Rating: 5/5
<a href=”“https://boxd.it/qaTwm/detail>Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 3/52 | South Korea Blue Dragon Film Awards</a>
Watching the Fade to Black & White version
Thirteen years ago, Lee Geum-ja went to prison for abducting and killing Park Won-mo, a 6-year-old boy. Not only that, she eagerly confessed to the crime. A preacher, when watching a tabloid piece on her on TV, believed he saw an angel. So, he visited her in prison, leading to a conversion, after which Geum-ja became a model prisoner, caring for others and praying diligently.
In 2004, a line of Santas, led by that preacher, sing hymns to welcome Geum-ja back to the world as the prison lets her go. The preacher presents her with a block of tofu, a symbol that she will live white as snow and never sin again. Geum-ja flips the plate over and tells the preacher to screw himself.
Geum-ja calls in favors with those she met and cared for in prison. That night, Geum-ja dreams of leading a man with a dog’s body to a wintry ridge and shooting him in the head. The next day, she puts her plan into motion for revenge.
The thing is, the detective in her case never believed she did it. Still, he provided her with crucial details to make her confession believable. Why? What is this plan?
It has to be pretty. Everything has to be pretty.
The film is, obviously, a meditation on revenge. The film is the third in a trilogy of movies that focus on revenge. What is the appropriate revenge for killing a child? Your child? Multiple children? How do you arrive at justice? Where is the line between a thirst quenched and a new guilt born? In the fantasy, it is as simple as pulling the trigger. In reality, the world is not as black and white as all that. Or… is it?
Though Oldboy was the first Park Chan-wook movie I saw, I’m a Cyborg but That’s OK was the first movie of his I fell in love with. I bring it up because Lady Vengeance bears several tonal similarities with that movie in how it shuffles around events and pieces the story together. They also share a dark humor that hits a sweet spot for me.
Don’t get me wrong — this movie has levity that only increases as the movie continues. The Fade to Black & White version I watched emphasizes this with the slow removal of color from the movie, ending in black and white. This movie fucked with me in ways only Park Chan-wook can. I’m never prepared for where it goes. And yet, he’ll pull a laugh out of you at the strangest time imaginable.
Lee Young-ae, who plays Geum-ja, has such charisma and complexity in her performance that holds the film together. Her journey is so multi-faceted. It would’ve been good without her, but she makes it truly great. Her makeup is fucking on point too.
I feel totally manipulated when I watch Park Chan-wook films. He is a cruel jester who uses his mastery of cinema in the most bizarre ways, and I adore it. This movie had a chokehold on me within seconds. When it let go, I was asking for the safety of the chokehold.