Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Korea, 2002)
Directed by: Park Chan-Wook
Starring: Shin Ha-Kyun, Song Kang-Ho, Bae Doo-Na

The director of Korea¹s 2000 smash hit, Joint Security Area, returns with that film¹s stars, Song Kang-Ho and Shin Ha-Kyun, to participate in the bleak and bloody birth of one of the greatest hardboiled epics ever made. Deaf-mute factory worker, Ryu, is hunting for a donor kidney for his sister. But when the organ slated for her turns out to be the wrong blood type he begins a long walk down a dark tunnel, and the light at the end is an oncoming train.

Director Park has hung the world up by its heels and let all the forgiveness run out through a slit in its neck. What happens when there¹s no more sorry? When there¹s no more starting over? What happens when there¹s only killing, and revenge and blood paying back blood? A nearly silent, almost unbearable dissection of what we can do to each other out of love, this is the movie Film Comment calls “a remarkable masterpiece” and Harry Knowles of Ain¹t It Cool News picks as the best of 2002. By the time you stumble out of the theater, every frame of this film will be seared into your brain.