Sympathy for Lady VengeanceHonestly, I was disappointed with this compared to Oldboy, Thirst, JSA.
First I'll get the positives out of the way. The movie was beautifully shot. While his other films looked great, this, like WKW films, had me looking at the frame as a whole as a piece of art and not just the people or the scenery. The use of color was really nice too. And there were a few dark comedy bits that hit the right nights. The entire family lineup on the bench scene was fantastic.
But the story was so simple and uninteresting yet drawn out for so long. Oldboy/Thirst/JSA all had great plots that had you on the edge of your seat. The pacing in those films were great. Here it's like "hi, I am out for revenge, here is why, ok I'm going to do it easily and in a simple way, endstuff". I think after his other films I've seen I just expected a lot more from the plotting. I kept waiting in Lady Vengeance for the plot to take off, for something interesting to happen, which it finally does when
spoiler (click to show/hide)
they bring in the families
But by then it's basically the end of the movie. The pacing is just extremely slow like much of asian cinema. I liked that Oldboy/Thirst/JSA didn't fall into this trapping of a lot of HK/JPN cinema. But here Park languishes in these gorgeous shots he sets and the camera just sits and sits. It feels like the film is overly dramatic. Even as a black comedy, the film felt faaaaaar more serious and overly dramatic than the other three films I've seen. And like JSA, the horrible engrish really kills the scenes its used in.
tl;dr - Coming from Oldboy/JSA/Thirst, Lady Vengeance was too "normal". Plain, simple, and slow, it was great to look at but overall disappointing compared to the other 3 films.
I do think the film is the type that would get better on multiple viewings.
