Sympathy For Lady Vengeance

"Sympathy For Lady Vengeance" is a 2005 Korean film for director Park Chan-wook. The film is the third installment in Park's The Vengeance Trilogy, following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Oldboy (2003).

Of this trilogy I had only seen Oldboy, I was so moved by it that I refused to watch any of the remaining two films because it was inconceivable that any film would be as good as Oldboy, it was as if my mind could not or refused to handle any more great movies. It was exactly like eating the best piece of steak in the world, it is so well seasoned, very tender, cooked just as you like it and it filled you up to perfection. So going and having a piece of perfect chicken or salmon steak was a nice idea, but the steak made you feel so good that you didnt want to adjust your taste buds to anything else no matter how good it is.

And I have this sad habit with movies, when i watch a really good film, I tend to isolate myself afterwards, cause it gets very hard to get back to the real world and suck in other people/places' energies, I like to hang on to the energy of that movie for as long as I can.

Now back to our perfect piece of steak.. So I had been resisting watching any of the two remaining movies of the trilogy.. till yesterday. A friend of mine started telling me about  it, I resisted, he told me the story, I still resisted. He then popped up his iPhone and showed me the poster (look above), and of course I surrendered on the spot..

So I finally got the film, cancelled all my plans for the day (i can foresee a later need for isolation) and sat down and watched it.

And oh boy.. This was no steak, no chicken and definitely no Salmon.. This was a piece of fine candy, no actually a fine piece of a big, freshly baked and crunchy almond macaron thats all gooey from the inside!

The movie tells the story of Lee Geum-ja, it starts with her release from prison. She had been imprisoned for the murder of a little boy: "Won-mo" 13 years ago. Lee Geum-ja is innocent of the murder, she confessed the false crime by order of Mr. Baek, the real killer who kidnapped and threatened to murder her newborn daughter if she refused. Lee who was nicknamed "Kind-Hearted Geum-Ja." by her cell mates, comes out of prison as a different woman, she wears red eye shadow throughout the whole film to make her look less innocent and more evil, and every time she meets someone from her past they ask her "why have you changed so much?". She has one thing in mind: Kill Bill! sorry Mr Baek! ..

 she goes around scheming and gathering favors from ex cell mates to set out and finish him off. However, things don't go as planned, she tracks down her daughter and finds out she got adopted by an Australian couple, she goes to visit her, the daughter becomes obsessed with her and threatens to kill herself if she doesnt take her back to Seoul with her. Lee takes her back, and drags her around Seoul with her as she hunts down Mr Baek. She finally finds him, and right before she kills him, she finds out that he had many other victims other than Won-mo.

 Lee finds tapes he recorded of each child that he had killed. She also finds out that all of these children's parents didnt know that they died, they simply thought they were kidnapped for ransom. This is where the real magic of the movie begins for me: because Lee (our lady vengeance) then decides to make her vengeance a mass vengeance and brings in each family to take part of his killing with her.

She shows each one of them the tape of their child's murder, and then gives them the choice of either handing Mr Baek over to the authorities or... torturing him, one by one till he dies.

I will leave the plot here in case you are planning to see it..

The thing is with this film, the story is not that original, the actress is not that charismatic ( I wouldnt remember her if I saw her again). But the whole movie is one piece of art, usually the highest reviewed movies are not that entertaining to watch, dont ask me why, you are bored the whole movie, then when its done, you just cant stop thinking about it, thats why they are so successful because it means that their message got through to you, and if you have any knowledge of movie making, you will know that this is the number one dream of any film maker, to deliver a message to you. A little pop quizz to help us here: can you remember any message behind: a- I Know What You Did Last Summer, b- Gigli or c- Step up 3D (or any 3D film for that matter..) ... there you go..!

But with Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, I got the message and I was entertained from the first shot till the very last word in the closing credits. 

The directing is genius to have succeeded on all these levels, his casting skills may not be that successful, but who cares, he delivered his message, he entertained his audience visually and vocally. And, what is it about Asian film making? when it comes to artistic direction, you feel like they come from another planet, several shots made me pause the film and rewind it. The soundtrack was baroque-themed, featuring many pieces with harpsichord and baroque guitars, it has nothing to do with the film, the theme or its era, but it worked so well. Somehow throughout the film, you find yourself crying in a scene where she is putting her coat on, all because of the music!

Also, Lee's daughter (Jenny) serves as her conscience throughout the whole film: in the beginning when Lee was released from prison, they presented her with a block of tofu to eat as a symbol of her beginning a clean white life, she reacts by throwing it on the floor. By the end of the film, picture this shot: Lee is standing in front of Jenny, who is dressed in white. Lee has the same piece of Tofu in her hands, its heavily snowing around them, there is a boy dancing under the snow in the background, Broque music is playing in the playground. Jenny then makes her weep and bury her face in a block of tofu and the closing credits comes on screen, still with the Baroque music playing.

End result is, this movie has nothing to do with Oldboy, it is loyal to the theme of the vengeance trilogy, by depicting a vengeance story. Oldboy distrubed you to the core of your very last cell, Lady Vengeance made you reflect on the real significance of revenge, or more accurately, made you ask yourself: is it really worth it? Because like most revenge movies, she didnt get back her daughter and happily walk off into her new life like what Uma did in Kill Bill. She took off her red eye shadow, stood in front of her daughter, wept then buried her face in tofu.

Watch it, and no matter what baggage you still have on your back, this movie will help you dump it off.. actually it will make you believe that there is no baggage there.. that its useless to have walked around all these years with your back arched from all that weight.. No? tab go eat some tofu...its a start :)

(thank you for reading.. no really.. you all make me happy.. much love from my side)

I globalize, therefore I am..

One of my favorite definitions of globalization is "the shrinkage of time and space"

I am sure that you are now presuming that this is a post related to heavy topics: politics/economy …etc
But no it is not pertaining to any of these topics, however it IS about a heavy topic, the most heavily discussed topic on the planet: Relationships.

So what is the relationship between relationships and globalization?
Its a simple one: The grand demise that relationships are suffering from is all because of globalization.
Ok.. lets simplify this further...

You meet a guy in a party, you spend the whole night talking, you obviously like each other, you go home (thinking about him), you go to sleep (still thinking about him), you wake up (trying not to think about him).. Till suddenly, the door bell rings, you answer it: and find him standing in front of you. How would you react? you would definitely freak out and classify him as a stalker. Right?

Ok, now what if this happened during the 19th century?  would you still consider him a stalker? yes.. remember all those Jane Austen/Bronte films where the 'suitor' would show up unannounced after one encounter, to inform the maiden of his profound interest in her?

Now flash Forward to 2010, you meet a guy, you like each other, he is keen on showing you that he is interested, but he doesn't want to be pushy, so the next day you find a friend request on Facebook. You check out his profile first to see what he is like, and you bring out your check list. Profile pictures are cool? check. You then go through his status updates, he doesn't quote Paulo Coelho: check. He doesn't even have any status updates: double check. You then check out his photo albums, they are blocked: hummm.. ok..check. You wait for another hour: then you accept the friend request. Hey.. he is online! you wait.. he is not chatting with you. Your boss starts screaming at you, you close your Facebook and get back to work.

Day 2: you go online, he is online too, his chat window pops up:
'hey!!'
"helloooo (multiply the o's cause that means you are nice but still you only typed one word, so not too keen)"
"sup?"
"all good.. u?"
(bla bla.. his pronunciation sucks, however he still capitalizes names and doesnt use emoticons.. till your boss starts screaming again, you close your FB, get back to work)
..and this scenario repeats itself for another 3 days, till one day he makes a move! he asks for your BB pin! and before you know it, your BBM alert tone starts buzzing..
'hey!!'
"helloooo (multiply the o's cause that means you are nice but still you only typed one word, so not too keen)"
"sup?"
(bla bla.. this time he is using odd emoticons, but its cool cause the BBM emoticons are actually cute.. this goes on till your boss starts screaming again, you put your phone on silent and get back to work)
.. and yup.. this scenario repeats itself for another 3 days, till he makes yet another grand move, he follows you on Twitter! he starts mentioning you and occasionally retweets too!
Did I annoy you? I am sure I did, cause I have annoyed myself already!

So what does Globalization have to do with this? its simple, it made everything accessible, in the old days you had to physically meet each other to really get to know each other, or the more conservative (debatable) manner of asking around to find out about a girl/guy's interests and character. Nowadays you just check who he follows on Twitter, or what she posts on her wall. Globalization has made it so easy, it brought us all closer via internet, 3G, IPads, and all that junk. They all testify to one fact about human beings in the 21st century: that we have this incredible URGE to be accessible to each other 24/7! wherever we are: even if you are having a shower, you can still answer your phone! yes people! Motorolla are launching a 100% waterproof phone (porn jokes aside please). 

First there was the land line telephone: that made people accessible whenever they are home, then there were answering machines: that made them semi-accessible when they are not home. Then there was mobile phones: that made them accessible when they are awake and active. Then the mobile phones kept evolving: texting happened, she is not answering, no big deal i will just SMS her. Then phones evolved even more, BBM/ Ping/WhatsApp happened, you don't have enough credit, but you can harass her whenever you want with all the cute emoticons, pictures and forwards you can master, and these applications allow you to find out if she has read your messages or not. And that is just ONE form of communication, how about the internet? E-mails.. remember those? I was actually fond of E-mails, they were my only link to the Bronte and Austen era: cause they allowed a person to actually sit down and write his feelings out and then with the click of a button, send it to you. But then Facebook happened, and people became incapable of breathing without it (myself shamelessly included), and the social networks started multiplying, each with their own promise of offering you an original portal and manner of virtual flirting, and ensuring you that it will never be seen as stalking (remember Hi5)?

So, yup ..'the shrinkage of time and space' managed to shrink many things with it: courting (yes, that's what they used to call it) is long gone now. It has also shrunk Romance: now if you wanna look into his eyes, you have to look at those of Bruce Lee in his current profile pic. the closest you will get to winking at her is by 'poking' her, that is if Facebook manages to notify her in time. And when you do spend time together, there is always a third party involved: the buzzer of the phone. If you wanna tell him you miss him, post a youtube song on his wall. If you wanna tell him you are mad at him: update your BBM status, follow your ex, or better yet eat your phone's heart out, burn your hard disk and feed your wall..

I will end this post with the words of the great dame of acting Drew Barrymore with probably the deepest line she ever said in a movie (here its from 'He is just not that You'):

"i had this guy leave me a voice mail at work so i called him at home and then he emailed me into my blackberry so i texted to his cell, and he emailed me into my home account and the whole thing just got out of control and i miss the days where you had 1 phone number and one answering machine and that 1 answering machine housed 1 cassette tape, and that 1 cassette tape either had a message from a guy or it didn't. Now you have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by 7 different technologies, its exhausting"

Happy pokes and tweets everyone :)