Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Contemporary 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 Contemporary Cinema
-
The Girl and the Spider
Leaving January 1
Directed by Ramon Zürcher and Silvan Zürcher | 98 mins | 2021
An apartment move-out produces an exquisite ballet of curious personal dramas and fraught relationships (new and old) thanks to the whisker-sensitive filmmaking of the Zürcher brothers. Set amid nosy neighbors, it’s ... -
The Great Pretender
Leaving February 1
Directed by Nathan Silver | 71 mins | 2018
When a French theater director (Maëlle Poesy-Guichard) comes to New York to direct an autobiographical play about her disastrous last relationship, a chain reaction of romantic escapades is set off by her two stars (Esther Garrel and ... -
The Plagiarists
Leaving February 1
Directed by Peter Parlow | 76 mins | 2019
A deadpan auto-critique of the clichés of a soppily sincere American “indie” film, distinctively shot on a vintage television news camera and co-written by Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, The Plagiarists, a playful, provocative satire, dep...