Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Shakespeare would have had appreciation for this offering from Korean director Chan-wook Park (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), a revenge thriller every bit as poignant as the under-appreciated classic Titus Andronicus. I never understood why Titus has not secured a more prominent place in the Bard's canon. Its complex (if problematic) story is every bit as technically brilliant as Romeo and Juliet, and its creepy imagery was certainly ahead of its time (Shakespeare had Tamora eat her children, Chiron and Demetrius, long before Scott Tenerman feasted on his parents in South Park), and it's perplexing why fewer people are not versed in this classic.

Perhaps it's because the "revenge thriller" has become such an overpopulated movie genre. Nearly every comic book movie has vengeance as a prominent theme, and, as opposed to the message of Shakespeare's work, it usually is given a positive connotation. Think about it. "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." We celebrate revenge. Shakespeare? Not so much.

And neither does Mr. Park. Though Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance lacks the fierce poeticism of his more famous Oldboy (a brilliant, brilliant movie, but definitely not for the squeamish), its melancholic examination of "an eye for an eye" still resonates with force.

The events of the film are set in motion when Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin), a deaf and mute factory worker, visits an underworld organ harvester to seek a kidney transplant for his sick sister. Having exhausted legitimate means for a donor, Ryu decides to volunteer himself, relying on the unlicensed surgeons to do the operation (and paying an exorbitant 10 million won). The episode results in Ryu being left naked, abandoned, broke, and down a kidney, and to make matters worse, the real doctors have just found a matching donor and need only (you guessed it) 10 million won to do the operation. At the urging of his anarchist lover Cha Yeong-mi (Doona Bae), Ryu sets off to kidnap and then ransom back the daughter of his old boss Park Don-jing (Kang-ho Song), the wealthy owner of an electronics corporation. Though there was never any violent intent, the kidnapping goes horribly wrong (as tends to happen), leaving both Ryu and Park seeking retribution from one another.

Unlike the typical revenge thriller, the story of Sympathy refuses to devolve into a simple mano a mano brawl with a clear-cut victor and vanquished. Rather, we see how the path of vengeance leads not to catharsis, but to hollowness, for both parties. Grudges grow like a cancer, clouding judgments, eclipsing the cares for loved ones or the self. Rather than celebrate retribution, we are asked to look at the effect a vengeance murder has on those who cared for the deceased. Violence begets violence begets violence until the spiral is completely out of anyone's control.

And in the final moments of the movie, we find ourselves wondering what caused all the senselessness in the first place. What spur pricked the side of Ryu's intent to make a good, hard-working man hatch a plan to kidnap a little girl? Though the answer is only subtly suggested, it's enough to make us reflect on the nature of violence in our social and political discourse.

*And speaking of social and political discourse, be on the lookout for a very special Politics Sunday, featuring an analysis of the South Park controversy.