Don't Believe the Hype

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The two protagonists of this film are horrid people. The simpering "victim" and the arrogant "bully." The victim doesn't even get the full brunt of the bully's sadistic behavior but bears the pain of a wronged friend vicariously, never letting go and never forgetting his miserable high school existence. The bully is shown to deserve the campaign of pain the now grown up victim will bring by refusing to show the slightest contrition for his behavior. But the victim is so pathetic it is impossible to feel any compassion for his "plight" or take pleasure with him in his schadenfreude. And so these two bring misery and death to those close to them. (well one person gets off scot-free in the film's gonzo ending, but still...) Yeah yeah the movie's a "cautionary tale" about bullying and how revenge can make one worse than a bully but the message is hopelessly muddled in poor storytelling. The movie looks so good but the content is beyond disappointing. What a waste.

Eungjingja or Days of Wrath review: First let me tell you that I have been compelled to create an account for the sole purpose of giving this review.This is by far the worst revenge movie I have ever seen, and I've seen a fair amount of revenge movies, thrillers, almost all genres of Korean cinema, with which I have been enthralled. This movie however, leaves a sour taste. This is the first South Korean film that I will not watch a second time, nor recommend to others. The movie in a nutshell: The protagonist in the film is so weak he cant even defend himself and he's what, bulkier and taller than the antagonist. He's by no means unhealthy, he's even an academic achiever.Second, he experiences humiliation day by day, verbal, physical assaults (which I think were placed to justify his vengeance later on) His girlfriend gets raped in front of him and he does nothing. Gf kills herself the next day,still...nothing. Years pass,He gets older, gets beat up some more in the guise of his "revenge" and gets another girlfriend killed in the process of his "revenge". After all that, the silver lining is that he gets to kill his tormentor by scythe, and this is not even done artistically. He dies after that, run over by one of his tormentor's henchmen. I did not sympathize with the ending at all; it was just so disappointing that at the end of it all, it seems like nothing was achieved. He never got justice, he just wasted his life. It is so blandly done, that I found myself waiting for him to show that at least, after 20 years, he had done some sort of self improvement, or he's prepared himself for his revenge, mentally or even physically. His vengeance was child's play compared to what he experienced being bullied. I expected some sort of dark and gruesome revenge scenes at the middle part of the movie but the film seemed intent to disappoint. This is the weakest character I've seen in my many years of watching films. I know what being bullied feels like so its safe to say I understand what the character is going through. But this movie, with so many plot holes and forced scenes to evoke some sort of sympathy or emotion from the viewers was ill-made. I don't know what this movie is trying to be: a thriller? a revenge movie? a melodrama? It seems it was made from bits and pieces of other successful movies that came before it. The storyline started strong, with good pacing but got weaker the deeper we get into the movie. I would say its a complete waste of time, for a genre that this wants to be, you're better off with the classics: The Chaser,Oldboy(revenge trilogy by Park Chan Wook), memories of murder, and others. I would still like to give kudos to the people behind the film, as I understand it takes a huge amount of effort to make one, but I am by no means a fan of this director. When it comes to the cast, everyone seemed to fit their role perfectly, its just the cracks in the story or the concept itself that took the wind out of what could have been a decent film. I'm looking forward though to better releases from South Korea as I have become addicted to their style of films. Hopefully a better one comes, as soon as possible. I Gave this a 2/10 simply because I appreciate the huge effort behind making a film.