Boksuneun naui geot
Tags: comedy, dark, neo noir, murder, psychological, violence, absurd, revenge

Plot synopsis:
Ryu is a deaf-mute man working in a factory. His ailing sister is in desperate need of a kidney transplant, but Ryu's is not a match. After he is laid off from his job, Ryu takes his severance money and contacts a black market organ dealer to exchange one of his kidneys for one that his sister can use. The dealers disappear after taking Ryu's kidney and money. Three weeks later, Ryu learns from his doctor that a donor has been found, but he is unable to afford the operation.
To raise money for the operation, Yeong-mi, Ryu's radical anarchist girlfriend, suggests kidnapping the daughter of an executive that fired Ryu. They kidnap Yu-sun, the young daughter of Dong-jin. The girl stays with Ryu's sister, who believes Ryu is merely babysitting her. Ryu and Yeong-mi successfully collect the ransom from Dong-jin. However, Ryu's sister discovers the plan and commits suicide to stop being a burden to him.
Ryu takes Yu-sun and his sister's body to a suburban riverbed they used to frequent as children, and begins to bury her. Distracted by the burial and unable to hear, Ryu is unaware when Yu-sun slips into the river, and she drowns.
As Dong-jin mourns his daughter, he hires an investigator to find her kidnappers. Dong-jin finds Yeong-mi and tortures her. She apologizes for Yu-sun's death, but warns Dong-jin that her friends (a terrorist group) will kill him if she dies. Unfazed by the threats, Dong-jin electrocutes her. Meanwhile, Ryu locates and murders the organ dealers. He returns to Yeong-mi's apartment and sees the police removing her corpse.
Ryu and Dong-jin wait at each other's residence in an attempt to kill the other. Ryu, the first to return home, is knocked unconscious by a booby trap created by Dong-jin. He then takes Ryu to the riverbed where his daughter died, slashes his Achilles tendons and waits for Ryu to bleed to death.
After dismembering Ryu's corpse, Dong-jin begins digging a hole, when a group of men arrive. After surrounding and stabbing Dong-jin, one man pins a note to his chest with a knife. The note reveals them to be Yeong-mi's friends. The group leave Dong-jin dying next to the bloody tools and bags containing Ryu's body parts.

Review: You'll wince a great deal during this movie, that's for damn sure.Park Chan-wook directs with such beautifully composed images that are far from the the garish MTV-style action/thriller movies produced in Hollywood these days.
I know absolutely NOTHING about Chan-wook Park, but after watching 'Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance' I would put him straight at the top of my most promising new directors list.
When one acts out of vengeance one seeks only to hurt, and when people start hurting each other because they're hurt themselves, everybody ends up hurting and nobody really gains anything.I think that's the main message Park Chan-Wook wants us to take away from SYMPATHY FOR MR.
I can't think of any other film that's quite like it, though at times I likened the experience to that of watching certain Takashi Miike movies.
Actually, Kim Ki-Duk's movies are probably the closest point of reference, though Park Chan-Wook's film is smarter.SYMPATHY FOR MR.
I loved everything about it, the acting, the story, again I had no Idea where it was going, I say again because I have mentioned this point in previous reviews, Asian films kick ass because they don't pander to focus groups or near sighted Hollywood suits, they take you places you either have no Idea where your going or take you places where you may feel the need to turn back but can't.The relationships in this film are so pure, so real and beautiful, especially between the little girl and her captures.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is, simply put, the best film I have seen all year.Chan-wook Park's mastery of cinematic language is stunning.
Hence, Chan Wook-Park being able to bring truly personal movies, that he has control over 100% to out big screens, with out any producer BS, proving that film makers CAN make what they want, if they have the courage and heart!This movie will never be liked by many, as many may find it deceiving, how such a pretty looking movie can turn out to be so brutal and attack there moral sense, but hey, if they don't want to be challenged they can stay home and watch the far more violent "Bad Boys 2"...Roll one Sympathy for Mrs. Vengance...
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.
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..
This moral ambiguity prevents us from any simplistic moralising, and as we watch good people doing bad things we really have to question the meaning behind the title 'Sympathy For Mr Vengeance'.
After seeing the movie such questions were prominent in my mind, and I think that a film that sticks with you like this cannot be regarded as an average attempt.There was an amount of violence in the film, but I did not find it as shocking as I had expected, and I have seen far worse.
Instead the violence built on the already prominent themes, making me wince at times but also aiding me in coming to terms with what the film was trying to say.Overall this movie is a great study of revenge and its effects on the soul.
However, a tragedy happens, generating revenge and a series of acts of violence."Boksuneun Naui Geot" is the first movie of the Chan-wook Park's vengeance trilogy and also excellent.
I also enjoyed Chan-Wook Park's OLDBOY - but SYMPATHY is definitely the better film.
Coming to Sympathy for Mr Vengeance after watching Park Chan-Wook's later, better known films like OLDBOY, I'm once again blown away by his sheer ability as a director.
The movie is touching and extreme in every meaning of the expression.I really liked the second part named "Oldboy" of the trilogy that begins with this movie and ends ultimately with "Lady Vengeance" though all the three movies can be seen as single films as they show us three different casts and story lines that are only bound by the vengeance topic but I must admit that I prefer this first part to the shocking, calm and intriguing "Oldboy" because this movie has maybe a little bit less atmosphere but is really surprising the whole time long and something completely new for an entire genre by connecting the drama and thriller universe truly together for the very first time.
It's a bit surprising for me that not only the same filmmaker behind the intense and impactive thriller Oldboy made Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (claimed to be the first in the director's loose vengeance trilogy, with 'Lady Vengeance' ending it), but that this was the film made right before it.
In a way I'm reminded of something Tarantino once said in an interview, talking about how a member of an audience for the most part while watching a film has a kind of umbilical chord to what's going on with the story and the characters.
But even in a film like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeage, where director Chan-Wook Park has a cinematographer like Byeong-il Kim making such amazing images, if the story and characters disconnect at some point, it becomes a bore.
Which is a shame considering its not like this throughout the whole film; the first half hour had a set-up that wasn't too confusing, with an entertaining bit or two, but...then there's a point where the main story takes its turn, and it never recovers.
I confess I found so many things I like in Chan-wook Park's directive style after watching Oldboy 6 months ago, a later film than Mr. Vengeance.
As part of his Vengeance trilogy, of course it has a lot of tie-ins with Oldboy (and I'm assuming Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, which I haven't seen yet), but as it's own work I love it's overall unredeeming outlook on vengeance.Vigilantism is one of those little things I'm personally interested in, and this movie works as something like a family blood feud without the family.
Dong-jin sets out to hunt them down and take revenge, while Ryu plans the same on those he blames for his sister's suicide.I didn't know really what to expect from this film but I had heard some good things about it and had been one of many UK cinema goers who had enjoyed the majority of Korean hits that Tartan Cinema had brought to the UK over the course of 2003.
Despite me being at fault for that at other times, here I found it hard to take much from this film and it really made it hard work to watch, far less enjoy!The lack of characters was a big problem as I know it would have been better if I could have cared.
The `horror' that everyone talks about is not really there - it has the odd moment of gore but a) it isn't actually that gory and b) without the emotional involvement with the characters, I was never going to be totally affected by what happen to them.Overall, I watched this film with a blank sheet and have to report that I didn't take a great deal from it.
I have not watched one Korean film that has disappointed me, and director Chan-wook Park gives us one here that is fantastic.
In a different light, his girlfriend gets tortured and killed, but gets revenge also as part of a great ending where another gets his revenge and then his punishment.A lot of revenge here in a movie that may be hard for some to watch, but Asian films tend to go places where others do not dare, and we get a realistic slice of life that is glossed over with Hollywood's current preoccupation with flatulence jokes and juvenile humor.You might guess that I will be looking for more of Chan-wook Park's work..
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Park Chan Wook's first movie in his Vengeance trilogy, is a brutal tale of love, death and revenge.
Unlike Anything You Will Ever See. As a huge fan of Chan-wook Park's most widely acclaimed film Oldboy, I can tell you that nothing, NOTHING can prepare you for Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
As dark, powerful, and mesmerizing as Oldboy is, this film is on such a different level of tragedy and pure human drama that is absolutely unshakable.I cannot reveal the plot, because watching the story unfold is something unbelievable.
Telling the story of a deaf mute searching for a kidney for his dying sister, 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance' is an entirely new experience in the revenge department.
This is something I have never seen before but it works really well as you soon start sympathising with all the characters involved.It's a film that doesn't want to glamorise revenge or violence and believe me, it doesn't.
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, although completely different, and a good film in it's own right, is often left in the shadow of it's more successful counterparts.It's not a perfect film, at times it feels like a four hour film has been edited in half and your watching it in parts, the poor subtitles don't help, and certainly doesn't do the script any justice.But what this film does hold is everything we have come to expect from these sort of films, an unknown direction, confusion, clever plot twists, and random comedy thrown in.
As you would expect from Chan-wook Park this is a strange film.The film starts of with quite a bit of humour, some of it very dark, and with odd slapstick as we see the protagonist as not being exactly bright.Unlike his later film which kept the humour even as the plot progressed and became darker in this one the humour vanishes once things start to go wrong.The acting is excellent, Ha-kyun Shin and Kang-ho Song are superb particularly as things become more and more emotionally charged.The violence is well timed and with one exception not very gruesome.The plot does jump at times, skipping events and showing you the outcome, and that leaves you a bit disconcerted until you realise what must have happened, I found that a little annoying as it does leave you playing catch-up a couple of times.The film gives you no clear villain or hero, you can fell sympathy for everyone involved and understand their motives.The pace is good, and there are several twists and surprises towards the end.It's better than Lady Vengeance but not as good as Oldboy or Thirst..
Within the basic story there's exposition of some big subjects: the impossibility of true justice, the fact that what human rights you have mostly depend on where you happen to be born, and the sad truth that many of us value money more than human life.As I said I like that Chan-wook applies a twisted touch to the story, but I also think that he goes a little overboard with these elements.
I think the film would've felt more cohesive & convincing if the slightly twisted & the more somber parts had been more evenly dispersed throughout the story.But all in all, Chan-wook Park still manage to tell an original & difficult story in a way that is much more impressive than depressive.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance tries hard to be the be-all-end-all vengeance film by taking the plot to a point where every character wants to kill someone.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance never once stoops to clichés like those, but makes you care for characters by their actual, you know, character.All I can say about my final opinion is it was a great movie, but it played it way too safe.
Shot cleverly and with intent to brutally hammer home his point, Park Chan Wook tells the tale of an ever increasing series of revenge that like all good tragedies makes its point.Baffling is the attitude of those that criticise one of the bravest films of the modern age.
Sympathy is not a gore-fest, I recall two, three scenes at most which could be described as squeamish, yet this begs the question, 'and your problem is?' As with all things in cinema justification is paramount, and Park Chan Wook is an intelligent director who does not deal in spoon-feeding audiences reasoning, he provides the viewer with enough information to formulate ones own conclusions.
Park Chan Wook is a craftsman and the little moments where Ryu is not wearing any protective ear wear in the factory, or the moments where the screen cuts to a translation of what was saying in the style of a 1920s silent movie are hard hitting and emotive.
Perhaps I'd put it a shade behind "Lady Vengeance" in terms of quality, but head and shoulders above "Oldboy." I continue to look forward to seeing Park's development as a film director over the coming years..
Some skillful scenes of murder action emerges without shying away of showing the violence within the human condition, yet avoiding the trap of glorifying the torturing acts, where Director Chan-wook Park shows taste and respect for the audiovisual art form of motion pictures, which already peaked with his international breakthrough picture "Oldboy" (2003) the year after.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC).
I'm afraid that very few of my hip and flowery fellow reviewers would fall in line and agree with my assessment of 'Sympathy For Mr Vengeance', but I just don't feel right about this film...Yeah, Park is so courageous to bring such brutal frankness in such beautiful and inspirational film work, with such talented directorial technique, that he just must be a genius.But this is my review and assessment, and if my art-house loving colleagues don't agree, then I certainly support their right to disagree with me along with their right to view this kind of work the way they want.This is a film about average-Joe working-class Korean citizens running around carving each other up and spilling enough blood to make 'Goodfellas' look like a nursery rhyme.
The first chapter of the Vengeance trilogy is a very stylistically filmed and layered movie with themes of revenge, loss, betrayal & guilt very nicely captured on camera by director Chan Wook Park.
The performance and the way of filming put us within the scene.The sequence of events brings a revenge full of violence, blood and pain.And it happens to ordinary people, different from other films about revenge.Almost every one loses in this movie, except those who attended..
46 years-old South Korean director Chan-wook Park decided, back in 2002, to film three separated pictures that shared the same themes: violence, salvation, and mainly, revenge.
But the first movie of Park's trilogy, 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance' comes real close to be as good as 'Oldboy', but being much better than 'Sympathy for lady Vengeance'.'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance' follows the story of Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin).
An overall great cast, that works nice as an ensemble.If you've watched 'Oldboy' or any other Chan-wook Park flick, and then stumble across this movie, you're definitely gonna realize that 'Oldboy' and 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance' are from the same director.
The movie has all elements that a Chan-wook park movie needs and served sort like of a preparation for 'Oldboy', widely regarded as to be the best of the trilogy.
Chan-wook Park delivers another stunning piece of cinematography.Sympathy for Mr Vengeance follows the story of Park-Dong jin, played brilliantly by Kang-Ho Song, whose daughter is kidnapped with terrible consequences.Once again, following in the trait of Mr Park's style, this film has twists and turns galore, a fair old helping of violence, stunning acting from everyone and a simply amazing story-line.You will be immersed, hooked, shocked, saddened and completely blown away.And the result will leave you breathless and in admiration of the genius that is Chan-wook Park..
Of course, right after watching the trailers accompanying the DVD, I became interested in the first part of Park Chan-wook's "revenge trilogy", that being Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
Chan-wook's dwindling shots work in this instance, but on the whole, really only make for the film to be and feel longer than it has to be.Shin is excellent as the tormented and naive Ryu. He nails this character down perfectly, and is excellent in every scene he shows up in.
Chan-Wook Park's sensational 'vengeance' trilogy has been a refreshing piece of viewing, Oldboy was a film I had to grab my friends and say "watch this it's amazing".
Chan-wook Park is one of my favorite Korean directors and this is my second favorite in his vengeance trilogy.
The first installment of director Chan-Wook Park's eventual "Vengeance Trilogy", Boksuneun naui Geot brought attention to his work, allowing for the greater audiences both national and international who came to see its successors.Deaf and dumb, Ryu has given up his education to earn money for a kidney transplant desperately needed by his sister, his own blood type not a match.
After watching Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, JSA, Thirst and Oldboy numerous times I was a little skeptical about this movie.
In the end, does everyone get their revenge?Chan-wook would have you believe so, but he's more interested in generating sympathy for each character, as everyone is a victim in their own way, even the criminals (hence the title Sympathy For Mr.Vengeance).