Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

starn

Does anyone know when the third part of Chan-wook Park vengence trilogy is due to hit screens over here.

ObeyGiant

IMDB says its release date is Feb 10th. Initial reviews put it at distinctly average, which is a bit of a shame.

RichyX

All of what I've heard has been positive.
Made most of the top 10 lists I've read on the US internet movie sites.

nickcave

My brother has it. He said he didn't follow it, but I haven't seen it, so I can't comment personally. I'd say it's worth a look anyway.

Necronomicon

Is Sympathy For Lady Vengence the third part? I thought that was out already with Oldboy. What's the other movie?

edit: Ah, Sympathy For LADY Vengence.....you can see how that could be confusing! I still have to see SFMV.

RichyX

SFMV isn't quite as flash as Oldboy, feels quite like a Takeshi Kitano film with the minimalist camera work.
Well worth seeing though.

elvis2002

its not as good as his previous movies I think. Its no compare to Oldboy or Mr. Vengence. I was expecting more I suppose going into to it. When I first saw the directors previous movies, I knew nothing of them and got a real suprise but the brilliance of them but I still feel that this one is just a poor poor movie.

Necronomicon

Is it related story-wise to Sympathy For Mr. Vengence? I haven't had the best of luck finding it, want to know if it's okay to go see the third part. I know Oldboy and SFMV aren't related, but still.

starn

Looks like there gonna start running it in the IFI from this Friday

http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/dispfilm.asp?filmID=4968&Date=2/6/2006&PageID=15

Kennington

Its starting in Cineworld tomorrow just to let people know!

dimerocks

cinemaworld cork had it up on their website a while ago but they have removed it. i went into the kino today in cork and they say they have it for march 10th. which is nice!

halenger

I went to the IFI preview last weekend. I quite enjoyed it personally. Some great humour in it. I've yet to see the first in the series. I haven't seen Oldboy in a long time but I'd imagine it was better. More violent too I think. My memory is fuzzy. Anyway, as I said I liked it. My girlfriend....well she liked it less so. She thought it was a bit sad (boo hoo sad, not "oh my gawd that's SAD"). Worth a look anyway. I can see myself picking it up on DVD.

starn

I'am hoping to catch it later today

ixoy

Quite enjoyable. It's a different take on vegeance than "Oldboy" so its violence is perpetrated differently - although there's still that sadism we all expect...

The elements from "Oldboy" (I haven't seen SFMV) are mostly thematic and in little flourishes, e.g.

settings in snow, daughters who didn't get to know their parent correctly, etc

. I agree with it seeming a bit like a Kitano flick - some of the deliveries, the serene snow shots and minimilalist dialogue from the lead reminded me of "Hana-Bi" - and that's a good recommendation.

Well worth seeing if you aren't expecting "Oldboy 2: Bloodier and Bruter". Oh and be prepared to laugh - some good black humour. And the oddest ending in a while...

Winters

Saw it there last Friday in Cineworld/UGC.

Thought it was an excellent movie. Although still imo not as good as Oldboy, and Its been a few months since I last watched Mr. Vengeance [Have both it and Oldboy on DvD]. What makes a change in this movie is it has a lot of black comedy in it, something almost non existant in Oldboy, however there were some comedy moments in Mr Vengeance.

Its style of shooting and camera work was very like SFMV aswell imo. However of the three Revenge/Vengeance movies Chan-wook Park did Oldboy still stands out in my mind as the best of the three.

Necronomicon

Finally got around to seeing it last night. Good movie, and not so much a disappointment as all the reviews I read prior to seeing it said the same thing; good but not great. Pretty much how I felt.
One part I didn't like was the

fight scene in the alley after she went in to get Baek in his house. The scene was far, far too dark and I found it hard to make anything out.

What I did like was the revenge part

I did finding the videos of the children pretty heavy going, particularly the one where the chair was whipped out from under the little girl, but I liked the whole idea of bringing the parents in to perform the revenge.

Enjoyable film but not the greatest. In my view, the vengeance trilogy ranks:
1) Oldboy
2) Lady Vengeance
3) Mr. Vengeance

Placebo

i got this film on dvd as soon as it was released on dvd, i never watched it as i wanted to see it in the cinema, come feb 17th i never actually got the chance to go and watch it, MISSED IT.
gonna have to watch it on dvd now, like the rest.
Big fan of sympathy for mr vengence and oldboy.
The whole trilogy[the theme no the movie] was on IFI.

Anto and Moe

I thought it was brilliant! It was mental, I haven't seen the others yet though.

pbsuxok1znja4r

I really, really wasn't impressed with this. From the very opening credits I found the stylisation of the film just irritating.
I felt next to no sympathy whatsoever for Lady Vengeance. To me that seems failure on a fundamental level for the film. Didn't do what it said on the tin.
I went through much of the film thinking what a bitch the main character was.
And I don't think they adequately villified Choi Min-Sik's character either.

It showed entirely too much violence toward him, with respect to showing comparatively little violence being commited by him.

I also found much of the prison/inmate scenes rather pointless. Chan-Wook doesn't do the black comedy as well as he seems to think he does.
Also, with regard to all the religious crap scattered throughout, was it supposed to come across as being essentially full of shit? If anything, I sensed a real satirical/sarcastic/ironic anti-religious vibe.
Also, I don't think I needed to see

a fat korean convict rape/recieve fellatio from another un-consenting inmate.

I absolutely loved Oldboy, though. To this day, quite possibly my favourite film. Mr Vengeance is excellent, too. Probably the most mature of the three.

Placebo

so i watched it on dvdm, i must say i wasnt impressed, it is a good film but the fact it doesnt live up to the previous films is bit of a dissapointment, I did enjoy her flash backs but the ending didnt live up to the build up.

Necronomicon

I watched Mr. Vengeance again, I appreciated it more the second time. I'm leaning towards Mr more than Lady again.
I actually preferred Oldboy the second time I watched it, despite knowing that the twist was coming. I'll probably pick up Lady Vengeance when it comes out on dvd, maybe it'll be another that needs to be watched twice.

shatners basoon

Just rented this yesterday and i was pretty damn disappointed, i loved old boy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance even more so but i was just left cold from this, the story just wasn't up to scratch. It seemed to me he was trying to combine the stylish elements of Old Boy with the minamilist ambient atmosphere created in Mr.Vengeance and it didn't work at all, maybe it did just go to his head.

I thought the lead character didn't play her role very well (apparantly shes some famous soap star in Korea and plays a warm mother chef type role which she's famous for i'm sure she wanted to shed that image but it just didn't come off), never get a clear indication of what exactly is driving her towards this vengeance or at least one thats convincingly portrayed. That being said she had little to work with, the script wasn't very good and there was no tense build up like in Old Boy and no sudden explosion like in Mr.Vengeance, it just wasn't paced well at all.

I'd more sympathy for the one in prison performing that service for that other big fat prisoner, no sympathy for the lead, heh i'd even more sympathy for Choi Min-Sik's character (who stole every scene he was in by simply having such great facial expressions). Most the other characters irritated me a little to be honest, not enough development in any of them.

It wasn't an awful film or anything but i was just really disappointed that it came from Park Chan Wook. Hopefully a second viewing will augment my opinions on it.

Necronomicon

shatners basoon wrote:

Just rented this yesterday and i was pretty damn disappointed, i loved old boy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance even more so but i was just left cold from this, the story just wasn't up to scratch. It seemed to me he was trying to combine the stylish elements of Old Boy with the minamilist ambient atmosphere created in Mr.Vengeance and it didn't work at all, maybe it did just go to his head.

I thought the lead character didn't play her role very well (apparantly shes some famous soap star in Korea and plays a warm mother chef type role which she's famous for i'm sure she wanted to shed that image but it just didn't come off), never get a clear indication of what exactly is driving her towards this vengeance or at least one thats convincingly portrayed. That being said she had little to work with, the script wasn't very good and there was no tense build up like in Old Boy and no sudden explosion like in Mr.Vengeance, it just wasn't paced well at all.

I'd more sympathy for the one in prison performing that service for that other big fat prisoner, no sympathy for the lead, heh i'd even more sympathy for Choi Min-Sik's character (who stole every scene he was in by simply having such great facial expressions). Most the other characters irritated me a little to be honest, not enough development in any of them.

It wasn't an awful film or anything but i was just really disappointed that it came from Park Chan Wook. Hopefully a second viewing will augment my opinions on it.

Definately watch it again, it needs to viewed twice imo. I don't know what it is about his films, but they all seem to be better the second time around.

herbieflowers

I found it insipid, not as inspired as Oldboy

koneko

Really liked this. Preferred Oldboy, but it's definitely worth watching.

monkeyfudge

I really enjoyed it too.

I'll have to watch Old Boy again to see which one I prefer though.

Can anyone tell me if that cat that belonged to the daughter was real? It just looked very strange like it was a puppet or something.

Necronomicon

monkeyfudge wrote:

Can anyone tell me if that cat that belonged to the daughter was real? It just looked very strange like it was a puppet or something.

I assume it's real, but the thing that confused the **** out of me was

when her foster parents went to Seuol to visit her and they showed her a video of the cat playing on the video camera and she was crying her eyes out

RichyX

Finally saw Lady Vengeance a couple of weeks back.
Good, but based on one viewing not as good as the others.

I'd agree with the point of Choi Min Sik's character not being developed enough. We saw but a few examples of how sick the man was so I still felt a little sympathy for him in the end.
Park needs to ease off on the transitions. I found some of them quite jarring and pointless as if the director was this trying to show how clever he could be with picture matching.
Many of the scenes with the daughter didn't work for me although they did convey well a sense of how awkward the situation was.

Visually it was still impressive and I enjoyed it overall.

Necronomicon

RichyX wrote:

I'd agree with the point of Choi Min Sik's character not being developed enough. We saw but a few examples of how sick the man was so I still felt a little sympathy for him in the end.

I'd agree that he wasn't developed enough but I'm still gonna give you one of these :eek: for saying you felt a little sympathy for him! Did you miss

the whole incident of him videotaping the death of the kids??

Placebo

they shoulda showed kids being battered tbh for more emotion

Karl Hungus

I'm still not sure what I thought of the film. I'd probably like to watch it again before I really say anything indepth, but so far, I'd say it's the weakest of the 3 films. Oldboy and Mr. Vengeance are both far superior films.

Bixmoo

Definitely worth a watch, but I was a small bit disappointed. The more it dragged on, the less I cared about it and just wanted it to be over. Didn't think the story was all that good. I was expecting a lot going into it though.