Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Asian Cinema
•
1h 56m
Directed by Park Chan Wook | 116 mins | 2002
Fired from his factory job, the deaf, gentle Ryu finds work in the underworld—and begins on a path that will end in an explosion of visceral violence. A brutal, claustrophobic film of escalating desperation, illustrating with grim logic how an ordinary man can be pushed into acts of extraordinary retaliation.
Selected by Molly Young.
Up Next in Asian Cinema
-
The Day Before the End
Directed by Lav Diaz | 17 mins | 2016
Known for the titanic runtimes of his films, Diaz is also a master of the short form, as proven by The Day Before the End, a work of speculative, dystopian fiction set in the year 2050, as the people of the Philippines brace for an apocalyptic storm to thrash... -
Storm Children
Directed by Lav Diaz | 143 mins | 2014
Diaz, in documentarian mode, sifts through the wreckage—human and otherwise—left behind following the devastating impact of typhoon Yolanda on the seaside city of Tacloban in this gorgeously shot black-and-white work, which focuses its attention on three chi... -
The Scent of Green Papaya
Directed by Tran Anh Hung | 104 mins | 1993
The first film in Hùng’s acclaimed Vietnam Trilogy is a beautifully detailed, sublimely sensitive, and quietly moving evocation of midcentury Saigon—reconstructed on a French soundstage—depicting 10 years in the intersecting lives of a concert pianist, ...