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.