At the age of 19, a woman ends up in prison. She’s convicted of kidnapping and murdering a child. But did she do it alone, or did she have a partner in crime? We follow her after she has served her sentence in search of revenge. She also has a daughter she hasn’t seen since they sent her to prison.
This is the third and final movie in Park Chan-wook’s revenge trilogy. First came Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance followed by Oldboy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance finishes the trilogy.
The way Park Chan-wook mixes colors and music is amazing. I have to point out the score in Oldboy. I don’t think I’ve watched a movie where the score fits the scenes as well as in Oldboy.
This was the second time I watched Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. I loved the movie the first time I watched it, but now I was in shock because this wasn’t so entertaining at all!
Choi Min-shik who starred in Oldboy is back as a serial killer who kills children. This man is an amazing actor, but he doesn’t get that much screen time here. If I’m going to point out the negative sides of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, it has to be the violence, the score, and the story itself. There’s not as much violence here as it was in the first two movies in the revenge trilogy.
What I noticed now is that the script isn’t very good or engaging. I smiled sometimes early in the movie. There’s some black humor here that I appreciate. But I couldn’t care about any of the characters, and even the protagonist is boring to follow. The characters talk a lot, but I didn’t feel they had a lot of character depth or interesting things to say.
The serial killer didn’t disgust me or make me angry because he hardly gets any screen time! In my opinion, the whole story is mediocre, and the characters aren’t interesting to follow. The movie has a slightly silly tone, especially with the protagonist’s daughter and her foster parents, which I didn’t like.
My favorite movie in this trilogy is Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. The movie is so brutal and cold, and I love the way it’s edited. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance doesn’t have the fantastic score we found in Oldboy or the excellent story. It doesn’t have the rawness of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. It doesn’t have that much to offer to keep you engaged. There’s too much uninteresting dialogue, and the characters are not charming or interesting.
The best thing about Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is that it visually looks good. Some scenes give me goosebumps, thanks to the way Park Chan-wook uses the camera and colors. Then it’s only for Park Chan-wook to make a movie that has the rawness of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the score of Oldboy, and the colors of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Then we have one of the best movies ever!