We've all seen Revenge movies. John Wick is probably the first one that comes to mind these days... but after watching this one, you'll wonder if those movies were even movies at all, or were they just time-wasting trash (harsh, I know).
This Korean gem is one of the most interesting pieces of cinema you’ll ever see. Just make sure you watch the subbed one and not the dubbed one (watch in Korean, not in English). The basics of it is that a drunk man, on his daughter’s birthday, is kidnapped, kept away from humans and imprisoned for 15 years (15 fucking years). Then suddenly one day he is released. Out of Nowhere. He then sets out to go find the people who kidnapped him…. Sounds simple right? Well this is not your ordinary movie. The director here gives a world class showing that could give Tarantino a run for his money (especially with that hallway scene, its one of the best hallway fight scenes you'll ever see) and the end of the story is gonna have you sitting there after the movie is done, in silence wondering if your life is gonna be the same after watching it.
The beauty in this one isn’t in the action though, although it is good. The director and actor do a marvelous job drawing you into the plot, not disclosing too much info and then dropping you on your head when you least expect it. It’s like finding yourself with a virgin woman but when you get to bed with her, she starts showing you things you’ve never seen before. That would be surprising right? Well that’s the feeling this beauty will give you. Now go watch it!!!
Spoilers Ahead…trust me you don't wanna see the spoilers for this one. Go watch it. Stoooop
What the actual Fuck. He fell in love with and was fucking his own daughter (like we all like some kinky stuff, but that’s a tad too far even for me). I genuinely was surprised. The last sequence of this movie is one of the most heart-breaking things you'll ever see. Hard to watch really- the sequence of him begging and cutting his own tongue off is one of the hardest things to watch as we can feel his pain. Masterclass.
The motivation of the main villain is… sound, not great but sound. I personally feel like he punished the wrong person. Although the main protagonist is the person who saw it, the real culprit who spread it was his friend. He was the one, in my eyes, who deserved the punishment, not Dae-su Oh. The means of punishment was way too harsh too, from murdering his wife to making him fall for his daughter, that’s not the same as a sister…. That’s just harsh man. DAMN. Not even a Lanister would do that.
The movie is great. Although it has your normal Asian tropes from random screaming to some sequences I don't always understand, the movie itself is beautiful. How the hallway fight scene was shot was alluring (although him surviving that is quite impossible). The movie does slow down a bit after his release, but the last 30 minutes are, in my opinion, one of the most emotional minutes I've seen on screen. Spectacular in my opinion.
8/10