You know those oops moments we all have from time to time? Like when youre carrying a tray loaded with mugs of coffee, and you cant remember which ones you put sugar in? Or when a friend asks you to look after his goldfish while hes away on his holi-bobs, and you forget to feed them on a couple of occasions? Well Ryu, the deaf-mute played by Ha-kyun Shin, has a moment a bit like that in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance when he abducts his ex-boss daughter in order to raise money for his sisters kidney transplant operation, and accidentally fails to keep her alive. If thats not an oops, I dont know what is.
What follows is one of the coldest, grimmest quests for revenge youre likely to see, as scorned daddykins Park Dong-jin (Kang-ho Song) goes on the rampage in an attempt to track down our button-lipped kidnapper and make him pay for his crimes. Ryu has on his side a terrorist girlfriend (Bo-bae Han) and the ability to pull a few hyper-violent moves of his own but will it be enough to avoid a right good kicking from the less-than-chuffed father on his tail?
Director Chan-wook Park, who went on to receive plaudits a-plenty for the following years Oldboy, has a realistic, down-to-earth style of story-telling which side-swerves extravagant stylistics and over-egged effects in favour of showing us things as they are. Its a welcome approach to film-making, particularly in this case where what could have been a generic melodramatic pseudo-thriller turns into a gritty, believable edge-of-the-seat drama.
Viewers should be warned that things get increasingly bloody and gruesome as the tale progresses, and by the time the end credits are rolling the film is a million miles away from its almost dark comic beginnings. Some of the scenes add little to either the atmosphere or the narrative, and as a result it could do with cutting them out and making itself a more compact, polished final product in the process. But, by effectively ending the kidnap plot by the halfway mark, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance leaves itself with a full hour to keep us guessing as to where the storys going to go next. The tone is a little inconsistent as a result, but for the most part its a formula that works.