Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. In SPINAL TAP, we get the classic line about turning the dial up to 11 to get just that much more volume from an amp. Anyone who has seen PARK Chan Wook's OLD BOY or SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE will find that the director had, in SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, turned the dial up to 11... On utter gloom and nastiness. The first of PARK's 'vengeance cycle', MR. VENGEANCE is a technically faultless, well-acted, finely structured but utterly depressing and ultra-violent exercise in testing an audience's tolerance. The story concerns Ryu (played by SHIN Ha-kyun), a deaf factory worker who has been saving wherever he could so his sister could have a desperately needed kidney transplant. When he loses his job, Ryu unadvisely delves into the black market for assistance. Some shady types offer to take Ryu's kidney, which he can't give to his sister because he's a different blood type, and for 10,000,000 won (about $10,000 USD) will locate a suitable organ. Things go badly and Ryu loses a kidney and his savings. Making things worse, a doctor tells Ryu, shortly after his misadventure, that the hospital was able to obtain a suitable kidney for his sister and that they just need 10,000,000 won to perform the transplant. Feeling that they have no alternative, Ryu and his radical liberal girlfriend, Yeong-mi (BAE Doona), concoct a ransom scheme to get the needed money. The couple target well-to-do businessman Dong-jin (SONG Kang-Ho from PARK's JOINT SECURITY AREA) and kidnap his daughter. While Ryu and Yeong-mi had every intention of treating the little girl well and returning her safely after obtaining the ransom, things horribly awry, leading to some truly terrible consequences for everyone involved. SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE is probably no more violent or gorey than over-the-top tests of intestinal fortitude like THE HILLS HAVE EYES and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remakes, but it is extremely depressing. The characters are not overtly evil... Just rather desperate and forced to deal with horrible circumstances that result from bad decisions or rather unfortunate twists of fate. The scenarios PARK (who also wrote the screenplay for this film) comes up with are just realistic enough to be unsettling, making the plight of his characters sympathetic. This in turn makes for a rather unpalatable experience for those unaccustomed to watching cruelty and misery delivered in large doses. If you have a cast-iron constitution and are curious about to taking a dark, violent journey through misfortune and vengeance then you may want to give this film a look. If light, Disneyesque fare is more your type of film then stay away from MR. VENGEANCE at all costs.