Vengeance Is Mine: An Analysis of Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

박찬욱: 복수는 나의 것 (2002)

You can find the original article in Hungarian here →

Spoiler Alert:

This analysis contains significant plot details and reveals the ending of the film. 
If you haven’t seen Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance yet, I recommend watching it before reading further.

Vengeance is mine. That is it, and nothing more. If we take the original Korean title of Park Chan-wook's film seriously, we can save ourselves a lot of overthinking trying to decipher the hidden meanings behind the English title (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) or its various translations. There is no question of vengeance being personified by a single individual, nor of it being exclusive to a male body, and most importantly: no one is appealing for sympathy.

The Powerless Little Man

The somber blackness beneath the opening credits fades into a radio studio, where a listener's letter is being read in a sentimental voice. Thus begins our introduction to Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun), a young man who isn't even given a full name in the film. His sister has even less; she is simply Ryu’s sister. Perhaps this is an expression of what it means to be insignificant, to have been filtered out by society's screening system.

In the first part of the film, we receive an exhaustive study of Ryu's story and the backdrop of his life. "I am a good person"—with this self-definition, the film and Ryu's letter begin. We learn that his sister dropped out of school to work so that Ryu could attend art school. However, when she became seriously ill, Ryu had to abandon his studies and start working. Weighed down by his sister's illness and desperate to help, he applies for the kidney donor program against her wishes. He announces this decision in the letter, promising to bury her at the site of their childhood—a time which, hopefully, is still far off. Meanwhile, we see a riverbank where they played as children. We also see Ryu’s drawing immortalizing this memory.

Childhood image: the little girl steps into a puddle by the river.
(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

"I’ve finally decided something. ... You know, I never do what I'm told," the letter concludes, accompanied by an idyllic image of the siblings embracing, moved to tears. Why did the letter have to be read on the radio? Because the boy could not do it himself: he is deaf-mute.

In the next scene at the hospital, Ryu learns he is an unsuitable donor. The doctor treats him as if he were mentally deficient, instructing him to take his sister home if he cannot pay for her care. They must wait for a suitable donor, and who knows for how long. The girl’s fate seems sealed.

In a dilapidated building, Ryu stands alone, battering baseballs, putting all his desperate rage into every swing.

Next, we submerge into Ryu’s present, first accompanying him to his workplace. He works in a sort of foundry, a hellish world of soot and fire within a vast, dark industrial hall. The image of the factory interior will later return in a sterile version in Park Chan-wook’s I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK. They could almost be the late descendants of Chaplin’s Modern Times.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK
(Author’s screenshot from I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK.)

The boy does not interact with the other workers; he spends his breaks alone in the hall. At the end of the workday, the workers emerge like moles, blinded by the sunlight of the outside world. (The scene is also a nod to the Lumière brothers' 1895 film showing workers leaving the factory.)

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

We follow Ryu on his way home; he stops by a homeless man and pulls up his fallen trousers. The movement is practiced for both of them, clearly part of a daily routine. Ryu is an attentive, helpful person.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

If the workplace was somber, Ryu’s living quarters are devastatingly unfit for human life. It feels like stepping into a grotesque Czech comedy: light slowly dawns in the dark room while the sounds of loud lovemaking are heard. We don’t know if it’s a TV show or reality until the camera pans from the blank screen to a swinging chandelier. The boy recalls the cynical words of the real estate agent: "It’ll be good for me because I’m deaf!"—but we already see his sister (Lim Ji-eun) pulling the blanket over her head because she hears everything. Ryu seems to live in a psychic symbiosis with his sister: "If my sister can't sleep, neither can I," he says to himself. Yet the next shot contradicts this with all the naturalism of reality: a close-up shows the boy, closed off in his deaf world while eating, while his sister writhes on the floor behind him, trying to throw something at him to get his attention. The grotesque continues: one cannot tell if the guttural screams erupting from the girl are sounds of pain or masturbation; regardless, in the next room, four boys are masturbating with their ears pressed against the wall.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

It is clear by now that life offers little to the siblings. It is worth noting that writer-director Park Chan-wook places a young man blessed with artistic inclinations into this environment—his appearance even carries a bit of artistic extremity, as the average person doesn't usually run around with bright green hair—yet he locks him in his own world, stripping him of the tools to communicate with his surroundings. This condition could even be interpreted as a metaphor for the current state of art.

Even from this brief introduction, it is clear that Park Chan-wook models Ryu’s character as a "textbook case" of misfortune, condensing numerous elements of extreme disadvantage. Ryu has fallen out of the education system, and despite all the "family" sacrifice and effort, the healthcare system now rejects them. This takes away not just the chance to live a life, but makes mere survival uncertain. Because they lack the one thing required as an entry ticket into the world of goods: MONEY. Ryu’s disability marginalizes him further; he is even stigmatized as being mentally impaired. Soon, his fate is sealed when he loses the chance to earn a living through honest work, as he is fired from his job.

Yet, it seems Ryu still has one sanctuary where he can be himself. We see Cha Yeong-mi (Bae Doona) sitting at her computer, printing what looks like a flyer. Strangely, a plastic police figure stands in the corner of the room.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Ryu arrives, and soon we find the young couple in an intimate situation, initially presented in a way that is difficult to interpret. We see them in a painting-like composition of idealized beauty, but a large dark cube of what looks like furniture divides the image in the center, separating the boy and the girl. Slowly, we realize we are looking at the back of a mirror, intended to facilitate the couple's conversation. A small bit of creativity that makes the inhuman human—though this will become the core idea of Cyborg.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Yeong-mi tells a story (about a man who imagined he had two heads, suffered for it, and solved the problem by shooting himself in the head). At the end, it turns out that in Ryu, imagination and reality tend to blur, as he asks: "In his left or right head?"

We are only 13 minutes into the film, but from now on, events accelerate. In a quick cut, we see Ryu back at his workplace, then in an office where his boss makes him sign severance papers. A red-ink thumbprint is added, and Ryu stares in shock at the blood-colored pattern on his fingertip. The "little man" has committed no sin, yet he seems to feel guilty.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Next, we are in a ruined area. Ryu, holding a red rose, identifies himself to figures sitting in several black cars. We shift almost to a shadow play: they ascend the stairs of an unfinished, decaying building, moving from nothingness to nothingness, but we see this "nothing" within a strong black frame, then the same again twice more, in an increasingly narrowing space. The mournful blackness increasingly dominating the image pushes reality away.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

The lush, blood-red rose—as a symbol of new life—is placed into a filthy vase to replace the dead one, and Ryu strikes a deal with the organ traffickers: in exchange for his surgically removed kidney, they will find a suitable donor for his sister. The price of the deal is 10 million won—all of Ryu’s savings. In the background, a decommissioned operating table is visible in the wind-swept, crumbling building. A strange interlude follows: the head of the organ traffickers is an old woman whose trembling hands cannot administer her own injection (medicine? drugs?), and Ryu, with kind helpfulness and practiced movements, assists her. Despite everything, he still possesses human feeling.

A close-up of the rose thrown on the ground, then the naked man writhing in agony beside it, a stitched-up cut on his side. The camera retreats at a dizzying speed to capture the vast, empty ruins, with the tiny, cramped figure in the center, making it clear that Ryu’s naivety has made him a sucker; he has been cruelly cheated. Then we see him, naked, trying to hail cars to get home.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

An unexpected turn: the hospital notifies him that they have found a suitable donor after all. He must bring his sister in for surgery in five days. Nothing else is needed but 10 million won—the exact amount the organ traffickers swindled from him. Five days—that is the time available for Ryu to give his sister a chance at survival, for which nothing is needed but MONEY. And that is reason enough for anything.

Yeong-mi, Ryu's girlfriend, is furious at the man's foolishness but offers a solution. The apple of sin is offered again by the woman, and the man allows himself to be seduced once more. The woman sees kidnapping a child as the way to get the money, and launches into a convoluted ideological discourse on the nature of "good" versus "bad" kidnapping, concluding that they are almost doing a favor for the child and the family. The director shows this scene in the mirror, as a reversal of reality. The woman agitates strongly, and though Ryu initially resists, having no better idea, he gives in. The daughter of the boss who fired Ryu is the chosen victim, and they begin to track her daily routine.

It turns out the boss and the factory director’s children are friends and are headed somewhere together. An incident disrupts the car carrying the girls, driven by the director, Park Dong-jin (Song Kang-ho). One of the laid-off employees lies down in front of the car; he has a large family, and because they are starving, he begs to be taken back. "I gave my youth to Ilshin Electronics!" he says, a sentence containing the tragedy of a lifetime in the world of the chaebols. Then, in his confused state, he uses a scalpel to make cuts on his abdomen in the open street, but the disembowelment fails; he himself is terrified by his act, perhaps remembering his children waiting for him at home who depend solely on him. The sight of the figure, dwarfed by intentionally distorted aspect ratios, perfectly emphasizes the tragicomic weightlessness of the protest of yet another "little man" victim—an employee squeezed dry and then unceremoniously discarded by his workplace. Director Park, albeit awkwardly, tries to disarm the self-destructive man.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Ryu and his girlfriend watch the scene from their car, and Ryu’s mind is already on the details of the kidnapping. He realizes his boss would immediately suspect him, so they cannot kidnap his child. However, it is convenient that the factory director’s little girl is there.

We are at a playground where the child is already with them. Amidst some silly jumping around, Yeong-mi repeats a political slogan: "Down with communism, only then can Korea win."

A strange change occurs in Ryu’s life: their living space does not become more beautiful, but it becomes homier. Both Ryu’s sister and the little girl believe the child is a guest at the father's request. An atmosphere of domesticity moves in, even as the kidnapping script continues to unfold. Ryu frightens the little girl, but only to take a photo of her crying. He strings a necklace for the child in exchange for her doll, which he then bloodies and sends along with the ransom note for emphasis.

We see Ryu bathing his sister with great affection, who giggles and accepts this intimate situation.

An emotional bond develops between the sister and the little girl; it turns out the child’s parents are divorced, and living only with her father, she has a strong longing for a mother. In Ryu’s sister, maternal feelings tentatively awaken.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

But there is no time for these to bloom. While the child finds a "surrogate mother," the father sits in his car, looking at his daughter’s empty seat. He prepares to hand over the ransom, for which Ryu and his girlfriend direct him to a deserted location through a long series of SMS-guided maneuvers.

Cut to the home: Ryu’s sister finds a ledger, begins to investigate based on it, and realizes the truth.

Ryu lies in wait and attacks Director Park, unexpectedly pulling a sack over his head. The victim's cry is transformed by a sudden cut into the sound of a cartoon the little girl is watching—a brilliant solution reminiscent of a horror film!

The child laughs as she watches the TV, innocence personified, with the bead necklace Ryu made always around her neck. Meanwhile, Ryu arrives home and sits down beside the girl; he has the bag of money. He kisses the girl’s cheek. They begin to play intimately, then the little girl remembers the sister's letter entrusted to her and hands it to Ryu. Terrified, the man rushes to the bathroom, where he finds the woman already dead.

Inarticulate sounds escape his throat, which again become the dubbing for the cartoon, then the camera moves toward the city. Ryu’s crying almost fills the dark sky, which fades into Director Park’s screams for help, whom we find tied to a gallows-like lamppost with a sack over his head, as if awaiting execution. His screaming also reaches the heavens, transitioning into the little girl’s intensifying crying. By then, Ryu is driving his car on a dark road leading into nothingness, the child in the back seat, and his dead sister beside him.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

True to his promise, Ryu takes his sister to the river of their childhood, carrying her across a narrow bridge that seems to lead to the afterlife. His foot steps into a puddle just as it did in the flashback of their childhood.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

He lays the girl among the roots of a tree and begins to cover her with stones. A visionary figure appears, a distorted human form, a cramped, twisted Christ-like figure, a "cripple," who tries to throw the stones off the grave with his scarecrow-like arms. Ryu drives him away, then we see the little girl in the car having a nightmare, while the cripple reaches through the window to grab the bead necklace around her neck. It is as if he is Ryu’s alter-ego, a projection of his inner feelings, wanting to turn back time and undo the events. Ryu feels, perhaps for the first time, like a truly miserable "reject" who was unable to protect the person he loved most. The frightened little girl tries to reach Ryu. The cripple throws stones into the water; Ryu piles stones on the grave. His deaf ears do not hear the child calling to him from the bridge. Ryu takes a final look at his sister’s face; meanwhile, we hear a splash, and the alter-ego freezes. Ryu cries; behind him, we see the little girl drowning in the water.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Ryu stands up, turns around, and notices the child’s body floating on the water. He begins to run toward her, while the cripple stands frozen like a statue in the background. The dead girl’s one half-open eye is fixed on Ryu, who falters at the water's edge because an inner voice warns him that the water is too deep. The cripple, however, crawls in with a struggle and bites the chain off the girl’s neck. Ryu realizes that only a childhood memory is paralyzing him and brings the little girl’s body out. He looks at the child laid on the bank. His ill fate is complete; even without intent, two lives are on his conscience. From his face, the image shifts to the father’s face.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Ryu’s story breaks off here, but not the film’s, for we are only halfway through.

The Potentate

As the camera shifts from Ryu’s face to Director Park’s, we also switch perspectives; from this point on, the director stands dominantly at the center of the narrative.

We see him sobbing over the recovered body of his young daughter, then we hear his conversation with the detective. "I always thought I lived an honest life," he says, which echoes the first line of Ryu's letter at the start of the film: "I am a good person." From the conversation, we learn the essence of Director Park's life: starting as an engineer after college, he climbed the social ladder to reach his current position, though his wife left him during the economic collapse. Director Park is the social antithesis of Ryu; he belongs to those who succeeded in the struggle, met societal expectations, and did so—admirable in its own way—through his own strength. The gap is immeasurable; even a middle-status subordinate of Director Park lives at an unattainable distance from Ryu’s world: "His car alone is ten years of your wages," Yeong-mi noted earlier.

The question "Just how much is your net income?" remains unanswered, and there is total confusion regarding the why of the events. The detective receives a phone call, and Director Park overhears a private conversation. It is about an imminent operation and the required 10 million won, which is not available. When Director Park hears the detective say: "But at least the child wasn't kidnapped or killed. You know, we’re lucky we have no money at all," he leaves the scene in silence. The elemental truth of that sentence is staggering.

Scenes that severely test the viewer follow. We are in the autopsy room, where the father watches the scalpel enter the child’s body, followed specifically by the visceral, grinding sounds of the dissection. The father staggers out.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

At the crematorium, the family gathers for the cremation; we see the little girl’s talking doll—"Daddy loves Yoosun. Yoosun loves Daddy"—amidst the flames. Ryu appears, lurking in the background. The director shows the processes with ruthless detail and shocking camera angles; for example, we see the grieving family from inside the crematorium furnace.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

The father struggles with hallucinations; another brilliantly executed horror scene follows: the little girl steps out of a photograph and, in her dead form, embraces her father’s neck: "Why didn't you teach me how to swim?" she asks. The father, laughing, pulls the zombie-creature to himself while real water drips onto his feet.

This experience snaps Director Park back to reality. He liquidates his former life, sells his factory and house, and offers the money intended for the surgery to the detective. Through this, the corruptible "little man" appears in the film; since we see him here as a member of the police force, this opens up broader associations regarding power. We see that the motif of money, especially the recurring symbol of the 10 million won, moves unbroken through the film. But this gesture also contains the realization of the trivial truth: economic potential notwithstanding, the most precious treasures are not measured in money.

However, the investigation gains momentum; they have already found the siblings' apartment, which is empty. In the director, the healing cut on his palm recalls the laid-off employee who lay in front of his car, to whose plea he then only replied, "But I already explained it to you"—and he believes he has found the antagonist he was looking for. In the pouring rain, in the middle of a terrible slum, they find the employee's apartment, where a hellish sight awaits: the man has poisoned himself and his children. Only one little boy still flickers with life, and Director Park rushes him to the hospital, claiming the boy as his own. It truly seems he is a "good man," though his employee, Peng, might have thought otherwise. For what did Peng say, humbled to the dust, when he found no hearing? "Sir, help me! My wife ran away, my children are starving! In six years, I never missed a day of work. You know well that the defective goods only amounted to eight-tenths of one percent. Eight-tenths of one percent!" Director Park may be a good father, but he appears to be a ruthless boss.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Ryu visits his girlfriend, and during a frantic lovemaking session, they engage in a strange dialogue: "You're like an ant," the girl says, and the boy’s answer is: "They say ants are visionaries; they sense earthquakes and floods in advance." The police mannequin in the corner wobbles. At the end of the scene, we see the couple in an idyllic situation, but turned upside down.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

The father's intuition draws him back to Ryu’s apartment, which he identifies as the place where his daughter was held, and he hears a radio broadcast where Ryu’s latest letter is being read: "My sister is dead. I killed her." He suspects this might be related to his own story. And indeed, at the radio station, the drawings sent in by Ryu tell the story without words—fittingly for the boy’s silence.

Based on the images, Park visits the riverbank. Finding nothing, he begins skipping stones on the water—the very stones that cover Ryu’s sister's grave. The "cripple" appears, wearing the little girl’s necklace, and helps scatter the stones. If it holds true that this figure is a projection of Ryu’s inner world, then we can be certain that the boy has not yet buried what happened to his sister within himself. In the form of the necklace, he provides evidence to the father; thus, Ryu's conscience is working, digging up the dead once more—meaning he still has business with her.

The police find the sister's hospital file, and for the father, this proves that Ryu is the murderer of the little girl. It is mentioned that the boy is mentally impaired but not "stupid," and it is also revealed what role the stickers on the workplace toilet wall played at the beginning of the film: Ryu saw the organ dealers' advertisement on them.

The Intersection of Paths

At this point, the stories of the two men merge. Both struggle with their own losses, which cry out for revenge. The father hunts for the siblings; the couple hunts for the organ dealers. To the question asked in one place—"What will you do when you find them?"—the other place answers: "I'll kill them."

A stunning visual expression of the father’s confinement within the exclusive cycle of revenge is the image in his daughter's room, where he sits inside an inflatable globe. The coming thrills are also predicted by the cross-cutting of the two men's movements in different spaces: the toy thrown by the father "collides" with Ryu’s baseball bat.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

With Yeong-mi’s active and activist cooperation, Ryu finds the organ dealers. The girl, whom we now see distributing her own flyers, agitates on the street with little enthusiasm: "Dissolve the conglomerates! US Army out! Down with neo-liberalism that destroys people's lives!" She is the one who makes the deal with the dealers now, and she doesn't forget to leave a few flyers at their headquarters.

"Evil walks among us," Park Chan-wook messages with the next staggering series of images, where both Ryu and one of the organ dealers prepare their next steps while blending into the surging crowd of the city. The reuse of fast-food packaging is particularly cynical.

We witness parallel events: Ryu methodically settles scores with the organ dealing gang, while Director Park acts systematically in Yeong-mi's apartment. Both kill, but the manner of killing is different. Ryu acts out of passion and pure strength; Director Park acts technically, with a ice-cold head. Ryu needs no explanations; Director Park is not interested in explanations, even though the discovered photos and the girl speak of a reality different from the one in his head. Ryu’s killing process is full of grotesque elements—even the dual tragedy of the mother and the son bleeding out before her eyes. Director Park’s murder is pure, dispassionate cruelty, executed with the preparation and precision of a technocrat; he does not just "get rid" of his victim—killing isn't even the right word—it is an execution. And let us not forget, he eats while doing it. Ryu is injured in the struggle; Director Park never even enters a situation of danger. The director does not fail to show a wide shot of the mannequin-cop/cop-mannequin's face, marred by a huge plastic fly. Yes, the guardian of order no longer keeps himself in order; this is the time of vigilantism. The girl has no chance, though she even gives a warning to her executioner, who takes it as a bluff. But we, the viewers, can hardly believe either that a terrorist organization will take revenge for the girl, and who knows if she really gave a photo of the director to anyone for identification.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

As a sharp counterpoint, we see Director Park visiting the little boy fighting for his life in the hospital, but he sits beside him with weariness rather than concern.

Forensics are being conducted in Yeong-mi's apartment, and despite the obvious signs, the police do not connect the events of the two murder scenes. Posthumously, however, we also learn the girl's story. She attended a school for the deaf (perhaps because of Ryu?), but was kicked out when it was discovered she was not disabled. She became a far-left activist, tried to defect to North Korea, but was caught. She is a member of a terrorist organization called the RAA—more precisely, its only member.

Ryu arrives at the girl’s apartment and tries to stay hidden. We reach what is, in its morbidity, the most beautiful series of images in the film: Ryu’s farewell to the girl. The morgue attendants lean the girl’s stretcher against Ryu in the elevator, and the white shroud falls from her face. Their hands secretly touch for the last time.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Face to Face

We are past three-quarters of the film; Ryu has avenged his sister's death, but he and Director Park are still at a draw regarding their losses. Their final life-and-death struggle begins.

Ryu lies in wait in front of the director's house; Director Park takes up position in the boy’s apartment. A whole night of nerve-wracking waiting follows. Madness reaches such a pitch that the police exit the story: the detective offers to return the money he received.

The boy’s patience runs out first, and though he notices the source of danger in his apartment, Director Park’s engineering trick triumphs; the boy falls into the director’s captivity. The man’s knife, poised to kill, stalls in the air; he is unable to complete the motion.

We see them in the middle of the river, at the exact spot of the little girl’s death, where the boy, with bound hands and feet, and the father stand face to face. The shivering boy’s hand reaches toward Director Park in silent plea, and Park indeed cuts the rope. If hope were to stir in the boy, the father's words quickly dispel it: "I know you're a good boy. But you know why I have to kill you. Do you understand? You know, right?"—perhaps referring to the ancient law of an eye for an eye. But he is also crying, and his future victim's hand moves toward his face to wipe away the tears. It doesn't reach; the man ducks under the water and, with his knife, severs the boy’s Achilles tendons. He kills without "killing." He does not murder; he destroys. But his revenge is so horrific that while we might understand the father's barbaric justice, our sympathy now pulls toward the boy. The blood sacrifice, however, has occurred; in death, the life-giving elements of water and blood unite. The image evokes the lethally beautiful visual world of classic vampire films—director Park Chan-wook has a keen sense for the aesthetics of horror.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Director Park receives a phone call from the hospital; they factually inform him that the little boy has died. The world of the living is perhaps even colder than that of the dead: "The morgue is on level B2." But the director no longer has a bond to reality: "You've dialed the wrong number," he replies just as coldly.

Coda

Director Park digs to hide his victim. His campaign of revenge has triumphed; he has retaliated for his daughter's death. Though one seriously wonders if that is all it is about. Does a collateral motive not play a part, stemming from the elemental rage of the potentate’s wounded ego? From the fact that the built empire of his prosperity and well-being was violated? That the intruders disrupted the oiled functioning of the order of things as he perceived it? In the cruel destruction, he seems to also retaliate for this personal grievance. And truly, he understood nothing of what happened to him. Director Park’s social "deaf-blindness," which prevents inclusion, echoes Ryu’s deaf-mutism, which prevents social integration.

But there are still two dead in the story whose fates thirst for revenge—who will provide justice for Yeong-mi and the employee Peng? The most enigmatic part of the film is the conclusion: the shoveling director is interrupted by a appearing car. The four figures who step out are completely surreal; they look like small-time thugs enveloped in clouds of cigarette smoke. One of them identifies Director Park from a photo (remember Yeong-mi's warning?), after which they cold-bloodedly stab him to death with their knives. But even that is not enough; they pin his own death sentence to the dying man with a knife, then depart with the same choreography with which they arrived.

Are they the terrorist cell avenging Yeong-mi? But we heard that the RAA is a one-member organization! Or are Peng’s co-workers taking revenge for their colleague? There was no mention of organized movement in the story! And the whole scene is so surreal that I cannot help but think that just as the figure of the cripple projected Ryu's feelings, so here Director Park’s demons take shape. For ostensibly, he too only became a part of life's horror film "unintentionally"—which wouldn't have happened if his superior strength stemming from economic potential hadn't pushed others into misery. Because it doesn't matter if the downtrodden themselves or those fighting in their name passed the death sentence, the result is the same: the bloodsuckers must be put on ice forever, so they can never return—a stake through the heart, like vampires. Crawling toward death, everything levels out; even Director Park repeats Yeong-mi's last words as his own, with the inarticulateness of the deaf-mute. Meanwhile, we also see what butchery he performed: Ryu’s body, dismembered in bags, awaits eternal rest.

(Author’s screenshot from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.)

Regarding the film, a striking characteristic must be mentioned: the family image Park Chan-wook works with deserves attention. Ryu and his sister are a fragmented family; there is no mention of why they are so dependent on each other in the world. Director Park was left by his wife; he raises his little girl alone. Peng also remained alone with many children; his wife ran away. Yeong-mi also lacks an extensive family network. The classical family model has totally failed in this world. The woman is either no longer present, or if she is, she is either a fallible, vulnerable creature requiring care—a burdensome weight on the man (Ryu's sister)—or a whimsical creature living in a dream world, producing muddled kitchen-philosophies, someone the man might love to some extent but mostly just spends time with pleasantly. Ryu’s relationship with Yeong-mi is also one where the girl belongs much more to the imaginary RAA than to her male partner; therefore, her motivations spring more from her ideological dreamworld than from love for the man. Two mother figures appear in the story: one is Director Park's wife, whom we see at the crematorium in a tragic collapse—while her husband takes no notice of it, as it is all invalidated by the fact that the woman left them. The other mother figure is the leader of the organ dealers, who watches the death of her moronic son and, even in her shock, is nothing more than an extremely repulsive human torso. This existence without women is in sync with the film's social image insofar as this world was not built by women; power, money, and hierarchy are mostly the men's playground. However, it is a summary judgment that women are not even present as a "home front"; this world is cold and cruel, and women no longer provide sanctuary for men.

The moral lesson linked to the pattern of revenge is that one must be careful with double-edged weapons, for they strike the attacker as well as the attacked unto death. Revenge moves in circular paths in the story; every innocent victim is avenged by someone. "Vengeance is Mine," says the title, and now we may ask who claims this. It could be said by Ryu or Director Park, but I wouldn't cross the director of the film himself off the list either. The coda only confirms all this.

The actors provide outstanding performances. Song Kang-ho’s father figure is moving; we cannot help but feel his initial agonies. His cold elegance radiates authority from the moment of his appearance, and his scale of displaying mental states from apathy to emotion to blithe indifference is fascinating. Shin Ha-kyun (Ryu) has a difficult task; speech, the most adequate means of expression, was taken from him. But we don't feel its absence for a moment; his face, his gaze, and his gestures are alive, and these often say more than a long monologue. Those portraying the female roles and the little girl also represent their characters authentically and sensitively.

A point of special interest is that regarding the soundtrack, we largely see a "silent film"—at least the background music goes quiet in this film. Musical accompaniment is heard only in the most important scenes, where it has a shocking effect. Yet, in their drama, those minutes are the strongest when we see the events through Ryu’s senses, in perfect silence.

Park Chan-wook’s film has been attempted to be categorized into many genres, from psychological thriller to melodrama. I would be inclined to lift it out of the labeling. Indeed, elements of various genres are recognizable in the film (deliberate genre-blending is not unusual in Korean cinema), but all this is mostly just the toolkit for packaging a powerful directorial message, which preserves Park Chan-wook's individual expression so much that the film's true place is far and away among "midcult" films.




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