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Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

June. 14,2002
|
7.5
|
R
| Drama Action Thriller

A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

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Reviews

Ensofter
2002/06/14

Overrated and overhyped

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Rijndri
2002/06/15

Load of rubbish!!

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2freensel
2002/06/16

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

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Megamind
2002/06/17

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

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harihar90
2002/06/18

While stylishly shot and crafted (especially in its handling of the twin narrative threads) the movie is ultimately a failed exercise in exploring the nature of revenge as the characters felt sterile. When the plot and themes are as clear and straight forward as they are here, the only reason to take as long as this film does to get to its point could be to establish the audience empathy for the characters. But by cutting away from the characters' faces during the few moments when they actually betray any emotion and by relentless jumps in time that made the film feel like a bunch of vignettes, the film made me feel more and more alienated from them. And without any interest in the characters, the long sequence with (needlessly) large amounts of splattery stuff on scene ended up feeling tedious rather than shocking.

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Horst in Translation ([email protected])
2002/06/19

"Boksuneun naui geot" or "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" is a 2-hour movie from South Korea that will have its 15th anniversary next year. The (co-)writer and director is Chan-wook Park, one of Asia's most lauded filmmakers these days and his film here is actually the first of a trilogy that also includes the famous "Oldboi". Unfortunately, I cannot say that watching this one here got me curious about Park's other works. I see not much talent in here, just the intention to be controversial and graphic for the sake of it, not for the sake of telling a great story.The only reason to respect or even like this film here is probably if you see it from a fantasy perspective. None of the action or horror in here is really realistic and something that could happen in real life. This is quite a shame though as the film starts with an interesting premise, namely a couple who plans to abduct the child from a rich man in order to extort money from him that they need for the urgent surgery of a beloved. And that's also how they try to justify their crime, to each other and also to the audience.However, things do not go as planned and it turns into a chaotic, sadistic bloody mess for the rest of the film. Maybe this would have worked better as a short film as the script simply wasn't good enough for a film that crosses the 2-hour mark. There was really little dialogue in here I must say. This is also an aspect that hurt my general perception of the film. I need characters to interact with each other, but i guess Park thought this would make the film more appreciative to foreign audiences if there is not too much Korean talk. Anyway, as you probably already know by now, I did not enjoy the watch and I do not recommend you checking this one out. Thumbs down.

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PeaceGuard
2002/06/20

I know that with 7,7 current overall rating, most people will not agree with me, especially Tarantino-Rodriguez fans. But my opinion is this.The movie is highly unrealistic, half-baked, has some major flaws and blanks and rationally it more often doesn't make sense than it does. You can say how beautiful are the interlacing threads of love, hate and vengeance, but in the end it doesn't have much meaning if everything else is just one big mistake.Let's be more specific here and make some examples. The deaf boy's sister kills herself because of the "asian honor thing", as a result of knowing about the kidnapping. Well.. let's just hope other people won't act like that, because everyone would kill themselves because of some reason they find morally unacceptable. The deaf boy doesn't help the girl at all, because "he thought the water was deep". The pair does not hide after the girl's death and they even send some message and photos to the radio (which, of course, Mr. Vengeance has to accidentally hear). Everyone find everyone in this movie, just like that, like the addresses of the people they look for are written in a phone book. A pathologist performs an autopsy of a girl before the eyes of his father.. what? And later he's even present during an autopsy of a girl who's completely strange to him, is this a joke? The father (I suppose he's the "Mr. Vengeance") kills the waiter who comes to deliver the food for no reason. The police doesn't arrest that guy the moment he kills the deaf boy's girlfriend.. they seem not to know who did this at all.But the moral part of the movie is the worst. It glorifies (well.. maybe that's an overstatement, but it surely doesn't disapprove it in any way) self-appointed vengeance. It suggests that death of two people (well.. three) by torture is the right way to answer for a kidnapping and a negligent homicide. The guy exploits his workers if a factory, where they have breaks lasting 10 seconds. He does not pay them enough to make a living. He has no empathy for a worker who begs him to help and later for his whole dead family too. But he still says "he thinks he's always lived uprightly" and morally justifies what he does throughout the movie. This is just a sick, radical-Muslim-alike thinking.I've watched this movie, because I thought that this director has done other movies which would be as good as Oldboy, or at least at the level of Stoker. But in this case I was wrong. I'm not some king of drastic scenes opponent, but it seems to me like this movie has just nothing more to offer and that makes it trashy.No.. I have no sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Both as a character and as a movie. It's been one of the worst movies I've seen lately.

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Robyn Nesbitt (nesfilmreviews)
2002/06/21

"Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" is the first installment in what is one of the bloodiest cinematic trilogies ever embarked upon. A stylish blend of surreal imagery intertwined with pitch-black humor, and stomach-turning violence. As a director, Chan-wook Park possesses a remarkable eye for detail and framing, and he is simply unrivaled in his approach to modern Asian filmmaking. The films intricate plot appears fairly straightforward at first, but slowly, deliberately moves into uncharted waters. A deaf mute named Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun) devises a kidnapping plot to pay for a kidney transplant for his dying sister that spins out of control into a bloody cycle of retribution. Ryu's scheme quickly, hideously backfires, making him one of two Mr. Vengeances in the film, both of whom are murderously intent on returning to a former state of grace that is no longer reachable. "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" relies heavily on its elaborate plot, which, when all else is stripped away, is really only a tale of family and the lengths people will go - of the depths they will fall to - to protect their own. Failing protection, vengeance rules the day and so Park's film descends, with its own stately grace, down the bloodied slope of life into the lowest reaches of humanity. The film is superbly made on all fronts, despite the morality issues and graphic violence. Once it crosses its own internal Rubicon, it becomes downright horrific, never allowing you to wake from a particularly arresting nightmare. Followed by "Oldboy" (2003) and "Lady Vengeance" (2005).

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