Vengeance Trilogy

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 2002 Korean 4/10 Oldboy 2003, Korean 8/10 Lady Vengeance 2005 Korean 6/10 This trilogy by the director Park Chan-wook is not connected by story but each have the same theme: Revenge. Each movie has excellent cinematography with a stylized look and exaggerated characters. I'll start with Oldboy, since that was my favorite. Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped and locked in a prison that looks like the worst hotel you will ever stay in. After getting out, Oh Dae-su plans his revenge on the unknown captors. The mix of dark comedy along with great action sequences mellow down the over-the-top violence. Thrilling from start to finish, the fight scene in the hallway is so well done. It's ridiculous how it was done in only one take. Lady Vengeance had me from the start. The first act was great. Lee Geum-ja (Lee Yeong-ae) gets out of prison and starts to assemble a ragtag group of people she met in prison, to help her take down the man who blackmailed her to take the fall. I felt like the second act was a little muddled, but the third really picked up. Again, there was well placed comedy to break up the suspense. Lee Gueum-ja's journey to reception is played perfect by Lee Yeong-ae. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the first film of this trilogy, the last one I watched and unfortunately, just didn't get into it. Very disappointing, since the other two were good. The movie just dragged along without much entertainment or thrill. It follows Ryu, a deaf-mute whose sister needs a kidney transplant. The visuals are outstanding and the violence is not gratuitous, but that wasn't enough to keep me interested. I would highly recommend Oldboy and Lady Vengeance. Oldboy gets the edge with great action and has more mystery.