CHICAGO – If you’ve never seen the farcical ensemble theater chestnut “Noises Off,” you will see no better version than on the Steppenwolf Theatre stage, now at their northside Chicago venue through November 3rd. For tickets and details for this riotous theater experience, click NOISES OFF.
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]…