The Vengeance Trilogy (Old Boy/Lady Vengeance/Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance/Asia Extreme Palisades
Tartan DVD Set)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C+ Films: C+
Chan-wook Park has a following, even though I am
not a part of it, I can say he does offer some distinction in his
filmmaking. I also think he is
overrated. With that said, his Vengeance
Trilogy has arrived on DVD from Palisades Tartan, putting back into print all
three titles including two we have covered before.
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002) is his first film, here as
a 2-DVD set. The follow-ups are 3-DVD
sets, but more on them in a minute.
Sympathy is about Ryu (Kang-kyun Shin) and
his crazy idea to raise money by selling an organ, only to discover that he has
been had and is racing against time to save his sick sister, who is deaf and
dumb as well as about to die. He then
finds himself involved with gangsters as he decides to kidnap the daughter of
the head of the company who just fired him.
Mildly amusing at times, all over the place in others, the film allows
its self-amusement to get in the way of tell the story in a fully realized
way. Performances are not bad and the
film was shot in Super35mm for scope, so the DVD is anamorphically enhanced at
2.35 X 1. The DTS 5.1 sound is not bad,
but held back by mixed dialogue performance.
Extras include a trailer, Storyboards, vintage behind-the-scenes
trailer, Soundtrack & Photos and four featurettes on DVD 2, while DVD 1 has
Audio Commentary by Park and Ryoo Seung-wan.
He made his revenge film and wanted to continue.
Then came
Oldboy, the most successful of his
films in the U.S.
to date. Spelled as two words or a
compound word, we covered it on DVD and on Blu-ray, his first (and only film as
of this posting) to make it to the High Definition format:
Old Boy (2003/aka Oldboy) Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6218/Oldboy+(Blu-ray/Tartan)
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3279/Oldboy+(Asia+Extreme/DTS+DVD)
That is
more favorable coverage than I would have given them, though I think it is a
better film than Sympathy. The original DVD’s extras included a single
commentary track from Chan-wook
Park and cinematographer
Jeong Jeong-hun, an interview with the director (about 7 minutes worth), 9
deleted scenes with optional commentary by the director, a photo gallery and
theatrical trailer. A Starmax edition
supposedly had four feature length audio commentary tracks, but this triple DVD
set has three on DVD 1, DVD 2 has 10 deleted scenes with optional commentary by
Park, crew interviews and La Grand Prix
at Cannes featurette. DVD 3 has the
3 hour video diary The Autobiography of
Oldboy.
Finally,
I myself did cover Lady Vengeance,
offering performance that is exactly the same as this DVD in this set. It did not stay with me much either:
Lady Vengeance (2005) DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4330/Lady+Vengeance+(2005/Tartan+DTS)
Extras
that seemed extensive on the previous DVD are not as are extensive as what we
get here. Repeated goodies include three
audio commentary tracks (one with Park, one with Chung, Park & the Art
Director and one with critic Richard Pena), on camera Park interview, trailers
and a making of featurette. New extras
include a poster gallery, character interviews, deleted scenes with optional
commentary, style featurette, four more pieces with Park and DVD 2 has the
“Fade To White” version of the film, but you should see the film and explore
what that is about on your own.
A booklet
on the trilogy is also included.
- Nicholas Sheffo
