John-Locke wrote:I don't want to write a review because I feel I just didn't get it like it was intended, I found things funny that no one else seemed to find funny and didn't find things funny that I thought were extremely dark and disturbing and lots of people were laughing their asses off.
fried samurai wrote:I'm really shitty at reveiwing films and I dont want to spoil anything.I'll say one thing SFLV will probably make my best of 2006 though.
Ribbons wrote:Oh, can someone who saw SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and liked it explain to me what the appeal was? I saw it but I wasn't really taken with it. Didn't really get what all the fuss was about, I guess you could say.
John-Locke wrote:
I just didn't understand why she felt the need to destroy the lives of all the parents who were none the wiser by involving them in her plan, she would have known she was doing the right kinda thing by getting revenge for them but now they all have to live with it too, also why was she getting revenge for herself? She didn't actually lose anyone to death, if she had lost her kid by confessing she didn't murder the kid all the other kids would never have been killed, I thought this was a fascinating concept to explore on her realisation that he had killed many other kids but her guilt after the initial shock seemed to be brushed over, sure her kid was taken away from her which was bad but at least she was still alive and she had her back now, these parents had lost their kids and got shown a video with their kids murders on it, screams and all. Everything in the film up to and including this scene was brilliant, everything after it was good but as I said the laughs from most people in the audience were extremely distracting as I didn't find much of it laugh out loud funny, the Axe was funny but I don't know why Park wanted to interject comedy there, it could been some intensely powerful stuff but all the scenes with the parents after they saw the tapes were just weird, how people could laugh at that stuff I don't know, okay I got that they were all horrible people (like them being concerned about getting their ransom money back) but what was the point in it??? I would of much rather seen how much pain they could have made the fucker suffer, they could have kept him alive for a long time living in constant agony, thats what I honestly thought they were going to do but making comedy out of the fact they are nervous waiting their turn to stab him was just weird and I honestly just didn't get it.
WTF was with the ending with her sticking her face in the cake? was she killing herself or just disrought? confusing as hell I tells ya.
John-Locke wrote:JSA is now my favourite of Parks films, back when I made this poll I had only seen SFMV the one time, I have since watched it again and found it a little too slow to be my favourite but it still has an edgy rawness that I thought Oldboy Lacked.
JSA is about the North/South Korean border and the small groups of soldiers on each side who's job it is to guard a small crossing, a friendship is formed between two groups and tragedy ineviteble happens, it teaches you a lot about the real conflict in a non political way and is beautifully shot.
Check it out.
havocSchultz wrote:John-Locke wrote:JSA is now my favourite of Parks films, back when I made this poll I had only seen SFMV the one time, I have since watched it again and found it a little too slow to be my favourite but it still has an edgy rawness that I thought Oldboy Lacked.
JSA is about the North/South Korean border and the small groups of soldiers on each side who's job it is to guard a small crossing, a friendship is formed between two groups and tragedy ineviteble happens, it teaches you a lot about the real conflict in a non political way and is beautifully shot.
Check it out.
see - now that was better - that i could read...![]()
but thanks - sounds cool - i'll have to grab it one of these weekends...which is pretty much all i do now - every weekend - the girlfriend and i just rent movies... so it's a good life... tonight it is Wallace & Gromit and Cookers (some indie horror/thriller i believe...but i'll let you know)... but i ramble - so i'll get back on topic and say thanks - you saying it's your favorite of the bunch actually does mean alot to me... not as much as that time you pulled your fist out 2 seconds too late - but it still means alot...
John-Locke wrote:
My taste in films is sometimes funny, I've found myself being a sucker for well done emotional shit in the last few years, the themes of Brotherhood and Fellowship etc just kinda had a deep emotional resonanse for me, most people just think it's okay, nothing to sing and dance about but still good, you certainly wont hate it even if you aren't blown away like I was.
Cbabbitt wrote:JSA is okay, Mr. Vengeance is excellent, Oldboy is amazing, and....here's my review of LADY VENGEANCE.
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22169
Didn't care for it. Hated CUT. Just not my taste.
John-Locke wrote:Ribbons wrote:Oh, can someone who saw SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and liked it explain to me what the appeal was? I saw it but I wasn't really taken with it. Didn't really get what all the fuss was about, I guess you could say.
It's just like a darker than dark comedy with a real nasty undertone, people do really fucked up things in the name of revenge but what they do is actually for misguided reasons, no one (Except the organ thiefs) deserves what they get and no one can escape it either, a cruel film thats quite slow and hard to get into at first but with a horrific last act that is one of the biggest cinematic blows I've ever witnessed, it's like looking at a car wreck you don't want to look but you can't help it.
dimnix wrote:okay, I just read John's thoughts on Lady Vengeance...
and I completely disagree. I really, really liked the movie, both the first 2/3s and the final 3rd (which he didnt like). However, the final third of the movie and it's ending was where it all came together for me, the part of the film that really blew me away.
I think everyone will have similar views to John and I, because the film does go through a pretty major tonal shift at the 2/3 mark. The first two thirds seem to be setting up the ending, and then everything it's been setting up pays off... and then everything changes. It all builds to that point and then goes off in a completely different direction once Lady Vengeance makes her discovery.
So it is jarring, to realise you're suddenly watching a completely different story... the fun, quirky revenge plan and jumping around in time that goes on in the first 2/3s is suddenly gone, and replaced by something very serious, very disturbing, and very challenging for the audience.
But I thought it was stunningly courageous film-making, forcing the audience to face up to their own primal instincts of revenge. This revenge wasnt fun (like the build up to it had suggested - a build up that had got the audience excited and curious and looking forward to lady vengeance getting her...well, vengeance). So here we are enjoying it, and chan wook park forces us to think deeper... what would you do in this situation? are the actions of the people justified? is that what we need to 'move on' and 'be white' (a phrase from the film)? And personally... I believe I would do exactly what the characters did in that situation. It's a disturbing thing about humankind, and by presenting it in such a challenging way I felt that chan wook park really finished off his vengeance trilogy in an incredible way.
But as a film, there is that tonal change, which is jarring and hense it's a weird movie to form an opinion of. But I was really enjoying the stuff before the tonal shift and was amazed by the stuff following it, so I'm a big fan of the movie. As for my favourite chan wook park film... I need to see lady vengeance again, I havent seen JSA or 3 Extremes, so I dont know. It's a tossup between oldboy and lady vengeance.
John-Locke wrote:I think I wanted to have the experience you had but I wasn't allowed to for two reasons
1) Too many deutchbags were laughing when I was sitting there trying to keep myself in what I thought was intended darkness and brutality, but he meant it to be funny, the bit with the axe head being screwed on was meant to be funny, why did Park want to do that? Am I missing something? Why wont any of you guys who've seen it address this point?
2) It struck me as a pretty nasty thing to do on her behalf, I thought the parents didn't need to know and certainly didn't need to help in the act (she could have given them closure by telling them), I actually didn't think what they did was brutal enough but then I guess I'm a sick fuck when it come to revenge on kiddy killers, Of course they would partake but she shouldn't have involved them and she seemed to do this to clear her own conscience instead of getting her revenge (as I said if she was truthful about her involvement with the original kidnapping and lost her own daughter their kids would all be alive) and this would also have been interesting to explore. Also why the need to make all the parents such horrible people? Why did he paint the picture that they got over what they did relatively easily? Why did they only care about getting back their ransom money?
Please, if you can spare the time, address my concerns, everyone who's seen the film here seems to be avoiding the points I raise.
dimnix wrote:1) weird that people were laughing... was it maybe nervous laughter, people not quite sure how to react to what they were seeing? The BNAT crowd was pretty much silent, some people even leaving the cinema because of the intensity. As for the bit with the axe - that did cause laughs and it was intended to be funny. I think that was included because Chan Wook Park is a quirky film-maker like that, and because of the intense, drawn out scene... I think it was good to have a bit of comedy, just for that one bit to break the intensity for a moment. I really liked that bit, classic chan wook park.
2) It is a nasty thing, no doubt. Her motives for doing exactly that are a bit sketchy. It's not a clear cut good thing to do. But I think that's the intent. She was shocked by what she saw on the tapes, clearly... and as a woman who is on a revenge quest, somebody who has obsessed over her own personal revenge for years... how would she react when she learns that this man has harmed more people and in far more terrible ways than she had realised? She brings them in on it, allows them to take part in the vengeance. The parents themselves are shocked, confused, angry, torn about what's happened and how they will respond. None of the emotions are clear cut or simple - it is an insane situation and in insane situations people tend to act in strange ways. The motives and reactions and actions of everyone involved seem strange at times, the revenge itself is pretty violent, whether or not it's all justifiable is a question never really answered - it's more posed to the audience. It's a messy sequence, and I think thats exactly as it should be. Complex emotions call for a complex scene.
Cbabbitt wrote:JSA is okay, Mr. Vengeance is excellent, Oldboy is amazing...
fried samurai wrote:I used to have a problem with the tonal changes in Korean cinema.I always thought the filmmaker's didn't understands the conventions of film....I had to stop thinking in Hollywood terms.Mind you I watch tons of foreign cinema but the tonal changes in Korean films always left me a bit baffled.Koreans actually like the blending of genres and demand more challenging scripts.
I only brought this up because I've read on more than one occasion people having problems the tone changes in Korean films.I'm no critic just a film lover but maybe its ok to leave certain plot points unanswered.Why does everything have come together perfectly at the end.Or evolve a particular way because the first half lead you to believe it was going in a certain direction.Its the journey thats important(Lynch anyone?)Personally I like WTF? moments in my films.I applaud Park for doing his own thing and I hope he continues to do so.
Meat Takeshi wrote:What's going on with Jenny, the Aussie couple and the smoke at the end? The smoke wakes her and she goes off to meet her Mom. Is it just the candles going out, or as a guy that came with me suggested and I've subsequently seen on net, were the Aussie couple left to burn by Jenny?
www.kfccinema.com wrote:Park Chan-wook's Upcoming I'm A Cyborg, But That`s Ok, due for an Dec 2006 Release Has finally released an Teaser Trailer.
Set in a mental asylum, it will revolve around a young woman who believes she is a robot, and follow her blossoming romance with a male patient at the hospital. Lim Soo-jung, and Bi(Rain) make up the cast.
Teaser Trailer Links Provided Below.
I'd heard some negative press about this movie but I chalked it up to being a lull in an otherwise stellar filmography. JSA nearly had in me in tears at the end, I loved Mr. Vengeance and what more can I say about Oldboy that hasn't been said already.Pacino86845 wrote:Well I wrote a couple of lines about this in the Movie Journal... I thought I'm a Cyborg, But That's Ok was kinda bland... after JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, I was expecting more from Chan-Wook Park. Overindulgent, and too friggin' slow. A hollow shell, nicely dressed to be sure, but this little oddity didn't do much for me.
Chan-Wook Park's use of straight edges and the pastel color scheme are present here as in his previous films, with more baby colors used to highlight the various characters' innocence and child-like qualities.
In the end it was just too difficult to get into the film... the novelty of an insane asylum in a film has long worn out, but that's all this movie seems to want to do. The love story really isn't engaging, the crazy people are all of the "movie crazy people" variety... everything just comes off as a burlesque freak show.
Normally this wouldn't be a huge problem except the story plods along at a snail's pace, with no sense of drama to back the attempted level of emotion conveyed by the characters.
Chan-Wook Park fans may still find things to enjoy (for me, the aesthetics keep this from being horrible), but I can't recommend it to anyone else.
5/10
Pacino86845 wrote:Well I wrote a couple of lines about this in the Movie Journal... I thought I'm a Cyborg, But That's Ok was kinda bland... after JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, I was expecting more from Chan-Wook Park. Overindulgent, and too friggin' slow. A hollow shell, nicely dressed to be sure, but this little oddity didn't do much for me.
Chan-Wook Park's use of straight edges and the pastel color scheme are present here as in his previous films, with more baby colors used to highlight the various characters' innocence and child-like qualities.
In the end it was just too difficult to get into the film... the novelty of an insane asylum in a film has long worn out, but that's all this movie seems to want to do. The love story really isn't engaging, the crazy people are all of the "movie crazy people" variety... everything just comes off as a burlesque freak show.
Normally this wouldn't be a huge problem except the story plods along at a snail's pace, with no sense of drama to back the attempted level of emotion conveyed by the characters.
Chan-Wook Park fans may still find things to enjoy (for me, the aesthetics keep this from being horrible), but I can't recommend it to anyone else.
5/10
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