VENGEANCE

I am angry and with that comes vengeance. So now I delve into issues of deep planning and extreme action. The art of Vengeance. Who better to go to than our spiteful Korean friends and especially the master of vengeance himself Chan Wook Park . The end of the trilogy has arrived with the film Lady Vengeance General release has already happenned for this film in the United Kingdom and is expected to occur here sometime in May. Above are some of the posters up for contest selection in the next release. If you want to have your say on advertising you can join on the myspace Lady Vengeance Event page.

It all started off with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Many people in Korea felt the film was too physical but Director Park's feeling was that it wasn't violent at all, it took the simple revenge plotline and made it raw/personal. And beyond that he does an excellent job of taking what could be a simple gore scene and complicate your emotions by making you uncomfortable. A good example of this is he takes a scene of a girl screaming in agony while the protagonist, who is deaf, is eating in the kitchen with a satisfied expression. The whole film is filled irony and complication of average people in extreme situations. The second film to pop out was of course Oldboy. Oldboy takes a different tangent, where Mr. Vengeance was raw emotional inexperienced match between average people, Oldboy is planned saturated revenge between to intellectuals. I loved how it pushed the edge, watching it for the 2nd time this week made me appreciate the use of color and camera shot more. If anyone in the lodge would like I own both of them and they are available for rent $5 a day to lodge members. I wonder how the American Oldboy Remake will go?

Lady Vengeance is reported to be taking a different thematic. With Director Park tiring of the gruesome darkness he's decided to used a female protagonist Lee Young Ae. I'm especially happy with her casting in this movie because in Korean media she's touted as "the good girl". I watched one of her soap operas where she was an Imperial Dynasty female doctor, so most of the time she was always piping about how she wanted to care and save people. Now she finally gets to let it rip and destroy Korean society's ideas about her. Good for her. The synopsis is basically she was sent to jail for a crime she didn't commit, while the real perpetrator got off free, and she spent years among hardened criminals. But the theme of the movie is really compassion, there is a lot of Christian symbology in the film, and her angst between the image as a kind woman and her rage at betrayal and imprisonment. I feel its a good rotation and development. It should be visually even more stunning than Oldboy, I hope Director Park doesn't overtake my respect visually for Wong Kar Wai's films. Although it looks so good it very well could happen. Lee Young Ae did end up winning Best Actress Award at Korea's Blue Dragon Film Awards, which I guess is like really cool. Not as cool as winning at the Cannes film festival which both Wong and Park have done. It should be an excellent film and give me a lot of ideas on how to use duct tape, needles, and vinegar. I can't wait until May. One thing i know about mean girls is they play dirty.