Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

From AsianWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

User Rating

Current user rating: 89/100 (34 votes)

You need to enable JavaScript to vote

Profile

Movie: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Revised romanization: Chinjeolhan geumjassi
Hangul: 친절한 금자씨
Director: Park Chan-Wook
Writer: Seo-gyeong Jeong, Park Chan-Wook
Producer: Cho Young-wuk, Lee Chun-yeong, Lee Tae-hun
Cinematography: Jeong Jeong-hun
Release Date: July 29, 2005 (South Korea)
Runtime: 112 min.
Studio: Moho Films
Distributor: CJ Entertainment
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea

Synopsis

She’s hailed as an angel, the poster girl for religious rehabilitation by a preacher and a chorus of Santa Clauses as she walks out of prison following a 13-year-sentence for kidnapping and murdering a little boy. But when beautiful Lee Geum-ja is presented with the traditional tofu cake, meant to celebrate the birth of a new, reformed life, she tosses it to the ground and coldly walks away. The woman who earned a reputation for good deeds behind bars, sets herself on a path of retribution aimed at the man whose evil criminality left her behind bars.

To succeed in her quest she enlists a detachment of former fellow prisoners. There are: Kim Yang-hee, a former prostitute who had murdered her pimp, now a hairdresser who provides Geum-ja with an apartment; Woo Si-young, imprisoned 1990-1996 for bank hold-ups committed with her husband, who now helps to fashion a blunderbuss-like revolver for Geum-ja; Oh Su-hee, imprisoned from 1993-1994, now a silversmith who crafts intricately drafted earrings for Geum; and Park Yi-jeong, another inmate of Geum-ja’s penitentiary (from 1998 to 1999) who had worked longest and hardest at enabling Geum-ja’s plan, actually marrying her comrade’s quarry.

One other inmate also aided Geum-ja, but never saw the outside: Go Seon-sook A North Korean spy imprisoned 1967-1991 who gives Geum-ja a book called the Diamond Sutra, which turns out to be a yellowed guide to achieving vengeance.

To support herself, Geum-ja has gotten a job in a bakery run by Mr. Jang. Mr. Jang had taught baking in Geum-ja’ prison, where he had been astonished by her ability to whip up wonderful concoctions with the sparsest of materials. Even more admiring of Geum-ja is Geun-sik, Jang’s young apprentice who is just as astonished by Geum-ja’s beauty.

After some flashbacks of Geum-ja making an obviously concocted confession to police officer Choi, we see the 32-year-old woman running into the first, serious complication to her bloody task. She reunites with her now-adopted daughter Jenny, an occasion which releases all sorts of emotions Geum-ja had thought she’d repressed. But an outing with Jenny and a fellow bakery worker, young smitten Geun-sik, brings Geum-ja to the presence of an abandoned-looking school. Both unnerved and newly resolute, she commits an act of unadulterated cruelty.

All this is prologue to the final confrontation with Mr. Paek, the former grammar school teacher who took in a teenaged Geum-ja when she was a pregnant teenager and ensnared her in his web of evil. When that web turns out to be larger than even Geum-ja expected, the grounds are laid for a vengeance surpassing even her imagination. How will redemption ever be achieved?

Notes

"Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" concludes director Park Chan-Wook's revenge trilogy (story lines are not related).
Related titles
1. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance | Boksuneun naui geot (2002)
2. Old Boy | Oldeuboi (2003)
3. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance | Chinjeolhan geumjassi (2005)