Please don't spend money on this.

People are voting emotionally.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Incredible! I had a doubt before watching this movie, however after watching it everything became crystal clear why this movie is so so good. It grabs your attention from the beginning till the end, and the best thing about this movie is, it is really natural and the way the actings have been truly terrific which grabs you in it and make you feel like you are a part of this movie, so detailed. Literally a masterminded kind of story. This movie will leave you breathless till the end, that is how incredible this movie is. What a direction, what a story, what a cinematography and what an acting by every casts. If you don't like this movie then you no longer should be watching any kind of movie. Perfectly executed, tremendous job done.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (CJ Ent., 2002, S. Korea) is the gratifying, darkly comical first installment in director PARK Chan-wook's so-called Vengeance Trilogy (including 2003's "Oldboy" and 2005's "Lady Vengeance"). I know most people who've seen them all usually favor Oldboy, but Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (SFMV) is my favorite of the three. It doesn't have the slickness of the latter 2 films, but the grit of this movie keeps it grounded, even without any substantial artistic sacrifice.This film shows that desperate times call for desperate measures and how otherwise sympathetic characters get driven to extremes in the face of tragedy. Given the plot, it's hard to tell who "Mr. Vengeance" is exactly as everyone seems pushed to seek revenge in one way or another.So Ryu (SHIN Ha-kyun), a deaf mute factory worker, has been saving the money to buy a kidney for his ailing sister (LIM Ji-Eun). He's an incompatible donor and she's running out of time. Her name is down the hospital's list and so Ryu turns to a sketchy woman and her sons, who promise that for 10,000 Won, Ryu's life savings, they can secure a good kidney for Ryu's sister. Next thing we know, Ryu wakes up broke, naked, empty-handed and without one of *his* kidneys. Frustratingly, the hospital now informs Ryu that a suitable donor's been found, if he has 10 grand for them. On top of all this Mr. Park (SONG Kang-ho), Ryu's boss, downsizes the factory, costing Ryu his job.After kicking his butt for being so rash, Ryu's attractive, leftist girlfriend CHA Yeong-mi (BAE Doona) one-ups him by convincing him that they should kidnap Mr. Park's precious young daughter for ransom to raise the money for the kidney. A series of tragedies, consequences, paybacks and escalations are unleashed one right after the other, with the people involved either covering their rears, seeking retribution or bracing for it, or promising that even if vanquished now, they'll be avenged in the end. And one thing about this movie is that every promise is kept.People will say that Park's depictions of violence are gratuitous or over the top, but violence shouldn't be easy to look at, and Park goes for matter-of-fact depictions that make sense within the story. He never shies away from showing an injury or a person's facial or physiological response to being injured. So if you're squeamish, be warned, watch this before eating or after your take-out is digested.Park also shows, especially as the pace picks up in the 2nd half, how the pretext of defending honor leads to blood lust that makes the main participants indistinguishable from each other in the end. There are certainly villains here and innocents too, and they are not spared from pain, but they operate on the periphery. What you get among the central cast is a spectrum of motivations and decisions that can be understood with different degrees of sympathy within the context of the story.It's difficult to say what exactly Park's stance on all this is. At the beginning of the movie, Ryu's sister's painful moaning arouses a group of horny masturbators next door with their ears pinned to the thin wall. It's an amusing allegory, because this is the type of thing boys with good hearing are using their ears for while the protagonist lives as a deaf mute. At the outset, Ryu is a sympathetic person who makes the best of a hard life. Several sequences are shot from his point of view, forcing the viewer to watch silent lips flap, the lips of people talking at Ryu like he's stupid, though he's smart, almost like they're trying to talk to this guy in slow motion. The difficulty of communication is a basic fact of life for Ryu, so it's easy to see how it would've been neglected in this circumstance.SONG Kang-ho does a masterful job, showing how a father's heart is crushed and hardened transforming a man from a well-regarded, upright citizen into an assassin willing to commit any sin to protect his daughter's honor. The way director Park structures the story doesn't give viewers as much time to get to know PARK Dong-jin, the character, but Park's grief-ridden faces and movements combine with the angelic presence of his little daughter to make the viewer *almost* comfortable with the cold dishes Park serves up.One of the most masterful strengths of this movie is how the direction and acting cause the viewer to feel regret for people who are ready to torture one another to death and how bad we feel about the circumstances that drive them to seek revenge. A morbid hierarchy is reflected in how close (in time and location) one character's death is to another. The bodies almost literally pile up at the same grave, and in the end death gets everybody except the "last one standing," and you'll suspect that it won't be long before that one's pushing up daisies too.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is fine piece of Korean cinema, it is a prime example of how great of a director Park Chan-Wook is. It features many great Korean actors such as Song Kang-Ho and Shin Ha-Kyun, who have appeared a lot through-out many great film by Park, amongst other great films.The atmosphere the character create, the acting, scenery and the dialogue create a very down-to-earth feeling. It shows several sides of people, it shows our happiness, our sorrows, hatred, depression, the feeling of loss and anger. The film was very good at making me sympathize with all the character, even though Ryu was in fact responsible for a death through a kidnapping, I only realized that I should have sympathized more with the character Park. However, everyone suffered, everyone lost what they had, everyone lost someone they loved, and everyone eventually dies in the end. That is what I love about this film the most - everyone feel pleasure at some point, but we all suffer and die. What I particularly "like" is how it managed to show how horrible it can be to be deaf-dumb, when he was eating noodles and she was dying, when he was burying his sister as the girl was drowning - these were all great at showing just how hard it can be. - and best of all, his crying when his sister commits suicide - it is the most genuine cry you can have, he can not hear it, so he weeps as genuinely as one can.There's a lot of cozy stuff too that make me happy, how nicely they fit together, their conversations. This film is a master piece.

If you his saw this movie because of Oldboy like me u might feel this is a mild prequel but the truth is both the movies quiet different .Revenge and unimaginable situations that make the world look so delicate are common. The camera is kept still and panned out most of the time .The background music is used in very selected places .Sets and locations are detailed and picturesque. The plot is as dark as it gets but it feels very possible.It is very slow but in a sharp way lets the story sink in .Unlike most slow drama movies it is not ambiguous, Suspense is also well maintained .There is an unpredictability not because the characters are so but because the situations are such that u wont be able to judge what anyone would do there.I felt so satisfied by this movie .It increased my respect for korean movies .2 Hours of suspense and bewilderment ,very clear and intense.