-jin has electrified the door, knocking Ryu out. Dong-jin captures Ryu and takes him to the spot in the river where his daughter's body was found. With Ryu's hands bound, Dong-jin tells him that he knows he is a good man, but that he has no choice but to kill him. He cuts Ryu's Achilles tendons and he drowns. He then carries his body to the shore.
Soon after, however, a group of men pull up in a car and stab Dong-jin to death. As he lays dying in the sun, they pin to his chest a death notice (the polemic Yeong-mi was writing), citing his murder of Yeong-mi. The camera then pans round to show Ryu's clothes next to bloody bags, which presumably hold a dismembered Ryu. Dong-Jin's dying gasps continue for minutes on end through the end credits.
[edit] Box Office
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance opened in South Korea on March 29, 2002, and grossed $1,818,524 by April 7.
After the cult success that greeted Oldboy in its North American release, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance received a low-profile North American theatrical release from Tartan beginning August 19, 2005 - over three years after it debuted in South Korea. In its opening weekend, it collected $9,827 ($3,276 per screen) from three New York city theaters. It played on only six screens at its most widespread, and its total North American box office take was $45,243.
[edit] Cast
- Song Kang-ho - Park Dong-jin
- Shin Ha-kyun - Ryu
- Bae Du-na - Cha Yeong-mi (Ryu's girlfriend)
- Lim Ji-eun - Ryu's sister
