Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Aroview: A visually dynamic endpoint to Park Chan-wook's feted vengeance trilogy, this final chapter in the saga emerges from a female perspective, and is occupied with the meticulous and gory details of exacting revenge with a designer's precision.

Blackmailed into taking the fall for the death of a young boy, the film's avenging angel (played with subversive chic by Korean megastar Lee Young-ae) emerges from prison after 10 years, itching to put her elaborate revenge scheme into place. Employing such accessories as a custom-made handgun, shocking pink eye-shadow, and haute couture, dir. Park toys with the notion of vengeance with style, lensing the film with an aesthetic flair only he is capable of. While emotionally brutal in climax – very much so with the introduction of its vilified child murderer (Choi Min-shik) – the film's ulterior motives for atonement of sin and absurdist violence don't quite coalesce, making for ultimately glacial viewing dampened by an absence of truly thrilling set-piece (see OLD BOY).

NZ International Film Festival 2006

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