lady vengeance Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'm not quite sure how I missed this, but there is an interesting bit of news coming by way of Boston.com this week. In an interview with Charlize Theron, they discussed her current plans, and the upcoming Sleepwalking, but that's not all. On the third page of the article, it says she will both produce and star in a remake of Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

I guess they're either not into the movie, or were stopped from getting any further details, because that's all they say about it. Filthy teases. The original came out back in 2006, and with Charlize involved in the remake, I imagine it will keep what Martha Fischer described as "totally unexpected" "subtlety and tenderness." For those who aren't familiar with Chan-Wook's vengeance trilogy, this final film focuses on a teen girl who is forced to confess to a crime she didn't commit. She spends the next 13 years in prison, and is a model inmate known for her kindness. Once she gets out, however, her tune changes and she begins to put together the revenge she has been secretly plotting over the years. She's so determined, in fact, that it's all she cares about -- shrugging off everything around her as a distraction.

While not big on remakes, especially of really funky foreign films worthy of a viewing, I have to admit -- Charlize could probably knock this out of the ballpark. Could this be her Oscar win without "getting ugly?"

[via Ace Showbiz]

Between the hoards of self-conscious message movies and piles of garbage that didn't screen for the press, I saw, about two dozen films in 2006 that showed any kind of cinematic artistry. The movies that made my top ten list are movies that don't hand over any easy answers and have thus largely gone ignored this year. Moreover, these were films that used the form in a visual way, rather than simply unfolding a story on film like a big book-on-tape. The cinema isn't dead; it's just hiding...

I should note that my two favorite movies this year, Terrence Malick's The New World and Claire Denis' The Intruder officially count as 2005 movies, even though they opened in most theaters in 2006. So, with a broken heart, I leave them off the list. I also want to include a caveat that the year's most anticipated movie, David Lynch's Inland Empire, has only opened in New York and Los Angeles. No press screenings or screener DVDs have been available in any other city, so I have not been able to see it.

1. Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
One of the world's greatest filmmakers has been working for over twenty years. Yet only two of his films have received U.S. distribution. Each starred the beautiful Shu Qi (known in this country for her role in The Transporter) and each lasted about a week in theaters. Three Times, a triptych about two lovers in the 1960s, the 1920s and the present day, isn't one of Hou's very best films, but the first segment alone -- set in the Vietnam era -- is arguably his most heartbreakingly lovely achievement. It towers over everything else released this year.

This week, instead of grousing about the state of cinema, let's celebrate the continued existence of the good little films that could.

I haven't yet seen Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, but I am greatly looking forward to it, mostly because those two polar opposites of Chicago film criticism, the worldly, intelligent Jonathan Rosenbaum and the popular Roger Ebert, both called it a masterpiece. Running nearly three hours, it chronicles the final couple of days in the title character's life; he feels ill, calls an ambulance and fails to convince anyone that he's actually dying. It currently has a deathlock on two screens with a weekend gross of $354 (yes, that's right -- three hundred and fifty-four dollars) and a total gross of about $41,000.

I've already raved in this space about Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest film, Three Times, which could be his most universal work to date. Broken down into three segments, it tells the story of three romances in three different eras; the same actors, Chang Chen and Shu Qi, play the couple in each. Even if the second two segments somehow fall short, the first segment, set in 1966, is easily Hou's most delicate, emotional work. Three Times is on three screens, enjoyed a weekend gross of about $3,000 and has grossed $81,000.

 

One of the keys to the sneaky emotional power of Park Chanwook’s “Revenge Trilogy” (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance) is the distance he keeps from his characters. All three films center on characters of complex morality, doing things that are foreign and often shocking to most viewers. Park, however, refuses to either judge or endorse their choices. Instead, he simply records events as they happen, allowing his characters and their actions to speak for themselves.

Such is the case with Lady Vengeance, Park’s follow-up to the showier Oldboy, the film that won him not only the Director’s Prize at Cannes in 2004, but also instant world-wide regard. The film is the story of Lee Geum-ja (Lee Yeong-ae), a lovely young woman who, while still in her teens, was forced by an older man (Oldboy's Choi Min-sik) into confessing to a brutal child-murder she didn’t commit. Through her 13 years in prison, she was revered by her fellow inmates for her kindness, and known to the outside world for her great piety; upon her release, however, Geum-ja coldly begins calling in favors from her former cell-mates, and sets in motion a plan for revenge that has been in the works for all those long years in jail.

Whether they are accidental, intentional or inevitable, we, as a human race, have tons and tons of issues. Often, it's those people who think they have nothing wrong with them that have the most issues. In fact, in order to mask the unhappiness they have with themselves, they will purposely seek out and try to define the issues of those that surround them.

Why? Because if they save/fix/correct/stabilize their loved one, then, in turn, they will find happiness within their soul... or something like that. In recent years, we've tried to solve our issues with drugs, therapy and, more often than not, a mix of the two. Does it help? Or does it just create more issues to deal with? While you ponder those thought-provoking questions, why not check out the following trailers -- all of which feature characters suffering through their own issues. Yay! Someone get my therapist on the phone, it's time for this week's Trailer Park...

 

Lady Vengeance (which used to be called Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - apparently she's alienated us already), in case you've forgotten, is the third installment of Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy. Depending on who you ask, the film, which was proceeded by Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, is either disappointing or easily the best of the bunch.

Though it'll be a while yet until until its American release (it opens here on May 5), the UK version of iTunes is promoting the film, which opens in England on Friday, by making available a free, 13 minute clip. If you want to be creeped out on your subway ride this morning, download the sucker, watch it on your video iPod (of course, if you're technologically behind like me, you can also sit at your computer and do so), and find out what the hell everybody is talking about. Additionally, if you've seen the film or its predecessors and have questions for their director, Time Out will be conducting an interview with Park tomorrow, and they want to know what we're curious about. Since there are currently a grand total of two reader submissions, you've probably got a good chance of getting your question asked, assuming it's not something like "Do you like dogs?" or "What's your damn problem, freak?"

Lady Vengeance (formerly know as Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) is South Korean director Park Chan-wook's final installment in his revenge trilogy. The series started with the little-seen Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which was followed by the wildly successful Oldboy. Though the characters in the films are unrelated, they go through similar ordeals, and are all determined to get revenge for their experiences. Lady Vengeance will be released in the US by Tartan Films in late April, and they're taking an interactive approach to promoting the film: fans are being asked to choose the advertising poster.

Like the rest of the world, Tartan have a MySpace page, and it's there that you can see the seven options, and vote for your favorite. (Me, I love #6 but since it's totally misleading to casual observers, I'd vote for #5.) The only problem is that it looks like you've got to have a MySpace identity to vote - other than that, though, this is a pretty cool idea. Allowing the public to choose creates publicity and a buzz about the film, and the result will ideally be both a poster with which fans are happy, and an advertising campaign over which they have a sense of ownership. All that remains is to see if they show up to see the movie they helped promoted.

[via JoBlo]