Vengeance in South Korean films.
Vengeance is a feeling that is often felt but rarely acted upon. It is always born from a personal injury-an injustice committed and therefore, requires a stiff resolution. A savage and primal need to right the wrong, without taking into consideration the circumstances. A gut-wrenching feeling that boils into strong depictions of an unresolved anger. Vengeance thrives in our imagination and appeals to our inner darkness, which is why people find themselves relating so viscerally to stories of revenge. Movies that can offer a satisfying scratch to that persistent itch are now universally adored and have become synonymous to quality film-making. From the start of the 21st Century, stories of vengeance have become common in South Korean films. There is just something about their depiction of vengeance that feels unique. Something about the anger and the violence and the way it is potrayed is striking and lets you experience a vaguely perceivable shared hatred. This article explores the different ways in which Vengeance in potrayed in South Korean movies and what they are trying to convey. Since, the nature of these movies have a lot to do with their ending, a few major spoilers will be mentioned.
Most revenge movies have a fairly similar plot structure. An injustice committed, the search for resolution and vengeance taken. This structure is extremely effective and if done well can become almost as musical and cathartic as it sounds but if that is not the case, then it can feel out of tune. We follow a main character with an understanding motivation, which is enough to validate their journey of violence and that is when the character becomes a surrogate to our satisfaction. There are many Korean movies that show this structure, where the focus stays on the revenge, like A Bittersweet Life and The Man From Nowhere but there are some movies that go beyond like the violent and depressing I Saw The Devil and the notorious Oldboy. Two highly inventive journeys of revenge that deconstruct the genre.
In I Saw The Devil, a serial-killer brutally murders the fiancé of our protagonist, Kim Soo-hyeon. Soo-hyeon is a secret agent and is well trained who decides to use his expertise to hunt down the man who murdered his wife. He plans a game of catch and release where he catches the man tortures him and lets him go, only to repeat the process over and over again as a punishment. In Oldboy, Oh-Dae Su is the one initially receiving the punishment. He is imprisoned for fifteen years in a room where he is groomed, fed and kept alive and suddenly set free. He has no idea about why he was captured and why the let him go. He embarks on a quest to discover who is responsible and what did he do to deserve it. Both of these characters follow a violent path but the movies don’t glorify the violence and in turn, want to show the consequences of taking such a path and put forward the idea that the ultimate form of revenge is corrosive.
In I Saw The Devil, Soo-Hyeon starts getting obsessed with the punishment of Kyung-chui, pushing towards more brutal acts. He begins to lose himself as he begins taking pleasure in the violence and in doing so, not only ends up losing his father-in law and sister-in law but also becomes the kind of person he despises. In Oldboy, we get to know that the revenge is actually of the antagonist. Woo-jin had created and patiently executed a well thought plan to avenge the death of his sister, for which he blames Oh Dae-Su. In the movie, he warns Oh Dae-Su by saying that after his revenge is over, he will be become hollow and will be filled with the emotions of his regret again. Thus, after exacting his revenge, Woo-jin’s words become a self-fulfilling prophecy as his short-lived moment of satisfaction quickly reminds of the haunting memory of the death of his sister. Thus, vengeance is potrayed as an intoxicating lapse of judgement that emotionally justifies our actions but it only deals in the negative making it a fruitless endeavor.
Vengeance is also a search for Justice, but it splits into two kinds. An Internal Justice(personal), formed by our own personal upbringing and life experiences and an External Justice, decided by the laws we live under to maintain social decorum. Together, they help us identify the right from wrong. Our personal justice lives inside what is socially acceptable but there are instances where these two are in conflict. This dilemma is explored in Director Bong Joon-Ho’s Mother, where the main character is trying to prove the innocence of her mentally challenged son. Do-Joon has been arrested for the murder of a young girl which his mother refuses to accept, due to his condition. We begin to notice that the main character’s motherly instinct might be clouding her judgement. Here, Justice from her perspective is to protect her son at all costs, but can protecting her own child go beyond what is lawful?
This Justice system is also used to show a slow-witted characterization of cops. It is a commentary on how slow moving and ineffective our justice system is. In these movies, we find individuals or rather cops, that happen upon a situation they are unprepared for and thus, it leads to an outcome that is unsatisfying. We see this in Memories Of Murder, where we follow a rural police force struggling to solve the mystery of the serial killing of young girls taking place in the area. They are not able to control crime scenes, use obsolete and irregular investigative methods and try to coerce confessions out of suspects. After, an increase in murders, a desperation for justice starts settling in amongst them. This affects the level-headed detective as well who though being an absolute by the books, has his rationality tested by his growing need for retribution. In the end, the detective’s blinding need for justice supersedes any proof that goes against what he feels is right. Justice can be an elusive ideal and if fulfilled can feel empty or too late.
Another take on Revenge is Ambiguity. The lack of personal justice can feed into a growing resentment. Being kept at a distance from what is right makes us feel bitter frustration. A character that well expresses this is Lee Jong-Su, from the movie Burning, a metaphorical take on Revenge. Lee Jong-Su lives with an internalized anger that rises from a simmer to a boiling point at the climax. Jong-Su is an aspiring writer going through the flow of life. He lives at the mercy of decisions that aren’t his and struggles to find a place for himself to belong to. One day, he meets his childhood friend, Hae Mi and it seems they are on the path of a budding romance but suddenly, the handsome and charismatic, Ben enters in Hae Mi’s life and Jong- Su is pushed aside. The trio sparks an awkward friendship. The main mystery is the sudden disappearance of Hae Mi. She just vanishes without a trace. Her apartment is empty and she does not answer her phone. The only lead he has is a weird conservation with Ben, where Ben confesses that he likes to burn down deserted greenhouses as they seem filthy to him. As Jong-Su continues his search for answers, it is obvious to see Ben’s remark as a sinister metaphor.
There are a lot of little mysteries scattered across the movie to delude the audience from what is real. Is Ben really a killer and if so how did he do it? Even the act of vengeance at the end could be a fantasy and culminates to one of the most oblique endings of all time. Director Lee Chang Dong said,
“The last scene could have happened in Reality, but at the same time it could have been part of the novel that Jong-Su is newly writing.”
The last scene could be an attempt for the main character to give himself answers that the world refuses to give him. Ben is meant to symbolize the Mystery of this world and Jong-Su’s vengeance is the wish fulfillment against it. The Director Lee Chan-Dong wanted to discuss the ambiguity of the lives that we live in and how there seems to be no answers to the questions youngsters ask themselves today. People feel that there is something wrong in this world but it is difficult to figure out what is causing these problems. We are left not knowing. No resolution, just growing resentment from a vengeance unfulfilled or justice unattained.
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