NOTE: For some reason, Tartan Video has abbreviated the title of Chan-wook Park's Sympathy For Lady Vengeance and shortened it to simply Lady Vengeance. Personally, and for reasons that remain mysterious, that annoys the Hell out of this reviewer and so the film will be referred to in this review by its proper title just because.

South Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park made a name for himself with J.S.A. and later with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, a hard-edged and emotionally involving tale of revenge. He followed that film with the second in his 'revenge trilogy,' the masterful and very popular Oldboy. A year or so later, he finished the trilogy with the release of Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, a film which shares some of the same basic themes and principals of the two earlier entries but definitely stands on its own as a truly unique and gripping work of cinema. Needless to say, with the international popularity and critical acclaim that was lauded on Oldboy, expectations were high for this film – thankfully, Park delivers.

The movie follows the story of Geum-ja (Young-ae Lee who appeared in Park's J.S.A. as well), a very pretty young woman who has been imprisoned since the age of nineteen for the murder of a young boy. Thirteen years after she was convicted, she's released from jail and back into the general population where she winds up with a job at a small bakery. Before she left prison, however, she made some friends thanks to the fact that she was, with one major exception, very kind to her fellow inmates and would go out of her way to help them when they were down. The exception? Well, there's the small matter of murder, but the victim had a tendency to rape her fellow prisoners anyway, so she kind of had it coming to her.

What we soon learn though is that Geum-ja's kindness was all simply a means to an end for her. It wasn't born out of concern or love for her fellow inmate, it was simply a way to ally herself with a few people on the outside world so that she could put into motion the wheels of her plan for revenge. It seems that Geum-ja wasn't actually responsible for the murder of the boy, it was Mr. Baek (Min-shik Choi of Oldboy), her former high school teacher. At a young age, Geum-ja became pregnant and if she didn't take the fall for Baek, he'd have harmed her daughter – so she had no choice but to do the time for Mr. Baek's crime.

With her daughter less than a year old, she was put up for adoption. Now out of jail, Guem-ja has tracked her down in Australia where she's been raised by a nice, albeit, rather odd, couple who care about her very much. Guem-ja simply wanted to apologize and, in addition to getting her revenge on Baek, she knows she needs to redeem herself in the eyes of her daughter, but it isn't going to be that easy.

And we'll leave it at that.

What's interesting about Sympathy For Lady Vengeance is that it manages to fall squarely in between the cold, calculating revenge of Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and the completely over the top pre-meditated revenge of Oldboy and it works out quite nicely. As a whole, the trilogy stands as a very unique take on one of cinema's oldest and most reliable genres but it takes the formula for the standard revenge movie and dissects it, exploring new ways to deliver that dish best served cold. It's this unique take on what can be done with a rather simple premise and the many layers on which the three stories function that makes the trilogy not so much an exercise in style over substance but an exercise in style and substance. Admittedly, the visuals in all three films and specifically in Sympathy For Lady Vengeance are very flashy and definitely meant to impress but the stories hold their own and completely validate each and every excessive frame.

Through a multitude of minor subplots and interesting flashback sequences, Park fills us in as we go along with just enough information that it all makes sense but still manages to keep us guessing and keep us thinking throughout the duration of the film. It might seem a little confusing at first but if you stick with it and pay attention you're well rewarded for your efforts from about the half way point on, where the reality of Guem-ja's situation becomes more evident and the loose ends start to tie themselves up. When the end credits hit after one of the most memorable closing shots in recent years, you're quite simply left in awe and just how well done the film really is in terms of technique, performances, and narrative.

The cinematography and the way that the scene transitions are handled in the film are both top notch. The movie flows so incredibly well in terms of what you see on the screen that even if nothing happened in the storyline it would still be a completely hypnotic film. To call the look of the film smooth would be an understatement but it really is so fluid that it's hard to come away any less than completely impressed. The contrast, the color scheme, the use of shadow and the little touches like the hues in the costumes and the eye shadow Guem-ja wears all add up to one of the prettiest movies to come out in quite some time.

Young-ae Lee is absolutely fantastic in the lead. While she lacks the ferocious intensity that Choi Min-sik had in Oldboy, the part doesn't need it as the story really is more about the development of the revenge rather than the execution. Not only is she striking in her appearance here, particularly when she wears the red eye shadow, but she's completely believable whether playing the calm but driven woman out for blood or the mother so saddened by what has happened to her relationship with her daughter. She's quite mesmerizing and completely capable of sucking you right into her story. Speaking of Choi Min-sik, he's very good here, this time playing the villain. He makes a very good counterpart to Choi's performance, he's a little more manic and a little more off the wall here. The scene where he's dancing and singing with the children in his classroom demonstrates a serious contrast to what we know he's guilty of and later on, when we see the videotaped evidence of his crimes, the scene delivers quite a heavy blow.

The Fade To Black And White Version: The two disc release that came out in Korea last year featured an alternate version of the film where the color slowly faded to black and white. That version has not been included on this domestic release from Tartan.

Video:

As with the Korean release, the anamorphic 2.35.1 transfer looks very, very nice on this DVD release though there are some differences between the two transfers. Once again, black levels are solid, the colors are very well defined and flesh tones look lifelike and natural. Compression artifacts and edge enhancement are once again almost non-existent (you'll note some artifacts in the darker scenes but that's about it) and there isn't a whole lot to complain about. There's plenty of both foreground and background detail present in the image from start to finish and color reproduction is drop dead gorgeous. There's a tiny hint of aliasing present in a few scenes but other than that there aren't really any digital transfer issues worth noting aside from some very slight edge enhancement here and there. Print damage is pretty much non-existent and while there is some fine film grain in one or two spots, that's okay as it isn't ever once overpowering or distracting in the least. Sympathy For Lady Vengeance looks damn good on this DVD just as it did on its Korean counterpart. So where does it differ? The Tartan disc has slightly brighter colors than the Korean one and the black levels, while decent, aren't quite as strong. The differences are fairly miniscule but they are there. Both discs look really nice and free of any major authoring or digitization issues so it really comes down to personal preference as to which one you'll like better though you might pick up on some saw tooth artifacts on fast movement where the reds are concerned (although the transfer is flagged for progressive scan from the looks of things). Again, it's a small thing, but it's there if you want to look for it.