Finishing his trilogy, writer/director Park Chan-wook makes this movie no less easier, or no less worse than the previous movies. This is a perfect ending to a great trilogy. Here, Miss Lee Geum-ja gets out of prison after 13 years, tells a priest to go screw himself and sets her plan into motion. This plan unfolds through flashbacks and scenes taking place in the present.

Kind-hearted Geum-ja helps everybody out while incarcerated, but once she’s out she’s wearing blood-red eye-shadow and dreams of killing. The flashbacks explain why she was so nice and the present tells you why she’s not being so nice now. Lee Yeong-ae, in a far cry from her role in the ridiculously popular ‘Jewel in the Palace’, is spot-on as Lee Geum-ja. Her range is great and her look is deadly. Her cold exterior mirrors the cinematography, and it only adds to the overall atmosphere of the piece.

As things get bleaker and bleaker, that red eye-shadow seems to dim further and further into blackness. The extra addition of the movie going from colour to darkness is quite intriguing (in the director’s version, in any case). The first half is the same, but after the one-hour mark, things get interesting. It’s a really nice touch by the director and cinematographer. The camera also flows everywhere, as if it has a life of its own, and movement is always in the frame. Something is always going on in the movie. The music, once again, plays an important part in the movie and the score is great. All the little moments, all the little touches, all add up to create a fitting end to the trilogy.

All the nice touches aren’t necessary, but they really make the movie a lot more intriguing. The movie is just steeped in symbolism, themes and styles are carried over from the rest of the trilogy. The squiggles on the wall resemble something else in the movie; her child, the snow, the tofu, the cake and even the cinematography on the director’s cut all add to the layers and mystery of the movie. The symmetry in ‘Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance’ is fun to watch, and it comes full circle in ‘Sympathy for Lady Vengeance’. (Even the names of the movies in the trilogy show symmetry!) Analysis of the trilogy as a whole would so easily be possible, and I’m sure will be done many times, but suffice to say that anybody interested in doing so will be happy, to say the least.

This movie is a tremendous piece of work. Park Chan-wook has a very brutal, yet lyrical way of showing the ills of society. The movie is not easy to take and the ending is not as sweet as vengeance might seem. It’s real and brutal. Nothing is too easy in this world and everybody has to pay a certain price.