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Dressed to kill in
a polka-dot outfit
LAST VENGANCE
Directed by Chan-Wook Park
Certificate 15
THE sequel to the astonishingly cinematic, enthralling Old
Boy, director Chan-Wook Park’s Lady Vengeance is the long
awaited third part in the trilogy that began with Sympathy for
Mr Vengeance – all linked by the theme of crimes which
reap their own consequences.
Extremely – almost overly – visual, and sometimes
sacrificing content for style, Lady Vengeance satisfies those
with a taste for unusual cinema – the cinema of harsh,
often funny cruelty.
Lee Geum-ja (played by Lee Yeong-ae) is a beautiful woman released
from prison after almost 14 years, having served her time for
kidnapping and killing a young boy in a crime that sensationalised
the nation, even to the point where her polka dot dress became
a kind of twisted fashion statement.
Of course, any film that begins with a choir dressed as Father
Christmas is probably going to be one rollercoaster of a film.
In a significant moment, she refuses to eat the white tofu –
therefore refusing to be cleansed of her sins – and the
film takes off into a much more disturbing and interesting direction
than it would if she had.
Our heroine begins to gather in favours from inmates she befriended
and defended, all the while making plans to get her revenge,
while we are treated, via often horrendously amusing flashbacks,
to her life in jail. Along with her mates – a bank robber
and an adulteress – their small world of male evildoers
begins to lose its occupants one by one.
Incredulous cops, mouthy lost daughters, clouds that spell out
the truth, all these combine to make Lady Vengeance a seriously
funny, dramatically quirky and ultimately satisfying trip into
a world of unremitting revenge. |
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