Lady Vengeance is the third film of Park Chan-Wook’s revenge trilogy (the other two are Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy). The protagonist is Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young Ae) who has just been released from prison after she was sentenced to go there for murdering a little boy. She’s innocent though and has been able to plan her revenge on the real killer (played by Choi Min-Sik). During her prison sentence she made a name for herself and after her release she can use the friends she made there to execute her plan.
Initially the movie tells its story by using quite a lot of flashbacks in which you slowly get to know more about Lee Geum-ja and her time in prison. Although these flashbacks are necessary to create a complete picture of the character I felt that it took a bit too long before the various pieces started to fall into place.
The strongest part of this movie is the payoff towards the end, in which a group of people have to answer a very important ethical question (you’ll have to see it to find out what that question is). As you are watching it you feel that it’s a difficult decision that needs to be made. It results in a short, but interesting, discussion which for a moment reminded me of 12 Angry Men.
The final choice and the way it is executed is shown in a very fascinating way, with people still having doubts or are having trouble with holding back.
Visually the movie was very stylish, with amazing use of color. After Oldboy I was expecting this movie to have the same intensity, but was disappointed as it didn’t deliver that. When you watch it without that expectation though it is a very interesting end of the revenge trilogy. With these movies Park Chang-Wook has proven that he is one of Korea’s best directors.
Score: 7
I see this also stars Min-sik Choi (star of Oldboy). I was a fan of Oldboy and thought it was really cool, if not a little eeewww!!!
Shame this doesnt seem to have the intensity of Oldboy as I had heard good things about it. Hopefully I will one day get round to watching it and I will take your advice and not expect it to be as good as Oldboy.
Totally agree Park Chang-Wook is definately one of Korea’s finest!
He only plays a small role, but the guy really has screen presence and I think he’s an amazing actor.
I think it’s unrealistic to expect something with the same intensity though as a big part of it in Oldboy stems from the way he was treated and the extremes he’s willing to go.
Seen quite a lot of Chang-Wook’s films now and I’m impressed by all of them. Still got a couple of his I need to see.
A bit overlong and yes, not nearly as intense as Oldboy, still a pretty good movie.
It was not bad, but it just didn’t manage to grab a hold of me as strongly as Oldboy.
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