Lee Yeong-Ae Shines in Lady Vengeance

Director Park Chan-Wook Cushions Twists & Turns with Moral Overtones

Jul 23, 2009 Lynette S.K. Webster

Korean arthouse violence comes full circle in last of Vengeance Trilogy. Go Su-Hee and Choi Min-Sik shock with their excellent portrayals of the worst kinds of criminals.

Interestingly, the Korean title for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance translates as The Kind Hearted Ms. Geum-Ja. Echoing Korean classic Oldboy, Park Chan-Wook unravels Lady Vengeance with a specific music style. Red retro lines flow across the screen like blood veins, and like the intricate revolver tattoo later, is underscored by silky classical music. Leading lady Lee Geum-Ja (Lee Yeong-Ae) also wears red in her eyeshadow, so no one will mistake her for being kind. The fashion and beauty theme pervades the movie, like Geum-Ja’s character.

Lee Geum Ja: From Angel to Witch

Lady Vengeance’s twists and turns so deeply mirror Lee Geum-Ja’s moral choices that the audience has to identify with her. But instead of having Lee narrate her own story, director Park Chan-Wook uses an observer’s viewpoint, as if Lee’s darkness cannot be fully accessed. After all, Lee would have been an accomplice in Mr. Baek’s (Choi Min-Sik) crime - a fact that is never verbalised in Lady Vengeance.

Of the three films that make Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy, Lady Vengeance is the strongest in character development. The movie begins when Lee Geum-Ja is released from prison, and her ex-inmates note how much she has changed. Taking audiences back a bit, the film documents how Lee, a child murderer, suddenly transforms into an angelic figure in prison, helping inmates and giving hope to TV viewers. But upon release, Lee suddenly reveals her “magnificent plan”. She then tells the preacher to screw himself, and dramatically topples his tofu cake, the symbol of a new beginning. The audience wonders whether to like or hate her.

Prison Life

References to ‘Angel’ and ‘Witch’ reverberate through the film. As viewers follow each of Lee’s ex-inmates, it is slowly revealed how Lee’s plan started 13 years ago. Park Chan-Wook keeps the crime element on female ground, drawing parallels between Witch Ma-Nyeo (Go Su-Hee) and Mr. Baek. As Lee forms her plan to kill Mr. Baek, flashbacks of the Witch’s murder is played out. Go Su-Hee is brilliant as the Witch, the butch bully who forces her inmates to go down on her. Lee moves from TV-known title of ‘Angel’ to prison-given name ‘Witch’ after she successfully kills Ma-Nyeo. At the end of the movie, there is another reference to ‘Angel’ passing overhead, when the children’s parents share Lee’s cake.

1940s Femme Fatale Homage

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance has masculine rough edges, but Lady Vengeance is very much a woman’s movie. It comes full circle, has a strong motherhood theme, and Lee is very fashionable. She makes it a point to wear high heels, bakes beautiful cakes and smokes like a 1940s femme fatale. The side plot about her daughter Jenny (Kwon Yea-Young) strengthens her likeability. But then she goes and shoots her daughter’s dog. The audience is always reminded of Lee’s criminality: she has sex with a 20-year old boy and kills a dog. The director sensitively omits the dead dog shot that would outrage audiences. Its death is implied - perhaps Lee did not shoot it?

Children Murders

The most violent scene is the children’s murders played back on video. There is also a violent dinner table sex scene, but these scenes are not gory. The violence of Lady Vengeance is emotional rather than graphic, so in many ways it is the least violent of the Trilogy, yet also contains the worst crime. Murder takes on an angelic face, as each parent mutilates Mr. Baek. And so the Vengeance Trilogy closes on a moral ending, as angel of death Lee plunges into her daughter’s pristine tofu cake.

Chinjeolhan Geumjassi (Lady Vengeance: UK/USA Title; Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: UK Title)
Director: Park Chan-Wook
Writer: Jeong Seo-Gyeong, Park Chan-Wook
Actors: Lee Yeong-Ae, Choi Min-Sik, Go Su-Hee, Kwon Yea-Young, Oh Dal-Su, Kim Byeong-Ok, Kim Shi-Hoo, Lee Seung-Shin
Running time: 112 minutes

The copyright of the article Lee Yeong-Ae Shines in Lady Vengeance in Foreign Films is owned by Lynette S.K. Webster. Permission to republish Lee Yeong-Ae Shines in Lady Vengeance in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Lee Yeong-Ae as Beautiful Femme Fatale Lee Geum-Ja	Angel or Witch? A Versatile Lee Yeong-Ae	Red for Danger: Lady Vengeance
Great Performances by Go Su-Hee & Choi Min-Sik	Includes Cameos from previous 2 Trilogy Films