VENGEANCE DIARY A Park Chan-Wook Film Festival
VENGEANCE DIARY A Park Chan-Wook Film Festival
CONTENTS
DIRECTOR INTRODUCTION
6
DIRECTOR'S INTERVIEW
10
SELECTED FILMS Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
18
Oldboy
30
Lady Vengeance
42
Thirst
54
Stoker
66
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL Festival info
80
Schedule
81
DIRECTOR
PARK CHAN-WOOK Park Chan-wook (born August 23, 1963) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. One of the most acclaimed and popular filmmakers in his native country. Park was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea and initially pursued a career as a filmmaker after seeing Hitchcock’s Vertigo, during his time at Sogang University. After his first two feature films were unsuccessful, he later shifted over to become a film critic. In 2000, he returned with Joint Security Area, which was hugely successful both commercially and critically inside of Korea, allowing him creative independence with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the first in the critically dubbed ‘Vengeance Trilogy’. He later claimed greater critical success at Cannes Film Festival, taking the Grand Prix with Oldboy in 2004, and Prix du Jury with Thirst in 2009. In 2016, he released The Handmaiden, to even more critical acclaim and commercial success across the globe.
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GUY
FILMOGRAPHY
FILMS
SHORT FILMS
The Moon Is... the Sun’s Dream (1992)
Judgment (1999)
Trio (1997)
If You Were Me (2003)
Joint Security Area (2000)
Three... Extremes (2004)
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Night Fishing (2011)
Oldboy (2003)
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero (2011)
Lady Vengeance (2005)
Day Trip (2013)
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006)
V (2013)
Thirst (2009)
A Rose Reborn (2014)
Stoker (2013) 8
The Handmaiden (2016)
TELEVISION The Little Drummer Girl (2018)
THE DARKEST
One quite obvious theme located within Park’s film is the idea of vengeance; most interestingly, however, is the way in which this idea of vengeance links throughout the films outside of his ‘Vengeance Trilogy’. The theme isn’t simply violent ‘revenge’, for the vengeance within these films reflects old world ideals set against the backdrop of the capitalist society that emerged in South Korea during the post-2000 era. This is a society that has lost its sense of identity and nostalgia, after nearly a century of being controlled and oppressed, such that Park uses the symbol of Vengeance as a practical and sudden redemption. This transgression of control, a revolt against oppression, can also be found in the use of his protagonists, specifically the males who turn themselves into spectacles; they are to be revered, to transfix the viewer through their strange, oddball appearances, and their use of violence. Intended to represent an extreme display of masculinity, such males subvert the traditional theory proposed by Laura Mulvey around gaze within cinema. In a simplistic sense, Mulvey’s theory contends that women are used as objects within cinema, with the camera lens itself representing an entirely male gaze. This is developed further in The Handmaiden, where the eroticized nature of the female characters enables them to take control, and instead of being tools of the male gaze, objects of the camera, they actually begin to transcend this viewpoint, using their sexuality as a form of empowerment.
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DIRECTOR’S INTERVIEW
INTERVIEWS
By Esther K. Chae Jul 1, 2006
A PARK CHAN-WOOK INTERVIEW
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It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, and congratulations on your vengeance trilogy. How did it come about? And what are your feelings looking back at the three films as a whole? After Joint Security Area JSA, I wanted to deal with social and economic class divisions within South Korea. So in the trilogy’s first film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a young deaf-mute man named Ryu kidnaps a wealthy businessman’s daughter for ransom money, in order to pay for an operation for his terminally ill sister. Then I jumped at the opportunity to make Oldboy, based in part on a Japanese animation, once I heard that the actor Choi Min-sik was on board to play the vengeful father character, Oh Dae-su. Oh is abducted on the street after just having been released from prison where he’d been brought in for drunk and disorderly behavior and wakes to find himself in a drab, makeshift cell with only a television as company and no idea why he’s there. Finally released after 15 years of solitary confinement—during which time he learns on TV that his wife has been murdered, and oh himself is the main suspect—oh is demonically determined to find who did this to him, why, and to wreak the vengeance he’s had years to contemplate. Looking back at the films, one thing stands out: there was an event where the three movies were screened together and a special poster had been made with all the leading characters on one page—Choi Min-sik, Song Kang-ho, Lee Young-ae, Shin Ha-kyun, Du-na Bae and Hae-jung Kang. When I saw them together, I felt this contentment that I had worked with these amazing actors who represent an important generation of Korean cinema. That is what I am most proud of from the trilogy.
During this time you wrote many of your own scripts? Yes, I wrote a lot.
And the technical side of making movies, did you learn that while you were working as an AD in Choongmoo-ro? I guess so. Being a good director is really less about the technical side.
And more about who you have working with you? Yes, having a keen eye for that and knowing how to utilize the people around you well. You need a clear vision, for both sound and image, and to be able to communicate this vision well to others. The professionals will take care of realizing the technical side of things. For example, I’ll say something like, “I’d like this scene to be somewhat milky and unclear.” The DP will figure out what filter to use, the lighting, and so on. It doesn’t sound like it’s too hard, but in reality there are a lot of directors who don’t have visions.
I have never personally met an artist who comes from a critic’s background. Well, I’m not like the French New Wave directors who were professional film critics and later became directors, such as Francois Truffaut or Eric Rohmer. I feel like I became a director first, then started writing so as not to starve!
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What was the Korean audience’s reaction to the character Ms. Kumja, who turns into a murderess who survives prison to seek revenge on her husband? She is certainly not a classical heroine.
I loved Ms. Kumja’s character exactly because she had so many faults and freely expressed all of them and yet still seemed threatening. The character Ma-nyuh [the Witch] bullying another female inmate into performing oral sex on her was pretty shocking for a Korean movie. What were the audiences’ and the Korean Film Commission’s response? I wanted this movie to be seen by an audience 15 years and older, but it ended up with an NC-17 rating, and that particular scene influenced the decision. Our perspectives are a bit different—the Korean Film Commission had less of a problem with the oral sex itself than with my portrayal of violence inside the jail system. They would have preferred to see the positive side, the inmates getting re-educated and well adjusted in order to go back out into society. They felt that young people shouldn’t see this other reality, even though it happens all the time. It doesn’t mean it won’t happen just because people don’t see it. But I didn’t put that scene in to be critical of the jail system; I don’t even think it’s that big of a deal. That’s why I let my then-12-year-old daughter watch it three times (laughter). Of course there will always be that gap between the filmmaker and the Film Commission members.
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Of course the female audience liked it more than my usual male audience, but some female groups didn’t welcome it. For example, there is a Women in Film group that yearly selects positive female roles in film, and they didn’t respond to this movie. My movie was a bit jjim-jjim [colloquial: fishy, unsettling] for them. Ms. Kumja uses the inmates she met in jail for her own revenge; she doesn’t have a sisterhood based on love but uses these people for her own goal. She doesn’t care about them or think of their needs.
American and European film market is anxious to have you work with them. Any plans? Europe is not that eager as they are also suffering with funding problems, but there have been many offers from the States. I’m not sure; I go back and forth. Most important is the language barrier. I’m not like John Woo, who does a lot of action-oriented movies, which I think makes that crossover more feasible. I try to evoke a certain subtlety, especially in communicating with actors. It’s hard enough to convey this with Korean actors. The Americans keep saying that a lot of foreigners come and make movies so it won’t be a problem, but I wonder. Also, I don’t think I’d have enough freedom. I’m told that final edit is not given to directors easily in America, especially if the budget gets larger. But if the budget is going to be small, there is no reason for me to go to Hollywood to make movies. There are some things, like a Western or a serious sci-fi, that I would love to do but can’t in Korea—there’s no background or support for that here, and the budget and technology is not as established as in Hollywood. The most important thing is the script, and I’ve been receiving those but haven’t found a good one yet.
“You can’t look away, not only because the carnage is so masterfully photographed, but because the director sucks you into his bleak, poetic, even sensible vision of cosmic brutality.”
I found this quote of yours on the Internet Movie Database: “Basically, I’m throwing out the question ‘When is such violence justified?’ To get that question to touch the audience physically and directly—that’s what my goal is. In the experience of watching my films, I don’t want the viewer to stop at the mental or the intellectual. I want them to feel my work physically, viscerally. And because that is one of my goals, the title ‘exploitative’ will probably follow me around for a while.” I remember saying the first part but not the second. I do want the viewer to be stimulated mentally and emotionally when they observe my work. But even more than that, to experience something physical, like cringing or being absolutely dead exhausted after watching my films. Watching a film shouldn’t be an easy, giggling, everyday experience but a really shocking, stimulating and at times painful experience. My violence is not like those in action films, where the fight sequences are beautiful and choreographed, or like those at the end of a revenge sequence with the villain, where it’s cathartic. My violence comes from the aggressor and the aggressee both being pained because of the violence to and from each other. I want this pain and sadness to be felt by my audience.
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Can you talk more about conversing with actors? I think it’s too late if you are talking with your actors on set. You have to have spoken a lot with your actors before shooting. So we drink together a lot. Lee Young-ae does not drink so much, so that was a little difficult. We drank a lot of coffee instead. Of course we do table reads, but we don’t talk only about the script but about a wide range of things. As a director, I want to see the actors’ daily behaviors when they are relaxed, what facial expressions they carry that the audience might not be familiar with. With my two first, poorly reviewed movies—and I agree they were not good—I failed in communicating with my actors, because I didn’t respect them. I had studied Hitchcock’s movies, and I’m not sure how he dealt with actors, but his actors seemed to be stereotypical. I never felt that they were breathing entities but rather the director’s moving set pieces. When I was young and naive, I thought directors had to control all the elements of movie making, so I treated the actors that way too. I thought they were intellectually inferior. I tried to control everything the actor did—turning his or her head, walking this or that way—I had a lot of stupid and arrogant ideas that prevented me from having in-depth conversations with them. After the two failed movies, I had an opportunity to shoot a short. I was so tired of introducing other people’s films as a critic and was dying to make another movie. I was so poor at the time, I set up a system with my wealthier friends: Monday you buy me lunch and dinner. I milked my working friends to buy meals for my crew and actors, whom of course I couldn’t pay. The actors were veterans from theater that I had begged to work with me. I gave a lot of thought to why my first two movies were so bad.
I also started thinking about all the movies that I really liked. The ones that I watched more than three times all had “magnetic” actors in them. And they acted well. I distinguish between these two qualities because not all magnetic actors are good actors. Clint Eastwood is horrible. He only has one expression. I don’t think Steve McQueen is that great of an actor either. But they’re very magnetic. I came to the conclusion that I was attracted to magnetic performers. So I decided to approach the short differently, and I used theater actors as an ensemble cast trapped in a room. All the actors were experienced and intelligent, and as I started talking with them, my respect for them grew. I later drew on that experience and used the same kind of ensemble cast in JSA, with the amazing actors Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-jun, Lee Young-ae, Kim Taehoon and Shin Ha-kyun. These five are now too expensive to ever have all together in one movie. It was in mingling with these actors, drinking and talking with them every day, that I finally awoke to their power and importance. Not all actors are like them, but the brilliant ones have an incredible intelligence for observing objects and people. My biggest pride as a filmmaker now is working and creating with actors. As a director, I worship them. I’ve totally changed. I write and draw out a very detailed storyboard. I put in everything that I can possibly imagine so when I see my film at the end there is almost nothing that is different from the storyboard. I am that calculating. But the one thing I can’t calculate is the acting. Brilliant actors are not predictable. Normal people reading the script would think, “At this line I would cry,” but a good actor could do the absolute opposite and have that element of surprise. So I don’t explain the details: cry after three seconds. There are directors like that, and I think that is really foolish— but maybe you need that when you work with bad actors. 17
SYMPATHY FOR MR.VENGEANCE SHOWTIMES 1:30 PM
2:00PM
9:30AM
March 28 Saturday
March 29 Sunday
March 30 Monday
SYMPATHY FOR MR.VENGEANCE (2002)
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STARRING
WRITERS
MUSIC
Song Kang-ho Shin Ha-kyun Bae Doona
Park Myeong-Chan Lee Mu-yeong Park Chan-wook Lee Jae-sun Lee Jong-yong
Baik Hyun-jhin Jang Young-gyu
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITOR
Kim Byung-il
Kim Sang-bum
RELEASE DATE
LANGUAGE
RUNTIME
March 29, 2002
Korean
129 min
PLOT Ryu, a deaf man, works in a factory to support his ailing sister in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Ryu tries to donate one of his kidneys to his sister but is told that his blood type does not match that of his sister and so is not a suitable donor. After being laid off from his job by the factory boss, Ryu contacts a black market organ dealer who agrees to sell him a kidney suitable for his sister in exchange for 10 million Korean won, plus one of Ryu’s own kidneys. He takes the severance pay from his factory job and offers the money to the organ dealers, who take the money and one of his kidneys, but then disappear. Three weeks later, Ryu learns from his doctor that a kidney has been found for his sister and that the operation will cost 10 million won, but since the organ dealers stole his money, he will not be able to pay for it. In need of money for the operation and in retaliation for his being fired, Ryu and his girlfriend, Yeong-mi (Doona Bae), a radical anarchist, conspire to kidnap the daughter of the boss who fired him. Instead, he realizes that the kidnapping would immediately put
them under police suspicion, and they decide to kidnap Yu-sun (Bo-bae Han), the daughter of the boss’s friend, Park Dong-jin (Kang-ho Song), another factory executive. The girl stays with Ryu’s sister (thinking that Ryu is merely babysitting for a time), who takes care of her while the distraught Dong-jin arranges to pay her ransom. After Ryu collects the money and returns home, he learns that his sister has discovered his scheme and, unwilling to be involved or burden Ryu further, killed herself. Ryu takes Yu-sun and his sister’s body into the countryside to bury her by a riverbed they used to frequent as children. While Ryu mourns, Yu-sun accidentally slips into the river and drowns. Days later, as Dong-jin mourns his daughter and swears revenge at the river bank, Ryu ambushes and murders the organ dealers. Dong-jin, having investigated the identities of the kidnappers, finds Yeong-mi and begins interrogating her. Yeong-mi apologizes for Yu-sun’s death but warns him of her membership in a terrorist organization that, knowing Dong-jin’s
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identity, will kill him if she dies. Dong-jin, unfazed by the threats, tortures her to death by electrocuting her. Ryu returns to Yeong-mi’s apartment building and discovers the police removing her body on a stretcher. Ryu, consumed with grief, swears vengeance on Dong-jin. Ryu arrives at Dong-jin’s residence in an attempt to kill him. He waits for some time, but Dong-Jin does not arrive: he is, in fact, waiting at Ryu’s apartment. After Dong-Jin does not arrive, Ryu returns to his apartment. However, Dong-jin had previously set up an electric booby trap on his doorknob, which renders Ryu unconscious. Dong-jin then binds Ryu and returns him to the riverbed where Yu-sun died. After binding Ryu’s hands and feet and bringing him chest-high into the water, an emotional Dong-jin acknowledges that although Ryu is a good man, he has no choice; Dong-jin then slashes Ryu’s Achilles tendons, resulting in his drowning. Dong-jin drags Ryu back to shore and then drives off to a desolate location to bury the body. Once there, he begins to dig a hole, but soon a group of men arrives. They surround and stab Dong-jin repeatedly, finally attaching a note to his chest identifying themselves as the terrorist group of which Yeong-mi was part. The group leave Dong-jin dying beside his car with the bloody tools and bags he used to chop up, dismember, and package Ryu’s body.
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00:12:50 RYU AND YEONG-MI
나는�당신이�좋은�사람이라는�것을�알고�있지만, 왜�내가�당신을�죽일�지�알고�있습니다. I KNOW YOU’RE A GOOD GUY, BUT YOU KNOW WHY I HAVE TO KILL YOU...
REVIEWS
28
Kevin Thomas Los Angeles Times
“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a stylish bloodbath relieved by shafts of dark humor.”
James Crawford Village Voice
“Park Chanwook's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance accomplishes a miraculous feat by being harrowing and humane in equal measure.”
V.A. Musetto New York Post
“You’ll likely be repulsed by much of Park’s vision, but, as somebody once said: no pain, no gain.”
Wesley Morris Boston Globe
“Park prizes craftsmanship over bargain-bin schlock. It’s an odd testament to his spiritedness that, despite the coldblooded killing and trail of the dead, Mr. Vengeance feels warmly suffused with life.”
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OLDBOY
SHOWTIMES 3:45 PM
4:15PM
11:45AM
March 28 Saturday
March 29 Sunday
March 30 Monday
OLDBOY (2003)
32
STARRING
WRITERS
MUSIC
Choi Min-sik Yoo Ji-tae Kang Hye-jung
Hwang Jo-yun Lim Jun-hyung Park Chan-wook
Cho Young-wuk
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITOR
BASED ON
Chung Chung-hoon
Kim Sang-bum
Old Boy by Garon Tsuchiya Nobuaki Minegishi
RELEASE DATE
LANGUAGE
RUNTIME
November 21, 2003
Korean
120 min
PLOT In 1988, a businessman named Oh Dae-su is arrested for drunkenness, missing his daughter’s fourth birthday. After his friend Joo-hwan picks him up from the police station, they go to a phone booth for Dae-su to call home. While Joo-hwan is talking to Dae-su’s wife, Dae-su is kidnapped and wakes up in a sealed hotel room, where food is delivered through a trap-door. Watching the television, Dae-su learns that his wife has been murdered and he is the prime suspect. Dae-su passes the time shadowboxing, planning revenge and attempting to dig a tunnel to escape. 15 years have passed since he was imprisoned. It is 2003 and a new century has dawned. Just before digging himself to freedom, Dae-su is sedated, hypnotized and wakes up on a rooftop dressed in a suit. On the rooftop, Dae-su sees a man on the ledge holding a dog, ready to jump to his death. He steps in front of the man’s face and stays uncomfortably close as to make it certain he is not dreaming. The man asks Dae-su, “Even though I am
no better than a beast, don’t I have the right to live?” Dae-su recounts everything that has happened so far to the man who reacts by attempting to tell Dae-su the reason for his own suicide attempt. Disinterested, Dae-su leaves him on the rooftop to jump off with the dog. Dae-Su tests his fighting skills on a group of young thugs. Afterward, a mysterious beggar gives him money and a cell phone. Dae-su enters a sushi restaurant where he meets Mi-do, the restaurant’s young chef. Dae-su receives a taunting phone call from his captor, who refuses to explain the reason for Dae-su’s imprisonment. He collapses and is taken in by Mi-do. After he recovers, Dae-su tries to find his daughter and the location of his prison. Discovering that his daughter was adopted by a Swedish couple, he gives up trying to contact her. Dae-su locates the Chinese restaurant that made food for his prison and finds the prison by following a delivery man. It is a private prison where people can pay to have others incarcerated. Dae-su enters the prison and tortures the warden, Mr. Park, who does not know the identity of Dae-su’s captor
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but reveals that Dae-su was imprisoned for “talking too much”. While leaving the prison, Dae-su is attacked by a large number of guards and stabbed in the back with a knife but manages to defeat them all. Dae-su’s captor, a wealthy man named Lee Woo-jin, contacts Dae-su again and gives him an ultimatum: if Dae-su discovers the motive for his imprisonment within five days, Woo-jin will kill himself by stopping the pacemaker in his chest. Otherwise, he will kill Mi-do. As Dae-su and Mi-do become intimate, they have sex. Meanwhile, Joo-hwan tries to contact Dae-su with some important information about Woojin’s sister but is murdered by Woo-jin, who was secretly following him after Dae-su removed all of Woo-jin’s electronic bugs. Dae-su eventually recalls that he and Woo-jin had gone to the same high school, and he had witnessed Woo-jin committing incest with his own sister. Dae-su told Joo-hwan what he had seen before leaving the school, which led to his classmates learning about the event. Rumors about Woo-jin’s sister started
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to spread and she eventually killed herself, leading a grief-stricken Woo-jin to seek revenge. Back in the present day, Woo-jin cuts off Mr. Park’s hand, fulfilling an earlier threat by Dae-su, causing Mr. Park and his gang to seemingly join forces with Dae-su. Dae-su leaves Mi-do with Mr. Park and sets out to face Woo-jin. At Woo-jin’s penthouse, Woo-jin reveals that Mi-do is Dae-su’s daughter. Woo-jin had orchestrated everything by using hypnosis to guide Dae-su to the sushi restaurant, arranging for them to meet and fall in love so that Dae-su will experience the same pain of incest that Woo-jin did. Dae-su attempts to attack Woo-jin but is beaten badly by Woo-jin’s bodyguard. Using scissors as a weapon, Dae-su manages to stab the bodyguard in the ear, deafening him. The deafened bodyguard, now seriously hurt and enraged, attempts to kill Dae-su. Woo-jin, unable to call him off, intervenes and coldly shoots his bodyguard in the head with a Derringer pistol. Woo-jin reveals that Mr. Park is still working for him and sold Mr. Park the
newly refurbished prison building in exchange for him amputating his hand. Woo-jin threatens to tell the truth to Mi-do, who is being held in Mr. Park’s new prison. Dae-su apologizes for his involvement in the death of Woo-jin’s sister and humiliates himself by imitating a dog, begging Woo-jin not to tell Mi-do. When Woo-jin laughs unimpressed, Dae-su cuts out his own tongue as a sign of penance. Woojin finally accepts Dae-su’s apology and tells Mr. Park to hide the truth from Mi-do. After entering the elevator, Woo-jin recalls his sister’s suicide and shoots himself in the head with the Derringer. In the epilogue, an undisclosed amount of time later, Dae-su finds the hypnotist from the prison to erase his knowledge of Mi-do being his daughter, so that they can stay happy together. To persuade the hypnotist, Dae-Su repeats the question that he heard from the man on the rooftop, so she begins a hypnosis to erase his memories. Afterwards, Mi-do finds Dae-su lying in snow and confesses her love for him while the two embrace. There are no signs of the hypnotist, leaving it ambiguous if Dae-Su really even met her. Dae-su breaks into a wide smile, which is then slowly replaced by a look of pain. Whether the hypnosis really worked is left unknown.and begins interrogating her.
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01:56:51 DAE-SU WAS HUGGED BY MI-DO
웃으면, 세상도�너와�함께�웃을�것이다. 울어라, 너�혼자�울�것이다.
LAUGH AND THE WORLD LAUGHS WITH YOU. WEEP, AND YOU WEEP ALONE.
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REVIEWS
40
Stephen Hunter Washington Post
“Its magnificence is that it takes itself dead serious. It's not entertainment, but it's sure a piece of toughness.”
Joe Morgenstern Wall Street Journal
“Shakespearean in its violence, Oldboy also calls up nightmare images of spiritual and physical isolation that are worthy of Samuel Beckett or Dostoyevsky.”
Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel
“It's mesmerizing and discomfiting, engaging the viewer on a visceral and an intellectual level.”
Walter V. Addiego San Francisco Chronicle
“Deserves to be seen because of its relentless energy, the acting by Choi Min-sik that strikes a genuinely tragic note amid the mayhem and cartoonish excess, and the director's clear conviction that this wild story will resonate.”
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LADY VENGEANCE SHOWTIMES 5:50 PM
6:05PM
2:00PM
March 28 Saturday
March 29 Sunday
March 30 Monday
LADY VENGEANCE (2005)
44
STARRING
WRITERS
MUSIC
Lee Young-ae Choi Min-sik
Jeong Seo-kyeong Park Chan-wook
Jo Yeong-wook Choi Seung-hyun
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITOR
Chung Chung-hoon
Kim Jae-bum Kim Sang-bum
RELEASE DATE
LANGUAGE
RUNTIME
July 29, 2005
Korean
115 min
PLOT A Christian musical procession waits with a symbolic block of tofu outside a prison for the release of Lee Geum-ja, a recently reformed female prisoner. Convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 5-year-old schoolboy, Won-mo, 13 years earlier, Geum-ja became a national sensation because of her young age, angelic appearance, and eager confession to the crime. However, she became an inspirational model for prisoner reform during her incarceration, and her apparent spiritual transformation in prison earned her an early release on her sentence. Free, Geum-ja is now intent on revenge. Donning blood-red eye shadow and cutting off her little finger, Geum-ja quickly shows that her “kindhearted” behavior in prison was a cover to earn favor and further her intricate revenge plans. Once paroled, Geum-Ja visits the other paroled inmates, calling in favors that include food, shelter, and weapons. She also begins work in a pastry shop and starts an affair with the shop assistant, Geun-Shik, who would be the same age as the murdered schoolboy Won-mo, had he lived.
It is revealed that Geum-ja did not smother Won-mo. The detective on her case was aware of her innocence, but helped her fake certain crime-scene details to ensure her confession looked credible. As a young high school student, Geum-ja had become pregnant and, afraid to go home to her parents, turned to Mr. Baek, a teacher from her school, for help. Mr. Baek expected Geum-ja to provide sex and assist in his kidnapping racket in return. He used Geum-ja to lure 5-year-old Won-mo to him, with the intent of ransoming the child, but unintentionally killed the boy. He then kidnapped Geum-ja’s infant daughter and threatened to murder the baby if Geum-ja did not take the blame. Geum-ja spent 13 years in prison planning revenge on Mr. Baek for the murder of Won-mo, causing Geum-ja’s child to grow up without a mother, and for sending Geum-ja to prison in his place. Geum-ja discovers that her daughter was adopted by Australian parents. Jenny, now an adolescent, does not speak Korean and does not initially embrace her
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mother, though she returns with Geum-ja to Seoul to bond. Geum-ja plans to kidnap and murder Mr. Baek, now a children’s teacher at a preschool, with the aid of his wife, another ex-convict. Mr. Baek, who knows Geum-ja has been released, beats his wife and hires two thugs to kill Geum-ja and Jenny. In the ensuing fight, Geum-ja kills the thugs, while Mr. Baek is subdued. Mr. Baek wakes up gagged and tied to a chair in an abandoned schoolhouse. Geum-ja, eager yet hesitant to kill him, threatens him. On his cell phone strap, she discovers the red marble from Won-mo’s crime scene, which had been taken as a trophy, and she
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is horrified to see several other children’s trinkets also hanging from the strap. She rips his apartment apart to discover snuff tapes of the other children that he murdered. He had not been part of a ransoming racket; he would kidnap, torture, and murder a child from each school he worked at because he found small children annoying. After killing each child, he would fake a ransom call to the parents, collect the money, and move on to a different school. Sickened that four more children died because Geum-ja did not turn in the real killer 13 years ago, Geum-ja and the original case detective contact and transport the parents and relatives of the
missing children to the school. After watching each tape, and being told Mr. Baek is in the next room, the group decides to murder him together. They take turns on Mr. Baek until the last person, an emotionless grandmother, kills him with the school scissors of her murdered granddaughter. They take a group photo, ensuring that none of them can turn in the others without implicating themselves, and bury the corpse outside. Geum-ja, the detective, and the relatives all converge at Geum-ja’s bakery, where they eat a cake and sing a birthday song for their deceased children. Afterwards, Geum-ja sees the ghost of the murdered child. Before
she can ask him for her long-awaited redemption, he transforms into his grown self (the age that he would have been if he had lived) and gags her. Later, Geum-ja is walking down a street in the dark night while the snow is falling where she meets Jenny. They embrace before Geum-ja opens the cake box she is holding, revealing a white cake that resembles tofu. She instructs her daughter to “live white”, as pure as tofu. Jenny says Geum-ja should live even more purely. Geum-ja weeps uncontrollably as Jenny hugs her, while Geun-Shik stands behind them, happily looking up at the falling snow.
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00:18:14 GEUM-GA BECOMES A REVENGER
큰�죄를위한�큰�속죄. 작은�죄를위한�작은�속죄.
BIG ATONEMENT FOR BIG SINS. SMALL ATONEMENT FOR SMALL SINS.
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REVIEWS
52
Steven Rea Philadelphia Inquirer
“Hell can't possibly get any more beautiful, or strange, than the way it's rendered in Lady Vengeance.”
Michael Wilmington Chicago Tribune
“A film with the capacity to both sicken and delight, a dark thriller with an obsessive, shocking story, shot in gorgeous images that heighten the gruesomeness and horror of what they reveal.”
Stephen Hunter Washington Post
“If Lady Vengeance is just a slick cheap thrill, it also boasts extraordinary performances and unusually skillful, eerily beautiful production.”
Wesley Morris Boston Globe
“For once Park has stopped smirking long enough to consider the practical point of violence in a way that's pertinent to his own gruesome cinematic pursuits.”
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THIRST
SHOWTIMES 10:00 AM
4:05PM
March 29 Sunday
March 30 Monday
THIRST (2009)
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STARRING
WRITERS
MUSIC
Song Kang-ho Kim Ok-bin Kim Hae-sook Shin Ha-kyun Park In-hwan
Park Chan-wook Jeong Seo-kyeong
Jo Yeong-wook
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITOR
BASED ON
Chung Chung-hoon
Kim Sang-bum Kim Jae-bum
Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
RELEASE DATE
LANGUAGE
RUNTIME
April 30, 2009
Korean
134 min
PLOT Sang-hyun is a Catholic priest who volunteers at the hospital, providing ministry to the patients. He is well respected for his unwavering faith and dedicated service, but he secretly suffers from feelings of doubt and sadness. Sang-hyun volunteers to participate in an experiment to find a vaccine for the deadly Emmanuel Virus (EV). Although the experiment fails, and Sang-hyun is infected with the seemingly fatal disease, he makes a complete and rapid recovery after receiving a blood transfusion. News of his marvelous recovery quickly spreads among the devout parishioners of Sang-hyun’s congregation, and they begin to believe that he has a miraculous gift for healing. Soon, thousands more flock to Sang-hyun’s services. Among the new churchgoers are Kang-woo, Sang-hyun’s childhood friend, and his family. Kang-woo invites his old friend to join the weekly mahjong night at his house, and there, Sang-hyun finds himself attracted to Kangwoo’s wife, Tae-ju. Sang-hyun later relapses into his illness and wakes in dire need of shelter from the sunlight, having become a vampire.
At first, Sang-hyun feels a newfound vigor but soon he is aghast to find himself drinking blood from a comatose patient. After attempting to kill himself, Sang-hyun finds himself irresistibly drawn to human blood. To make matters worse, the symptoms of EV return and only seem to go away when he drinks blood. Desperately trying to avoid committing a murder, Sang-hyun resorts to stealing blood transfusion packs from the hospital. Tae-ju, who lives with her ill husband and overprotective mother-in-law, Mrs. Ra (Kim Hae-sook), leads a dreary life. She is drawn to Sang-hyun and his physicality, she is unable to resist odd desires about him. The two begin an affair, but when Tae-ju discovers the truth about Sang-hyun, she retreats in fear. When Sang-hyun pleads with her to run away with him, she turns him down, suggesting that they kill her husband instead. When Sang-hyun’s superior at the monastery requests some vampire blood so that his eyes may heal and he may see the world before dying, Sang-
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hyun kills him and flees from the monastery. He moves into Mrs. Ra’s house so that he may secretly bed with Tae-ju. Sang-hyun notices bruises on Tae-ju and assumes her husband is the cause, a suspicion she sheepishly confirms. Sang-hyun decides to kill Kang-woo during a fishing trip with the couple. He pulls Kang-woo into the water and claims that he placed the body inside a cabinet in a house at the bottom of the lake, putting a rock on the body to keep it from floating to the surface. A police investigation ensues. Mrs. Ra drinks often after her son’s death, sinking psychosomatically into a completely paralyzed state. Sang-hyun and Tae-ju are haunted by terrifying visions of Kangwoo’s bloated corpse. When Tae-ju lets slip that Kang-woo never abused her, Sang-hyun is enraged because he only killed Kang-woo to protect her. Teary-eyed, she asks Sang-hyun to kill her and let her return to her husband. He obliges by snapping her neck, but after feeding on her blood, decides he does not want to be alone forever and feeds her corpse his own blood. She awakens as a vampire. Mrs. Ra, knocked to the floor by a seizure, witnesses everything.
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Tae-ju quickly shows herself to be a remorseless monster, killing indiscriminately to feed, while Sanghyun acts more conservatively, not killing unless he has to. Their conflicting ethics result in a chase across the rooftops and a short battle. Some time later, Mrs. Ra manages to communicate to Kangwoo’s friends that Sang-hyun and Tae-ju killed her son. Tae-ju quickly disposes of two of the friends, and Sang-hyun appears to eliminate the third. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Sang-hyun tells Tae-ju that they must flee or be caught. Before leaving with her, he makes a visit to the camp of worshipers who consider him the miracle EV survivor. He makes it seem like he tried to rape a girl, leading the campers to chase him away, no longer idolizing him. Sang-hyun then places Mrs. Ra in his car, and with Tae-ju, drives into the night. Back at the house, the third friend escapes, whom Sang-hyun only pretended to kill to protect her from Tae-ju. Upon waking from a nap in the car, Tae-ju realizes that Sang-hyun has driven to a desolate field with no cover from the imminent dawn. Realizing his plan to have them both burn when dawn breaks, Tae-ju tries to hide but Sang-hyun foils her every attempt. Resigning herself to her fate, she joins him on the car hood, and both are burnt to ash by the sun, as Mrs. Ra watches from the backseat of the car.
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01:34:27 TAE-JU'S REBRITH
영원히�당신과�함께�살고�싶어요. 그러면�지옥에서�만나겠지.
I WANTED TO LIVEWITH YOU FOREVER AND EVER. TOGETHER AGAIN IN HELL THEN.
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13
REVIEWS
64
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times
“Movies exist to cloak our desires in disguises we can accept, and there is an undeniable appeal to Thirst.”
Jennie Punter Globe and Mail
“Thirst is juicy filmmaking — psychologically rich, cathartic, kinky, visually engaging and almost free of vampire-movie clichs.”
Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel
“Thirst is a grim antidote to the sanitized, pale young things of Twilight, Supernatural and True Blood.”
Ty Burr Boston Globe
“Thirst keeps coming up against the limitations of its various inspirations like a bumper car on a crowded court. On almost every other level, the film's audaciously entertaining, at times even quite moving. You just have to have the stomach for it.”
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STOKER
SHOWTIMES 12:10 AM
6:10PM
March 29 Sunday
March 30 Monday
STOKER (2013)
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STARRING
WRITERS
MUSIC
Mia Wasikowska Matthew Goode Nicole Kidman Dermot Mulroney Jacki Weaver
Wentworth Miller
Clint Mansell
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITOR
Chung Chung-hoon
Nicolas De Toth
RELEASE DATE
LANGUAGE
RUNTIME
January 20, 2013
English
99 min
PLOT On her 18th birthday, India Stoker—a girl with a strong acuteness of the senses—has her life turned upside down after her loving father Richard dies in a horrific car accident. She is left with her unstable mother Evelyn. At Richard’s funeral, Evelyn and India are introduced to Richard’s charming and charismatic brother Charlie, who has spent his life traveling the world. India, who didn’t know Charlie existed, is perturbed by his presence. He announces that he is staying indefinitely to help support India and Evelyn, much to Evelyn’s delight and India’s chagrin. Shortly after, India witnesses Charlie argue with Mrs. McGarrick, the head caretaker of the house. Mrs. McGarrick complains to Charlie that she has been his “eyes and ears” since he was a boy. Mrs. McGarrick then disappears. Charlie and Evelyn grow intimate while India continues to rebuff his attempts to befriend her. Later, her great aunt Gwendolyn visits the family, much to Evelyn and Charlie’s dismay. At dinner, Gwendolyn shows
surprise at Charlie’s claims of traveling the world and tells Evelyn that she needs to talk to her about Charlie. Gwendolyn ends up changing hotels due to an unexplained fear and suspicion of Charlie. However, she loses her cell phone and tries to call the Stokers’ home from her hotel payphone. Charlie corners her in the phone booth and strangles her to death with his belt. Meanwhile, India discovers Mrs. McGarrick’s body in the freezer and realizes Charlie is a murderer. India unleashes her inner aggression at school and stabs a bully, Chris Pitts, in the hand with a pencil after he tries to land a surprise punch to her head. This draws the attention of another classmate, Whip Taylor. India goes home and witnesses Evelyn and Charlie growing intimate. She wanders off to a local diner where she runs into Whip. She and Whip go into the woods where they proceed to make out until India aggressively bites him. Whip attempts to rape India until Charlie intervenes, and breaks Whip’s neck with his belt while Whip’s body lies on
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top of India. India aids Charlie in burying the body in her garden. She attempts to call Gwendolyn, but hears her phone ring in the garden, realizing Charlie killed her too. India takes a shower and masturbates to the memory of the murder, climaxing as she remembers Charlie breaking Whip’s neck. While going through Richard’s office to gather things of his she wants to keep, India discovers that a key she received as a birthday present belongs to a locked drawer to Richard’s desk. Inside, she finds dozens of letters Charlie wrote to her over the years, which detail his travels and his love for his niece, although they have never met. However, she sees that the sending address is a mental institution. She confronts Charlie, who explains the truth: Charlie murdered his and Richard’s younger brother Jonathan as a child by burying him alive in a sandbox because he was jealous that Richard paid more attention to him. He was then put in a mental institution. When released on India’s 18th birthday, Richard gives Charlie a car, money, and an apartment in New York City on the condition that he stay away from Richard’s family. Feeling hurt and betrayed, Charlie beat Richard to death with a rock and staged the car accident.
seemingly forgives Charlie and grows closer after he provides an alibi for her when Sheriff Howard questions her about Whip’s disappearance. They grow close to intimate before Evelyn witnesses them. Charlie proceeds to tell India that he wants her to come to New York with him and that he had waited for her until her 18th birthday so she is now of age. Later, Evelyn coldly expresses her desire to watch India suffer before confronting Charlie, implying that she knows the truth about Richard’s death and Charlie’s stint in the mental institute. Charlie seduces Evelyn and then attempts to strangle her with a belt before India fatally shoots him with a rifle. She then buries Charlie’s body in the backyard and then she leaves for New York in his car. India is pulled over for speeding by Sheriff Howard, who asks her why she’s in a hurry. She replies that she wanted to catch his attention, then plunges a pair of pruning shears into his neck. She pursues the wounded sheriff into a field to dispatch him with her rifle.
At first, India is in shock and angered but Charlie explains he has come for her then gives her a birthday present, a pair of stiletto heels. She
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01:34:09 INDIA SHOOTS A POLICE
때로는�더�나쁜�일을�저지하기�위해�나쁜 일을�해야�한다.
SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING BAD TO STOP YOU FROM DOING SOMETHING WORSE.
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REVIEWS
76
Tom Long Detroit News
“None of it is life-changing, but it is effectively eerie. Stylishly spooky, even."
Richard Corliss TIME Magazine
“It's not pure Park or pure Hitchcock but a muted, mildly mesmerizing blend of the two. You might want to take a careful stroll in this Hitchpark.”
Connie Ogle Miami Herald
“Stoker is a movie about tension and inaction, about people trying to figure out what's going on in someone else's head.”
Steven Rea Philadelphia Inquirer
“A beautifully twisted, slow-burning psychothriller that may or may not all be taking place inside India's head, Stoker marks South Korean cult director Chan-wook Park's inaugural English language venture.”
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ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
FESTIVAL INFO
Tragic revenge leads miserable souls into the eternal chaos of self-destruction. A Park Chan-Wook Film Festival
TIME March 28-30, 2020
VENUE
5
The Miltern, 3790 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
3 Wilshire Blvd
1 The Wiltern
S Oxford Ave
76 80
S Western Ave
2
4
SCHEDULE
March 28 2020
March 29 2020
March 30 2020
10:00 AM
9:00 AM
9:30 AM
Opening Ceremony
Actors’ interview //
Sympathy for
Mia Wasikowska
Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Director’s Speech //
10:00 AM
11:45 AM
Park Chan-wook
Thirst (2009)
Oldboy (2003)
11:00 AM
12:10 AM
2:00 PM
Actors’ interview //
Stoker (2013)
Lady Vengeance (2005)
10:30 AM
Song Kang-ho
2:00 PM
4:05 PM
1:30 PM
Sympathy for
Thirst (2009)
Sympathy for
Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Mr. Vengeance (2002) 3:45 PM Oldboy (2003) 5:50 PM
4:15 PM Oldboy (2003) 6:05 PM
6:10 PM Oldboy (2003) 8:30 PM Closing Ceremony
Lady Vengeance (2005)
Lady Vengeance (2005) 7:30 PM Press Conference 81
Unfulfilled Atonement Film Festival 327 San Pedro St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 info@unfulfilledatonement.com (1)442 283 0190 www.unfulfilledatonement.com