Lady Vengeance

Chinjeolhan geumjass (Chan-wook Park - 2005)

For some odd and unexplainable reason the cinema of the east has been a bit out of my focus in later years. Lady Vengeance was picked up as a low prized secondhand DVD and sat for some time in my shelves besides assorted Japanese, Hong Kong and Korean film. When I finally sat down to view this, I expected to see a leggy, silent babe going around shooting bad guys with big guns. 

Seconds into the film I realized this was an eastern art-house effort. The start had a “Santa Sangre”-like opraesque flair that gripped my attention. The film as a whole holds the interest as it has many inventive scenes to offer. I was particularly gripped with the scene where the main character is reenacting a murder of a child before the police, jury and the press. The offbeat carnival of a film moves towards an ending providing the conclusion that one expects and it comes off as a satisfactory experience. 

I blame the lurid cover, but if I had read the back cover I would have known better. I viewed a screening of Oldboy in its day and was reasonably impressed. The Lady V has given me appetite for more and if I’m not mistaken I already have Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance in my collection. Maybe I spend an hour trying to locate it somewhere in my mess. 

Viewed on a Scandinavian DVD release.

Weekend Update

It’s EM footy time, but I managed to squeeze inn some feature films.

The Redeemer: Son of Satan! (Constantine S. Gochis - 1978)

Another high school reunion gone bad. A proto-slasher on low budget with some twisted charm.  The CodeRed edition is a crisp and clear representation of a print that has seen better days, but that’s just adds some patina to the experience.  

The Boogeyman (Ulli Lommel - 1980)  

This was a nice one. Creepy and entertaining on many levels. Had previously seen a movie with similar title Boogeyman (Stephen Kay - 2005). That one was a total mess and for a long time I confused those two entries.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

My Son, MySon, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog - 2009) 

Most of the time the film has a “moderate weirdness” that doesn’t disconnects the narrative to much from reality, but from time to time there is overly arty elements that seems “inserted”. The story behind it all is to shallow and simple to generate any lasting interest, as we follow a semi-young man’s journey into madness leading up to the slaying his controlling mother.

There are some good scenes brooding with inner unrest reminiscent of the tone of the superior “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans” (2009) that makes this and interesting experience. Particularly the long takes depicting the villa with cactuses and flamingos in the garden has a “postcard gone bad”-quality. 

Viewed on a Scandinavian Blu-ray release.