Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

A recently laid off factory worker kidnaps his former boss' friend's daughter, hoping to use the ransom money to pay for his sister's kidney transplant.

Director:

Chan-wook Park

Writers:

Jae-sun Lee, Jong-yong Lee

Stars:

Kang-ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Doona Bae

7 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Kang-ho Song	...	Dong-jin Park
Ha-kyun Shin	...	Ryu
Doona Bae	...	Yeong-mi Cha
Ji-Eun Lim	...	Ryu's Sister
Bo-bae Han	...	Yu-sun
Se-dong Kim	...	Chief of Staff
Dae-yeon Lee	...	Choe
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Masashi Fujimoto	...	Peng
Ju-bong Gi
Gyu-su Jeong
Jae-yeong Jeong	...	Husband of Dong-jin's ex-wife's
Kan-hie Lee	...	Dong-jin Park's ex-wife
Kwang-rok Oh	...	Anarchist
Jae-woong Park
Seung-bum Ryoo	...	Retarded Boy at River (as Seung-beom Ryu)

Storyline

In Seoul, Ryu, a deaf worker has a sister who needs a kidney transplant. He tries to donate his own kidney to his sister, but his blood type is not compatible with hers. When Ryu is fired from Ilshin Electronics, he meets illegal dealers of organs, and the criminals propose that he give them his kidney plus ten millions Won to obtain a kidney suitable for his sister. Ryu accepts the trade, but he does not have money to pay for the surgery. His anarchist revolutionary girlfriend Cha Young-mi convinces him to kidnap Yossun, the daughter of his former employer Park, who owns Ilshin Electronics. However, a tragedy happens, generating revenge and a series of acts of violence.

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Plot Keywords:

sign language | three act structure | dead woman in a bathtub | four word title | make love | 

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Taglines:

Revenge Was Never This Sweet

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong gruesome violence, strong sexuality, language and drug use

Details

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean Korean Sign Language

Release Date:

29 March 2002 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Filming Locations:

South Korea

Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$9,827, 21 August 2005, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$45,289, 16 February 2006

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$1,954,937, 25 March 2007

Company Credits

Production Co:

CJ Entertainment, Discovery Venture Capital, KTB Network

Technical Specs

Runtime:

129 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In January 2010, Warner Bros. acquired the right for an American remake of the film.

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Goofs

During the scene where engineer Peng slashes his stomach four times, notice his strokes. He makes a semi-short stroke, then two strokes that are similar in length, and then a very long stroke on the bottom. All of these strokes are relatively straight; although, when you see the close-up of his gashes bleeding, you see that the first stroke is very short and angled down, and the bottom stroke is much shorter than the middle two, even though it should obviously be longer.

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Quotes

Park Dong-jin: I know you're a good guy... but you know why I have to kill you...

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Crazy Credits

The title card of the film is shown in both Korean and English.

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Connections

Featured in Widaehan yusan (2003)

User Reviews

Revenge is a dish best served by Chan-wook Park

What an erratic and interesting ride it has been for violence infested movies throughout the long decades of cinematic experiments so far. Whether it was combinations of drama, horror, even comedy or the fusion of all three simultaneously, their results rarely attained much impact aside from delivering pure shock value and strong cult followings. Nevertheless, such unfortunate stereotypes didn't prevent me from seeking out films that most people proclaimed to be "hard to stomach". Better luck next time; Funny Games, Fingered and countless cannibal themed films from Italy, respectively of course.

I often come upon films that try very hard to make me look away from the screen and try even harder to make me empathize with the characters who are delivering and or receiving the poorly climaxed torment. Such cinematic pretentiousness finds no place in my mind and gets discarded as soon as processed.

And then came Mr. Vengeance. Possibly to aid the ever growing genre of dramatically pragmatic films, bravely dealing with real life stories in a bold and sometimes unseen fashion.

What made Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance all that much visceral was the fact that there was no pleasant music to tranquilize the painful story and beautify the scenery, nor was there any stylish before-and-after fight facial expressions and catchy lines to make the whole experience seem out of this world and cool. Not that there is anything wrong with using those elements in film. And it needs to be noted how interesting Kang-ho Song is always to watch, whether he's playing an aspiring wrestler, a small town inspector or a father on an avenging rampage. Credible acting is essential in films that have to deal with heavy biases for being mentally hard to digest and visually difficult to appreciate, gladly SFMV had those holes covered with an ease.

The entire flow of the story seemed very effortless and drag free. Both the action and reaction of each character seemed to be traveling at such fast speed that rarely gave you time to over-analyze their motives and directions, which ultimately helped the story to signify the depth and restlessness of each person on a mission to get their revenge.

Audiences are always mercilessly expressing their distraught over revenge flicks for one reason or another, so if you still have any room and temptation left to see a serious and sophisticated side of revenge then I can't recommend a better film, by a better director, to take you on the hybrid journey of pain, retribution and more pain.