Brilliant Korean director Chan-wook Park won international acclaim and a sizable cult following with his trilogy of vengeance movies of which Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was the first installment. The movie presents us with a gripping, double-vengeance tale centered around a chain-reaction of misfortune and tragedy in a psychologically-bleak though visually striking world that as the movie progresses, clearly seems to be operating on Murphy's Law: It presents a faithful illustration of the adage that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and here also road-marked by copious servings of grief, regret, anger and rampaging vengeance.
This is a very graphic, even gory film but its' violence, quite expected from an action flick, is made into deeply-felt tragedies through the masterful way in which the story is told – we are brought into the protagonists world, state of mind and emotions through excellent story-telling and capable acting. Each scene and the way in which it is connected to those before and after it contributes an important piece of information to the overall story and is presented in a way that is visually very interesting.
The use of sound is quite impactful as well, and imbued with meaning but never in any way that would come across as over the top or pretentious. At times the very absence of it is what is most telling, as it brings the audience into the soundless world of the main protagonist. It also sets up one of the films many scenes of cringe-worthy dark humor.
The Plot
The film begins with an introduction of the main protagonist Ryu, a deaf-mute factory-worker who gave up educational aspirations to care for his ailing sister. She's in a dire need of a kidney and the devoted Ryu is single-mindedly focused on getting it for her. After finding out that his own kidney is not a blood-type match for donation he finds new hope in selling it instead on the black market for one that would be, in addition to handing over all of his savings.
Not surprisingly, the scene where he turns himself to the black-market dealers is soon followed by one of him lying naked on the concrete floor in excruciating pain, with all of the make-shift office's furniture missing and the black-marketers nowhere to be found. That moment is surrounded by many others signaling misfortune, warning us that kind-hearted Ryu lives in a world he is woefully maladjusted for.
His naivety seems to stem from the belief that those he's dealing with are playing by the same rules and from the same heart-centered place he is. Soon however, having been betrayed by the black-marketers, liberated of all of his savings and let go from his job he's talked by his revolutionary girlfriend into kidnapping the wealthy former bosses' daughter for ransom money, but just enough, she assures him, to cover kidney and surgery costs.
Ryu is initially strongly opposed to such an act but eventually worn out by his sister's quickly slipping health, lack of resources and prospects, and girlfriend's assurance that no one will be hurt, and even that the incident will actually be beneficial to the family they're targeting - by strengthening the parents love and bringing their attention back from busy careers to their child.
Ryu lets himself be convinced – the need for funds is urgent and he sees no other way of getting it. As kidnappings go this one starts out quite promisingly: the little hostage is as sprightly and adorable as can be and, through some careful maneuvering, not at all aware that she's been kidnapped. And here the plot steers into a yet another unfortunate turn of events, quickly leading to the double-tragedy climax, at which point the two stories of vengeance begin.
Undercurrents
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is light-years away from just another high-action gory flick with a fill-in-the-blanks obligatory plot as the back-drop. The movie takes it's time in drawing us in until we are fully immersed, emotionally invested into character's plights, than tears our hearts out with tragedy and racks our minds with trying to decide who to side with, if anyone, as we watch characters we've come to care about meet their demise in gut-punching ways.
Amidst all the emotionality there's a strong undercurrent of cruelty, first hinted at by some of the striking dark humor scenes early on and than expanded upon by the film's more clearly negative side characters. The theme is then continued by our avenging “heroes”, although to a lesser extent, modified by the victims' responsibility and the doer's compromised psychological state.
It all contrasts some of the early honest acts of general kindness and concentrated self-sacrifice in a way that depicts the pairs of family members as lone islands of love and dedication standing out in the ocean of indifference and self-interested predation, having only each other to keep them from drowning in it's murky waters. Once, they are de-coupled through desperate acts and tragedy the other is left to grief and finally rage that lead to seemingly uncharacteristic acts of violence.
Impact
What takes the film from dark-humor to gut-wrenching is the awareness that these are imperfect but essentially good people who ultimately turn to bloody acts of vengeance against each other. We see highly sympathetic characters succumb to tragedy and the people who loved them succumb to violent vengeance in their memory. There are moments when a viewer almost wants to scream out justifications and make the (second) protagonist/avenger understand his targets and the situation better, perhaps even beg for leniency.
In the end we do get a somewhat satisfying acknowledgment that there is some understanding and sympathy for his prey despite the critical mistakes made and grave end results he brought on, but the drive and apparently the feeling of obligation to vengeance proves unstoppable. What seems as the final act is then followed up with another entirely unexpected and jarringly prolonged in its violence. It is a moment of dark irony that ties in an earlier event and answers a side-mystery the audience had already dismissed as solved.
In the end we are brought full circle in the theme of main characters who use vengeance to right wrongs experiencing it from others who feel and do the same. The ending itself also appears intended to win back some of the audiences' sympathy to the side of our second avenging protagonists in case it had been lost entirely through his earlier acts against favored characters. Moreover, it reinforces the films master theme, well-summarized in the title itself.
![Park Chan-wook at San Diego Comi-Con 2009 - By Adam Cook from Vancouver, Canada (San Diego Comic-Con 2009) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://images.suite101.com/3464895_com_120px_park_chan_wook_at_san_diego_comic_con_2009.png)
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