“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” is the first movie of Park Chan-wook´s “Vengeance Trilogy”. It follows the deaf-mute factory worker Ryu, who needs to find a donor kidney for his ill sister. After he was fired from his job, he makes a deal with black market organ dealers, who promise him a suitable kidney in exchange for one of his own kidneys and all his money. Unfortunately, they do not keep their end of the bargain and disappear with Ryu´s money and kidney. Even more desperate than before, Ryu and his girlfriend decide to kidnap the daughter of rich businessman Park Dong-jin to extort the needed money for the transplantation. This decision leads to several tragic incidents and paves the way for a spiral of bloody revenge.
“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” shows people in desperate situations making desperate decisions as well as the consequences of those decisions. The roles of protagonist and antagonist are not clearly defined, as the movie follows both Ryu and Park Dong-jin. Both men are morally grey characters, with understandable and even laudable motives but brutal and morally wrong methods. This ambivalence makes the characters very believable and till the end you don´t know, who to root for. Clear is only one thing: the path of revenge ends in misery for everyone involved. I think it goes without saying that this is not a feel-good movie.
Song Kang-ho and Shin Ha-kyun are great as the both protagonists, but my personal highlight was Bae Doo-na as Ryu´s radical leftist girlfriend. I love her since seeing her in the Netflix series “Sense8” and in this movie she also is a scene stealer.
Park Chan-wook is a director with a very recognizable style. Cinematography and editing are great as usual.
“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” is certainly not on par with Park Chan-wook´s famous “Oldboy” (I watched both movies back to back). It is a much slower movie, has some boring parts, the characters are not as iconic, the story not as complex and it just doesn´t have the same impact as its successor. But it is a bit unfair to compare “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” with “Oldboy”. It is still a very good movie in its own right.