Lady Vengeance

Geum-ja (recurring Park player Lee Yeong-Ae) has just been released from a 13-year prison sentence for the alleged kidnapping and murder of a preschool boy, but her incarceration was actually an injustice forced upon her by the real criminal, schoolteacher Mr. Baek (Oldboy star Choi Min-Sik), who cruelly framed Geum-ja for his sadistic acts. Whereas the revenge quests in Park’s two previous films were individual obsessions, Lady Vengeance finds this bloodlust transformed into a collective goal, as Geum-ja enlists her former inmates and several bereaved parents in her actions, raising the film’s emotional impact in the process.

Park’s sensational visual style is very much in evidence in this final “Vengeance” trilogy entry, but the film is clearly more restrained and less comic than Oldboy. Park focuses more on the story’s fragmented narrative (influenced by Boorman’s Point Blank, one of Park’s favorite films), constructing a complex cinematic puzzle that is ultimately harrowing – and richly rewarding – viewing. (Korean with English subtitles)