I'm shocked this movie is 20 years old because to me, honestly it's as fresh as anything I've seen in the last several years.
Released in 2005, it's a revenge, drama, psychological thriller directed by Chan-wook. You know I really had some very high expectations going into this movie.
Plot;
It is the tale of Lee Geum-ja, a beautiful woman accused of and tried for murdering a five-year-old child. She's sent to prison but is released after 13 years because of her good conduct.
The first part of this movie is her getting out of prison after doing 13 years, consumed by the desire to get revenge on the real killer of the five-year-old boy.
While in prison, everyone called her “Kind-hearted Ms. Geum-ja” a true angel and a model to prisoners everywhere — she showed kindness to other inmates, an act deliberately performed to gain favours and allies. But the truth is, in those 13 years, she was assembling her plan and scheming to serve her cold dish of revenge.
The real murderer was Mr. Baek, her former teacher, a child paedophile and serial killer who threatened Geum-ja years ago. She was then 20 and a single mother. He kidnapped her baby daughter to force her to confess to his crime.
While outside confinement, Geum-ja gathers all her former prison contacts (women who owe her favors) to carry out her revenge plan.
She kidnaps Mr. Baek with the help of an ex-cellmate and imprisons him in an abandoned school.
While searching his belongings, they find something terrifying:
Tapes and evidence of multiple children he kidnapped and killed over the years — not just the original boy.
She finds the parents of all the murdered children through the police files and invites all for a collective revenge.
Geum-ja gives the parents two options; to let the rule of law take its course or torture him to death themselves.
They decided to take matters into their own hands.
The execution scene happens to be the most powerful — dark haunting scenes, ritualistic as each parent get their revenge privately, not through the law or the law courts. It's organized, silent, horrifying.
They bury him behind the school and take a photo together with a birthday cake — a grotesquely surreal image of closure.
The end is seriously and deadly serious and makes one have this heavy consideration on why one should go to such lengths to get vengeance on somebody. By the way the movie played out, I wonder if Geum-ja did the world a whole lot of good by this kind of jungle justice; the parents’ joint revenge scene questions morality — is it justified? Do they feel peace after?
The cinematography is cool I must confess, very rich use of white and red (purity vs blood) and very nice edits too.
Performances;
Lee Young-ae as Geum-ja, gives a very cold performance. I didn't find her compelling and quickly forgot her name. In this movie, I think she was really nuts.
Mr. Baek's character played by Choi Min-sik, didn't take time to be developed. It just seemed like he was only there to be the victim of Geum-ja and co.
It was incredibly confusing, there are too many side plots especially with all the lady inmates. So I was just like completely lost and had to rewind it multiple times to actually understand what was happening.
I'm giving it a rating of 3/5.
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