Lady Vengeance (2005) Chinjeolhan geumjassi (original title)

Director:

Chan-wook Park

Writers:

Chan-wook Park
Seo-Gyeong Jeong

Release Date:

29 July 2005 (South Korea)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

All she wanted was a peaceful life...they didn't give it

Plot:

After thirteen and half years in prison for kidnapping and murdering the boy Park Won-mo, Geum-ja Lee is released and tries to fix her life...

Plot Keywords:

Boy | Revenge | Teacher | Murder | Vengeance

Awards:

10 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Yeong-ae Lee	...	Geum-ja Lee
Min-sik Choi	...	Mr. Baek
Shi-hoo Kim	...	Geun-shik
Yea-young Kwon	...	Jenny
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tony Barry	...	StepFather, Australian
Anne Cordiner	...	StepMother, Australian
Su-hee Go	...	Ma-nyeo
Hye-jeong Kang	...	Tv announcer
Bu-seon Kim	...	So-young Woo
Byeong-ok Kim	...	Preacher
Dae-yeon Lee	...	Prison head
Seung-Shin Lee	...	Yi-jeong Park
Su-gyeong Lim	...	A prison officer
Il-woo Nam	...	Detective Choi
Dal-su Oh	...	Mr. Chang
Kwang-rok Oh	...	Se-hyun's Father
Mi-ran Ra	...	Oh, Su-hee
Seung-wan Ryoo	...	A passerby
Yeong-ju Seo	...	Kim, Yang-hee
Ha-kyun Shin	...	A hired assassin 2
Kang-ho Song	...	A hired assassin 1
Ji-tae Yu	...	A grown-up Won-mo
Jin-seo Yun	...	A prisoner

Directed by
Chan-wook Park

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Seo-Gyeong Jeong
Chan-wook Park

Produced by
Young-wuk Cho	....	producer
J.J. Harris	....	producer
Beth Kono	....	producer
Chun-yeong Lee	....	producer
June Lee	....	associate producer
Miky Lee	....	executive producer
Tae-hun Lee	....	producer

Original Music by
Seung-hyun Choi

Cinematography by
Chung-hoon Chung

Film Editing by
Jae-beom Kim
Sang-beom Kim

Casting by
Ju-yeol Lee

Production Design by
Hwa-seong Jo

Art Direction by
Hyeon-Seok Choi
Ji-hyeong Han
Synderella Peng

Set Decoration by
In-ho Oh

Costume Design by
Sang-gyeong Jo

Makeup Department
Hee Eun Lee	....	special makeup effects artist
Jong-hee Song	....	makeup department head

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Min-woo Seok	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Chang-seop Kim	....	sound
Seok-weon Kim	....	sound
Seung-cheol Lee	....	sound

Special Effects by
Gwang-su Kim	....	special effects
Tae-eui Kim	....	special effects
Yeong-il Yu	....	special effects

Visual Effects by
Jeon-hyeong Lee	....	visual effects supervisor
Ju-won Lee	....	digital compositor
Il Hwan Na	....	visual effects artist

Editorial Department
Soojin Chung	....	production editor

Music Department
Yeong-wook Jo	....	music director

Other crew
June Lee	....	title producer
Synderella Peng	....	title designer
Ryan Robertson	....	main title producer
Garson Yu	....	title designer
Roland Yu	....	title designer

Production Companies

• CJ Capital Investment
• Centurion Investment
• Ilshin Capital Investments
• Korea Capital Investment
• Moho Films
• Samsung Venture Capital
• TSJ Entertainment

Distributors

• 3L Filmverleih (2007) (Austria) (theatrical)
• 3L Filmverleih (2007) (Germany) (theatrical)
• A-Film Distribution (2006) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• ArtCam (2006) (Czech Republic) (theatrical)
• CJ Entertainment (2005) (South Korea) (theatrical)
• Festive Films (2005) (Singapore) (theatrical)
• Metropolitan Filmexport (2005) (France) (theatrical)
• Odeon Films (2006) (Canada) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Shaw Organisation (2005) (Singapore) (theatrical)
• Shaw Renters (2005) (Singapore) (theatrical)
• Tarantula Films (2005) (Mexico) (theatrical)
• Tartan Films (2005) (UK) (theatrical)
• Tartan (2006) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Deepjoy Picture (2006) (Taiwan) (DVD)
• Front Row Filmed Entertainment (2006) (United Arab Emirates) (all media) (Middle East)
• Future Film (2006) (Finland) (DVD)
• Madman Entertainment (2006) (Australia) (DVD)
• Palisades Tartan (2009) (UK) (all media)
• Palisades Tartan (2005) (USA) (all media)
• Palisades Tartan (2009) (USA) (DVD)
• Platina Filmes (2008) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Tartan Video USA (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• Tartan Video (2006) (UK) (DVD)
• Vertice Cine (2010) (Spain) (all media)
• e-m-s new media (2007) (Germany) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Eon Digital Films

Other Companies

• Bluecap  sound
• HFR  dailies
• HFR  digital cinema
• HFR  digital intermediate
• yU+Co.  titles

Also Known As:

"Chinjeolhan geumjassi" - South Korea (original title)
"Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" - International (English title) (imdb display title), UK (DVD box title)
"My Lady Vengeance" - Hong Kong (English title) (DVD box title)
"Shed Tears for Lady Vengeance" - Philippines (English title) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violent content - some involving children, and some sexuality

Runtime:

112 min | Argentina:112 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean | English | Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Hong Kong:III | Singapore:R21 | Japan:R-15 | Denmark:15 | Germany:16 | Ireland:18 | UK:18 | USA:R | Argentina:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Sweden:15 | Finland:K-18 | Australia:MA | Singapore:M18 (edited version) | Italy:VM14 | France:-16 | Brazil:18 | Mexico:C | Portugal:M/18 | Canada:16+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A (Alberta/Manitoba/Ontario)

Company:

CJ Capital Investment

Trivia:

Having wanted to make a film on a middle aged woman's revenge, the director originally considered casting Du-shim Ko for the part of Geum-ja. However, he had to abandon his plan for a couple of reasons. He found that Ms. Ko was rather old for the character and was afraid that the movie would look quite similar to John Cassavetes' Gloria (1980).

Quotes:

Geum-ja Lee:Listen carefully. Everyone make mistakes. But if you committed a sin, you have to make an atonement for that sin. Atonement, do you know what that means? Big Atonement for big sins. Small Atonement for small sins.

Movie Connections:

References M (1931)

Soundtrack:

Mareta no'm faces plorar

Brilliant ending for the revenge trilogy

There I was, in Sitges' film festival, in Barcelona, where one year ago Chan-Wook Park had won his prize for the great masterpiece Old Boy. This time he was presenting his last movie "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" to end the revenge trilogy.Everyone was waiting for the movie to start, all Park's fans and the lady at the festival announced the director's arrival. There he came in, the Korean director with the translator, trying to explain the meaning of his surname in Korean, and talking about loads of stuff - except the movie. Finally he thanked people for making his movie Old Boy "win a lot of money". I think is this personality that makes Park's movies so special. Just like this last one, its a beautiful bizarre movie, like its creator. The audience was already amazed with the starting credits of unusual beauty that just took the breath away from all audience and guarantied that the movie was going to be something different. Truth is that the movie is different, at least more different than his early Old Boy. This time he had created a movie where the story didn't count as much, but maybe the visual side of it, images that contain so much beauty that just makes the movie already worthy of seeing. The story is also really good, charged with all sort of surrealism and irony that makes it extremely interesting. Also, this time the director had treated vengeance with another style, more beautifully and also comprehensive, accomplishing that the audience can identify themselves with the main character, Geumja. When it was ended, the movie received a warmly applause from an audience, including myself, that hadn't been disappointed and that thought the director had done a great and bizarre job to end his trilogy.