There's been a lot of hype surrounding the name Chanwook Park (or Park Chanwook, I guess it's interchangeable) and for good reason. Oldboy and his Three Extremes segment, Cut, were fantastic, intelligent, original films. This is the only other film of his I've been able to get my hands on thus far (he has two others I believe). While Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance wasn't a bad film, it was still somewhat of a disappointment.

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is the story of two men. One is a deaf factory worker trying to raise money for an operation on his dying sister. The other is his boss who lives happily with his daughter. After a failed attempt to sell his organs on the black market, Ryu (the deaf man) kidnaps his boss's daughter in order to get ransom money. The father exchanges the money for his daughter as agreed but then things suddenly take a turn for the worse and both men seek revenge against those they believe have done them wrong.

It would be a mistake to call Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance hollow as it has a lot of substance but the film is still rather static. Park's distinct visual style that made Oldboy and Three Extremes so entertaining is severely downplayed here. It lacks the innovative and somewhat off-the-wall cinematography and elaborate imagery of the latter films. Park's quirky sense of humor is dificient here as well. Even the revenge theme doesn't come into play until the end.

The film seems to be too concerned with what's going on behind the scenes to engage the viewer. There are many scenes without dialogue and just as many scenes in which the central actions are the character's facial expressions and body languange. All of which are very slow and the heavy themes throughout make them even more tedious to watch. There is some violence near the end but these scenes are brief and aren't intended to be exciting or even shocking. The final scene is very heavy and is likely to leave one not only disappointed but generally not feeling very good.

All in all, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance isn't a bad film but not a good one either. It seems to be to caught up in conveying a message to engage the audience in order to make them pay attention. A little more action and less static could've easily made this a great film without compromising the director's goal.

Very good movie, the movie saddens me a lot, for both parties (Ryu and the boss) losing their precious things. The revenge of Ryu was nice and hard. The movie is sometimes difficult to predict because they don't talk much and they feature many characters and I'm sorry to say this but some lookalike so they're hard to tell appart, that doesn't ruin the movie at all but it's irritating.

I read an interview with Park Chanwook today in which he said the ending of Oldboy was a little more hopeful while Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is much more a straightforward tragedy. After reading this and looking back on the film, I realize it fits this description perfectly and therefore is actually very well done for what it's supposed to be. I still say the film is pretty static but I think I need to see it again in light of this new perspective.

I purchased a 2 disc Asian release of this film about a month ago (I had Lady Vengeance and Oldboy for a long while and could never find this one) it is as good if not better than Lady and almost on the same level as Oldboy.

I still hold my position on The Host being the best Korean film.

A nice fact for those who care Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance and The Host all have Kang-ho Song in them. If I'm not mistaken he's the main character and the girls father in The Host and in Mr Vengeance he's the father of the kidnapped girl.

Korea is one place that makes really good films for the fans of good entertainment.

Legend of Evil Lake and Attack The Gas Station are other Korean films to look out for. One is Korea's answer to Crouching Tiger and the other is like Clerks in a gas station.

The reason I really enjoyed Mr. Vengeance more so than Lady Vengeance is because it has more heart. The "vengeance" in Lady Vengeance was unavoidable for the villain but in Mr. Vengeance you got the feeling that anything could happen and usually did happen.

The biggest problem I had with Mr. Vengeance is that we started out the film rooting for the deaf guy. I understood his plight and he was very sympathetic. When he kidnapped the girl, I was a tad concerned, but it was all going fairly well. When his sister bit it, I could still follow the Sympathy of the title because they wasted their time with the kid for nothing. I thought their treatment of dear old dad was too much, and then the idiotic death of the kid derailed the film for me. Let's see...cross the bridge or swim across? A) dumb kid. B) I have lost all sympathy for the deaf idiot. Now I'm rooting for the dad to wipe this deaf moron off the face of the planet. I didn't care whether deaf guy gave the organ thieves their comuppance or not.

I was on board until the kid died. After that, half the movie lost its meaning.

As for the others, Oldboy was awesome. Loved the twist, though it was a bit predicatable if you know what good writing should look like. Lady Vengeance was a little weird, but not a total lost cause like Mr. Vengeance was. At least it stayed focused on the main character's vengeance.