Where Vengeance Will Get No Sympathy.

98. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park, 2002)

In 2002 Korean director Chan-Wook Park kicked off his critically acclaimed Vengeance Trilogy with the first installment, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the first of three films to get him international recognition. Though this may be my least favorite of the trilogy I want to establish that it's still a hell of a film. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance begins with a young man, a mute young man, who's sister is in need of an organ transplant. After being swindled and drugged during a failed black market deal to get his sister a transplant illegally he attempts to raise money through a kidnapping which also ends in complications. Two stories of anger, revenge, and torment later conflict in one of the most intense thrillers of the last decade.

One of the most fascinating things about Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the way the audience can react to the two main men in the film. Both of them are going through severely tragic losses and commit terrible acts in retaliation, fueled by rage and their own pain. It's a great example of how Park views violence, wants to examine it, and utilize it in his films as well as how fear, pain, and violence connect the perpetrators with their victims. His films don't glorify violence, but they do show that wanting to commit acts of violence, the desire for revenge from pain or anger due to loss is a very human trait, however the line is crossed when these desires are acted upon because his films display just all too harshly the hurt caused by such acts even if they may elicit momentary alleviation, in the end it can only lead to more destruction and suffering.

Park is one of my favorite emerging directors of the last decade. His films are as bold and full of enough raw emotion and energy to remind me of Martin Scorsese in his early days from the 1970s and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a film from a man showing great promise for things to come, which I would claim is fulfilled with the increasing quality of the second and third films in the Vengeance Trilogy. Another remarkable thing is Park is always able to keep his movies not only fresh with unexpected resolutions, especially when dealing with well known themes, he's able to keep them provocative rather than just shocking. Perhaps this is because he's against passivity in films. This mindset could very well be the reason he's able to go into such territory with his dramas that many filmmakers would be too timid to venture on their own or even dare follow.

10 Films of 2002:

8. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park)
9. Chicago (Rob Marshall)
10. Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay)