Amazingly, if true, Park bashed out the script in a day, adding to its raw, edgy atmosphere. This is pioneering stuff, and a true showcase for modern Korean filmmaking.

ABOUT

Park’s third movie on the theme of retribution moves at a gentle, considered pace, much like the best-served-cold revenge that is dealt out in this stunning thriller.

PLOT 

Ryu (Ha Kyun Shin) is a devoted brother to his terminally-ill sister. She needs an operation to survive, but the medical bill is way too high to afford. In a scheme born out of desperation, Ryu kidnaps a young girl – the daughter of his wealthy boss Park - and holds her to ransom. But plans like this rarely work out, and when the innocent young hostage dies, her father sets out to take an unstoppable revenge.

IMPROVISATION

Chan-Wook Park was given the unusual honour of a total carte blanche with this movie, and it’s possibly his most personal because of it. His insistence on full-contact blows left the players bruised and often in tears, and several scenes were largely improvised, giving the whole movie a verite feel as yet unmatched in Asian cinema.

TRILOGY

This film is the first part of The Vengeance Trilogy and is succeeded by Oldboy (2003) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005).

WHAT PARK CHAN-WOOK SAYS ABOUT HIS FILM

"It would be more accurate to see my films as ones stressing morality, with guilty consciences as the core subject matter.

The constantly recurring theme is the guilty conscience. Because they are always conscious of and obsessed with their wrongdoings, which are committed because they are inherently unavoidable in life, my characters are fundamentally good people. The fact that people have to resort to another type of violence in order to subjugate their initial guilty consciences is the most basic quality of tragedy characteristic in my movies thus far."

REVIEWS

"This deeply twisted and bizarre movie from South Korea comes close to the spirit of Jacobean revenge tragedy, with its extravagant violence, its sentimental sibling relationship, brooding malcontentism and flair for piercing images of horror." - THE GUARDIAN

"Brutally nihilistic, this is one of the best Korean films to have hit these shores in a very long time." - BBC