JIM Reviews film "SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE" [ & speaks of future FREE Chicago film ]

“SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE” – A Pretty Face doesn’t always tell what’s Underneath! =

Rating: 7.5 of 10 stars.

This was the 3rd in the FREE every-Wednesday Summer series of foreign films hosted by the CHICAGO INT’L. FILM FESTIVAL at the Cultural Center.

This gritty, hard-hitting Korean film is the 3rd in a trilogy by director Park Chan-wook, and tells the story of a very pretty woman wrongly jailed for kidnapping & killing a young child, after which her own child is taken away from her. The film tells background stories of her various cell-mates and how she extracts revenge against one of the abusive bullies there. Once released, she meets her young brother, contacts her taken-away daughter & sets upon an involved plan (sometimes involving ex-cellmates) to get vengeance against the guy who’d instigated her jailing. She in time discovers the actual murderer of the child she was blamed for killing, learns of other crimes he’s committed & involves relatives of the victims in her plans. While the story is at times convoluted (due to the numerous characters introduced), it’s a fascinating (& sometimes humorous) exploration of the mind of a woman whose anger has led her to do various shocking things in retaliation for what was done to her.

[Next week is the Canadian film “Bon Cop, Bad Cop” about cultural differences between policemen who have to work together to solve a murder]…