Sympathy for Lady Vengeance review

 Number 618 on the top 1000 films of all time is the South Korean neo-noir, psychological thriller ' Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.'

Lee Geum-Ja (Lee Young-oe) has just been released from prison. Her crime? She was falsely convicted for the murder of a five -year-old schoolboy thirteen years earlier. She swears revenge on the real killer Baek Han-sung (Choi Min-Sik.)

Let's star off with the criticism, which I'm sad to say was Choi Min-Sik. He is one of Korea's most pre-eminent actors wowing audiences in Old Boy, but also terrifying them in I saw the Devil. In the latter, he paid a monstrous serial killer. Yet as murderer Mr Baek, he was disappointing. He lacked the same intensity as his other role roles. And he wasn't anymore threatening than a bank manager.

Lady Vengeance is the third installment of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy after Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and the aforementioned Old Boy. Old Boy still remains my favourite. Everything about it was perfect - confusing and complicated sure, but not as much as Lady Vengeance.

True everything does resolve and become clear, but it took a while to get there. There is a lot of set-up in the beginning as the film delves into Geum-Ja's fellow inmates, who in one way or another help her to track down Mr Baek. It was interesting to an extent. After a while, I was waiting for them to hurry up to the next plot point.

Despite the slow start, it all built toward a thrilling conclusion - perhaps the darkest of the Vengeance trilogy. *spoilers to follow.*

 Having tracked down Mr Baek and imprisoned him in an old school, Geumg-Ja discovers he has killed other children. She invites the victim's families to exact their own vengeance. Enter a 12 Angry Men-esque scene, where the families debate the morality behind the actions they're about to take. Here Park Chan-Wook rightly took his time to delve into the psychology underpinning such a morally-deprived act.

There exists two versions of the film. A standard version and one where the colour progressively fades into monochrome. Unknowingly, I had watched the latter. I thought this was a great device that really highlighted how in the pursuit of vengeance, we become black-in-white in our thinking. There is no longer space for nuance or doubt. Maybe some would argue this is on-the-nose storytelling, but I still enjoyed it.

And I did enjoy Lady Vengeance. A slow start, a great ending, but also a disappointing performance from Choi Min-Sik.

Mash review

 Number 616 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Robert Altman's war-comedy film Mash.

Mash follows the antics of three medical officers Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland,) Captain Trapper John Mcintyre (Eliot Gould) and Captain Duke Forrest (Tom Skerrit) during the Korean war. Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman and Rene Auberjonois co-star.

If you don't know the film Mash then you certainly know the subsequent TV show. Sufficed to say, it was one of the most popular American sitcoms with the most watched TV show finale ever. This is all in spite of how Altman absolutely despised the show.

And like how he despised the TV show, i despised the film. Many critics including the distinguished Roger Ebert, regard it as one of the funniest satires of war ever. Evidently, we we were watching different films, as I, far from my sides hurting from laughing, my eyes were hurting from rolling back in my head.

I barely cracked a smile through the two-hour run-time. it wasn't a funny film. Through a modern lens, you could certainly argue the humour hasn't aged well. I'm sure many modern women wouldn't be happy with how Margaret Houlihan was the butt of every joke.

Through every other lens, it just wasn't funny. It didn't help all the characters were really unlikeable. Hawkeye and Trapper were supposed to be loveable rogues, but they're also insubordinate jerks who like to cause trouble. They were obnoxious and annoying. They weren't characters I wanted to laugh with or at. And even the poor victim Houlihan was too much of a wet blanket to be truly interesting to watch.

In some ways, their characters reflected the actors playing them. Sutherland and Gould famously clashed with Altman and his improvisational directorial style - going so far as to try and get him fired by studio execs. Scriptwriter Ring Lardon JR also had his own problems with Altman. This is despite how he won the Oscar for best screenplay. It definitely changes your perspective of the film.

And my perspective? It was an unfunny film with unlikeable characters.

Blood Simple review

 Number 586 on the top 1000 films of all time is the neo-noir 'Blood Simple.'

Barman Ray (John Getz) is having an affair with his boss Marty's (Dan Hedaya) wife Abby (Frances Mcdormand.) Upon discovering this, Marty arranges sleazy PI Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to kill them both.

Blood Simple was the directorial debut of the Coen Brothers. They also wrote and produced the film. And they certainly laid the groundwork for their future careers. This was long before they were winning Academy Awards or creating the most surreal of cinema, but they set the stage for things to come.

Often I find Coen Brothers' films too zany and weird, but Blood Simple was relatively straightforward. Or as straightforward as any noir film can be. As one can expect, Blood Simple has many twists and turns although it all makes sense in the end. I think...kinda...

Speaking of debuts, this was also the screen debut of the always terrific Frances Mcdormand. Just like the Coen Brothers, she was laying the groundwork for her future career. What an illustrious career it has been. She remains one of only three actors to win three Best Acting Oscars - sharing the honour with Katherine Hepburn and Daniel Day-Lewis. Standing on shoulders of giants to say the least... 

Along with Katy Hepburn, Frances Mcdormand has really improved representation of women characters on-screen. Long gone are the days of women either being dumb blondes, sex objects or scream queens. The likes of Mcdormand and Hepburn proved that women are capable of playing just as interesting, tough and fully-formed characters as men do. 

Abby is no exception. She's more than capable of protecting herself from all the sleazy men in her life - you only need to look at how she deals with the sleazy PI Visser. He is just one of the many sleazy men in Abby's life - all played by relatively unknown actors who haven't gone onto have the same careers as Frances Mcdormand.

It's a credit to the Coen Brothers that they were able to write, produce and direct, such a thrilling and inventive neo-noir film with such an unknown cast.