Lady Vengeance

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
File:SympathyForLadyVengeance Poster.jpg Sympathy for Lady Vengeance teaser poster
Directed by	Park Chan-wook
Written by	Jeong Seo-kyeong Park Chan-wook
Produced by	Cho Young-wuk Lee Chun-yeong Lee Tae-hun
Starring	Lee Young Ae Choi Min-sik Kim Shi-hu Kwon Yea-young
Music by	Choi Seung-hyun
Distributed by	CJ Entertainment
Release dates	South Korea: July 29, 2005 United Kingdom: February 10, 2006 United States: April 28, 2006
Running time	112 minutes
Languages	Korean, English, Japanese

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Korean: 친절한 금자씨, Chinjeolhan geumjassi; "Kind-Hearted Ms. Geum-Ja") is a 2005 South Korean film by director Park Chan-wook. In North America and parts of Europe, the film has been screened under the title Lady Vengeance. The film is the third installment in Park's The Vengeance Trilogy, following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Oldboy (2003). It stars Lee Young Ae as Lee Geum-ja, a woman released from prison after serving the sentence for a murder she did not commit. The film tells her story of revenge against the real murderer.

The film debuted on July 29, 2005 in South Korea, and competed for the Golden Lion at the 62nd Venice International Film Festival in September 2005. While it failed to win in competition, it did walk away with Cinema of The Future, the Young Lion Award and the Best Innovated Film Award in the non-competition section. It won the award for Best Film at the 26th Blue Dragon Film Awards. The film had its U.S. premiere on September 30, 2005 at the New York Film Festival. It began its limited release in North American theatres on May 5, 2006.

Plot

The film begins with a Christian musical procession waiting outside a prison for Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young Ae), a recently-reformed female prisoner, who had been convicted of murdering a young schoolboy, Won-mo. The case, a national sensation because of her young age at the time of the murder and innocent appearance, earns her a lengthy prison sentence, reduced because of her apparent spiritual transformation in prison and her good conduct, also towards other inmates, resulting in the nickname of the "Kind-Hearted Geum-Ja." As Lee Geum-ja emerges from prison, she immediately sidesteps the procession, intent on revenge.

Lee Geum-ja is innocent of the murder, confessing to the false crime by order of Mr. Baek (Choi Min-sik), the real killer who kidnapped and threatened to murder her newborn daughter if she refused. Inside prison, Geum-ja makes a number of friends with her angelic, maternal demeanour, donating a kidney to one inmate, tenderly caring for others and poisoning the prison bully. Once paroled, Geum-Ja immediately visits the other paroled inmates, calling in favours that include food, shelter and weapons. She also begins work at a local pastry shop, under the tutelage of a chef who previously volunteered at the prison. Further distancing herself from her kind-hearted reputation, she wears red eyeshadow, provocative high-heel pumps and chronically dreams about murdering Mr. Baek.

Geum-ja researches her daughter and discovers that she was adopted by Australian parents. Jenny, now a teenager, does not speak Korean nor does she initially embrace her mother. After persuading her family to allow her to return to Seoul from Sydney, Jenny follows Geum-ja around the city as she plans to kidnap Mr. Baek with help of his wife, another ex-convict. During this Mr. Baek, now a children's teacher at a local preschool, discovers that Geum-ja is released and aware of her plans, attacks his wife and hires thugs to ambush Geum-ja and Jenny. In the ensuing battle, Geum-ja kills both the thugs, while Mr. Baek falls unconscious due to the drugs slipped into his food by his wife.

Geum-ja, eager yet hesitant to kill the unconscious Mr. Baek, discovers several children's trinkets decorating his cell phone. Remembering that his modus operandi involved stealing an orange marble from Won-Mo following his murder, Geum-ja realises that they are souvenirs from victims and deduces that Mr. Baek murdered other children as well. She imprisons him and contacts the detective from the Won-Mo case, and together they infiltrate Mr. Baek's apartment and discover snuff tapes of the other children that Mr. Baek murdered. Geum-ja and the detective contact and transport the parents or surviving relatives of the missing children to an abandoned school on the outskirts of Seoul. After showing them the tapes, the group deliberates on Mr. Baek's fate, ultimately deciding to collectively murder him, with the audio of their discussion amplified for Baek to hear. Wearing raincoats and wielding a variety of weapons, they approach Mr. Baek individually and attack him while the last person, an emotionless grandmother, kills Baek with the scissors of her murdered grand daughter. They take a group photo ensuring that none of them can turn in the others without implicating themselves, then bury the corpse outside.

Geum-ja, the investigator, and the parents all converge on Geum-ja's bakery, where they eat a cake and sing a collective birthday song for their deceased children. Geum-ja approaches her apartment with a cake box when she notices Jenny. They embrace before Geum-ja opens the box to reveal a white cake resembling a block of tofu. She instructs her daughter to "live white", as pure as tofu. Jenny tastes the cake and says Geum-ja should live even more purely. As they stare up into the snowy sky, Geum-ja weeps and sobs uncontrollably, burying her face in the cake, while Jenny moves to hug her.

Cast

• Lee Young Ae as Lee Geum-ja
• Choi Min-sik as Mr. Baek (Baek Han-sang)
• Kwon Yea-young as Jenny
• Kim Byeong-ok as The Preacher
• Kim Shi-hu as Geun-shik
• Nam Il-wu as Detective Choi
• Tony Barry as Jenny's adoptive father
• Anne Cordiner as Jenny's adoptive mother
• Go Soo-hee as Ma-nyeo
• Kim Boo-seon as Woo So-young
• Lee Seung-Shin as Park Yi-jeong
• Oh Dal-su as Mr. Chang
• Ra Mi-ran as Oh Su-hee
• Seo Yeong-ju as Kim Yang-hee
• Yoo Ji-tae as grown-up Won-Mo, as seen in a vision

Music

The music for Lady Vengeance, composed by Choi Seung-hyun, is heavily baroque-themed, featuring many pieces with harpsichord, baroque guitars, and other instruments. The main theme and is an edited version of Vivaldi's "Ah ch'infelice sempre" from "Cessate, omai cessate." The song is appropriate since the unedited version's melody is sung by a woman who is seeking revenge on a man who has betrayed her, much like the film itself. The 24th Caprice by Paganini also appears many times.

Fade to Black and White version

Two versions of the film exist, the standard version and the "Fade to Black and White version". The latter version begins in full colour, but throughout the film the colour gradually fades until it is totally black and white at the end of the film. In conjunction with the camera technique of removing the colours, there is also a change in the environmental colours used in backgrounds and clothing. At the beginning of the film, the environments contain a lot of primary colours, whereas toward the end of the film pastel shades, blacks and whites are used. Geum-ja wears a blue coat in the early part of the film, but this is replaced with a black leather coat at the end. The brightly coloured walls of the prison and Geum-ja's bedroom are replaced with the grey walls of the school.

Both versions of the film were shown in Korean cinemas, although the fading version was presented only in digital format at a few DLP-equipped multiplexes. The film ends with the narrator saying, "Farewell..." followed by Jenny's line: "Miss Geum-ja."

This version has since been made available on the Korean Special Edition DVD of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (with DTS audio only), and in the Tartan Films DVD and Blu-ray boxset releases of the Vengeance trilogy. On the Tartan boxset packaging, the version is incorrectly titled "Fade to White version".

Box office

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance opened in Korea on July 29, 2005 to blockbuster business, grossing $7,382,034 in its first week according to boxofficemojo.com. In terms of total admissions, it was the seventh biggest domestic release in Korea that year, and the eighth biggest overall.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance opened in limited release in two North American theatres on April 28, 2006 under the title Lady Vengeance. In its opening weekend, it earned $9,850 ($4,925 per screen). It earned $197,486 during its entire run, playing at 15 screens during its widest point.

Its total worldwide box office gross is $23,809,504.

Awards

• Won Best Actress (International Competition) 8th Cinemanila Film Festival 2006: Lee Young-ae
• Won "Best Director" at Bangkok Festival 2006
• Won "Little Golden Lion" at Venice Film Festival 2005
• Lee Young-ae won "Best Actress" at Sitges Film Festival 2005
• Won Best Actress at The Motterle Awards, 2005: Lee Young-ae
• Lee Young-ae won "Best Actress" at Blue Dragon Awards 2005
• Won Best Film at the Blue Dragon Awards 2005

See also

• List of Korean language films
• List of Korea-related topics
• Revenge play

External links

• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at IMDb
• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at AllMovie
• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at Box Office Mojo
• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at Metacritic
• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at HanCinema
• Official Site (Closed)