Just Desserts: LADY VENGEANCE Is Worth Saving Room ForLooking back at the previous films in Korean director Park Chan-Wook's 'Vengeance' Trilogy, kicked off with SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE then OLDBOY, one has cause to not be so keen on taking in the third film, LADY VENGEANCE, without your hands half parted over your eyes. Both of those films toiled in such dark waters of the human revenge mechanism - complete with decapitations, battery operated torture, bloody hammers and sloppily eaten live octopi - that it was a wonder anyone made it to the other end safely. But there was a gradual build in Chan-Wook's storytelling (one we Americans missed out on as part 2 was released here before part 1) of the lengths people can go when they've been wronged. MR. VENGEANCE was a hot and sweaty mass of blood and bad choices that gave way to OLDBOY's shine and dark swagger. The latter tied the hero to a horrible secret that made it hard for the viewer to accept that things could ever be 'okay' in the end. That chapter, however, concluded with the visual of a beautiful snowstorm large enough to clear the air and cleanse the pallet enough for its sumptuous and filling conclusion LADY VENGEANCE.
As the film begins we meet Guem-Ja (Lee Yeong-Ae), the 'lady' in question, as she is released from prison after serving a 13 year stint for her involvement in the killing of a little boy. She harshly turns down the tradition of eating tofu upon release, to signify the beginning of "living a sin free life", because she knows that with the revenge plan she has cooking in her mind her sin free days are a long ways off . It seems that Guem-Ja took the fall for her boss and didn't have to lose 13 years of her life AND 13 years of knowing the newborn daughter she had to give up. So she sets out calling on favors from women she helped in prison, where she quietly earned the nickname 'Kind Hearted Ms. Guem-Ja', and by working in a cake shop to earn money for the endeavor. Her networking and cake baking skills picked up in prison combine to deliver a dish to her former boss that is best served moist and sweet.
It is in this giant mixing bowl filled with 1 cup vengeance, 1 cup femininity, a spoonful of motherhood, a pinch of sass and a cube of style for taste, that the film really takes its form. Unlike its lead-ins, LADY VENGEANCE is not intense but is instead wistful and patient in its examination of the powerful fury that can erupt in even the softest of people. Its mood is bouncy and the visuals are swathed in the soft colors of a romantic comedy. Working as a classic 'woman's' film like MILDRED PIERCE but dipping its pen in the bloody ink of 'revenge' titles like MS.45 and KILL BILL, the film plays its heavy themes with a light laugh and a gentle touch. Lee Yeong-Ae plays the lead with a soft focus behind the fiery red brushed on her eyelids. Her Guem-Ja is a quiet woman who can hardly believe the position that she is in, or how she got there, but what is done must be done. The drowsiness of her face shows a woman who has lay awake for 13 years with a worry that must be taken care of if she is to ever sleep soundly again.
While building the plan Guem-Ja reunites with her daughter and realizes that inciting payback is a horrible thing to teach a child (who unbeknownst to her has own daggers out for Mommy). Will committing such a finite wrong EVER make things right? When it appears that the film is going to let Guem-Ja fulfill her wishes cold it delivers a delicious twist that invites the idea of selfish revenge as a way of making things right, for the better of the world, but with even more consequences. Perhaps that is the film, and the trilogy's, ultimate purpose. Revenge is a weed that will grow threefold and blanket the lives of all those involved. The lesson in this trilogy seems to be: cut the weed and it will just come back, do nothing and it takes over everything. Can redemption and peace ever come out of having to balance the scales? LADY VENGEANCE provides an answer that is thankfully buried in layers of blood red icing and dark cake sweet enough to help us swallow it.
