Reviews of Lady Vengeance
Displaying all 2 reviews
Mugino
14Nov09
The last in the vengeance trilogy is by far my favorite. Unlike the first two, we see repentance superseding revenge — after so much bleakness and desperation, there is finally hope for redemption and closure.
Young-Ae Lee plays the avenging angel in black, implementing a plot 13 years in the making, wearing as many masks as she needs to in order to assemble the fragments of her plan. Yet in exorcising her demons, she begins to wonder if this revenge was ever hers to take. How she amends her plan to right the wrongs is astonishing. I can’t imagine any American studio having the nerve to let a filmmaker take the story as far as Park Chan-Wook does. He sets his sights on a drastic conclusion and goes for it with full commitment and courage.
”Everyone make mistakes. But if you committed a sin, you have to make an atonement for that sin. Atonement, do you know what that means?” Geum-ja asks. Most Hollywood action/revenge blockbusters sure don’t.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
Scout
4May09
While I love Oldboy and LOVE Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, to arrive at the closing chapter of Chan-Wook Park’s revenge tragedy and find that I could watch the whole thing without squinting with discomfort was a pleasant surprise indeed. Just as stylish and beautiful (if a trifle more frenetic) as the preceding chapters, Lady Vengeance gets points for closing with a decidedly more optimistic outlook than its sister films. Not nearly as violent but twice as charming and off-kilter; with a bunch of cute girls that you can sympathize with getting revenge that never loses its sweetness. Finally a movie where the revenge is both Rube Goldbergian in its complexity and so beautifully satisfying that lets you hang onto your good feelings while bombarding you with gorgeously violent images
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.