Dir: Park Chan-Wook
Scr: Park Chan-Wook, Lee Jae-Sun, Lee Yong-Jung, Lee Mu-Yeong
Str: Song Kang-Ho, Shin Ha-Kyun, Bae Dun-Na

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is a bleak, morbid, depressing, violent, morally ambiguous and nihilistic piece of work.

I loved it.

A quick recap: Oldboy, Park Chan-Wook’s Grand Prix winning film (as in Cannes film festival and not Formula One, duh!), was one of, if not the best film I saw last year. Sympathy is the first film in Park’s Vengeance trilogy which is concluded in 2005’s Lady Vengeance, recently released on DVD.

I don’t even know where to begin. The story is about a dead mute who’s sister is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. From that premise we end up with a film about revenge (obviously - the clue’s in the title), family, black market organ trading, kidnapping, torture, love and sign language tied in with a socio-political subtext. Well okay, it’s not about sign language, but I’m serious about the subtext.

For a film with such a bleak overtone, Sympathy is beautifully shot. For the most part it eschews any fancy camera work for still, single viewpoint scenes that are supremely complemented by minimal soundtrack, restrained dialogue and highly efficient and evocative sound effects. This tends to make the violence and brutality of the film all the more shocking, although I should stress that this film is neither graphic nor exploitative and Park’s distinctive and effective shooting style refrains from glamourising the explicit content.

Some quite harrowing scenes mean Sympathy is not for the faint of heart, but the soul of the film is that it refuses to judge the actions of the central protagonists. Uniquely for a vengeance thriller, or at least for the usual blockbuster thrillers we’ve become accustomed to, this film lacks either a main victim or an indentifiable bad guy. You won’t find any simplistic moralizing here.

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is a compelling, stunning and superb film and considerably better than a lot of others I’ve seen recently. You could spend your time in worse ways than sitting down and popping this film in your DVD player. (Plus it’s currently available for £5.99 at an HMV near you. Don’t say I don’t tell you about all the best bargains!)