Entry 132: "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (2005)

Dear Internet,

                I have wanted to watch "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" for some time.  I saw the other two films in the Vengeance trilogy a few years ago, both of which I enjoyed quite immensely.   I particularly enjoyed "Oldboy" which got me interested in Park Chan-wook, the shared director for all the films, and got me to watch some of his non-Vengeance films, notably "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK" and "Joint Security Area."  Overall, I find his films to be quite enjoyable if at least more than a bit hard to stomach.  Park's films are not visually disturbing in the same way that a gory film like "Saw" is.  No, "Lady Vengeance" is more difficult to watch because of the topics that it covers, most difficult being kidnapping, child murdering, prison life, and the conflict between personal revenge and public justice.

                The film tells the story of Lee Geum-ja, a recently paroled woman who has done thirteen years for kidnapping and murder of a five year old boy.  During those thirteen years, she created a demeanor of an angelic persona, taking care of numerous other prisoners, pretending to have converted to allow for early release, and incapacitating the prison bully.  Once out, she begins to call in a number of favors from the other ex-convicts.  One by one, the audience learns of the various things that Lee did while imprisoned and how each favor she calls in begins to fit into a much larger plan.  She plans on finding the real perpetrator to the crime that she paid thirteen years for.

                "Lady Vengeance" has an intertwining plot that does not let itself be known right away.  The film's true plot does not become apparent until about thirty minutes in.  Until that time, the viewer has to piece together a number of nearly disconnected scenes that do little to create a concrete understanding of the film's central character, Lee.  At one moment, the film presents itself as a straightforward redemption film, only showing how Lee responds to a preacher as being penitent, wishing to be forgiven for her actions.  After she is released, we do see that her actions prove this is a falsehood, only one of many faces she wears throughout the film.  While this does work while having the whole film examined in its entirety, I found myself heavily confused as to what I was supposed to be understanding at the time.  The whirlwind of information presented in the beginning can be difficult to absorb since the film as a whole is suspense and mystery.  The film takes a while to show that Lee was indeed innocent by only showing flashbacks to scenes that are outside her own experience, ones that are unaware of her guilt or not.  This early hump comes from spreading out the exposition out a little too much.  While it does eventually resolve itself, it should be noted.

                I enjoyed the film, but I continued to think of the other two Vengeance films while viewing this one.  The other two films remember that the one that was enacting the vengeance was not without crimes themselves.  "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" ended with the protagonist succumbing to the consequences of his own actions.  "Oldboy" at least made the viewer wonder if the protagonist had even gained his revenge at all or if his actions had dug himself into an even deeper pit than the one he was originally thrown into.  This film, however, gets to the end and leaves the viewer with a quick and dry answer.  Lee commits crimes throughout the film, but each action is against a guilty party that has committed far worse.  At the end of the film, there is no question of "Now what?" because Lee has tied up every loose end and received everything but forgiveness for her initial crime, something that she will never gain.  The audience knows that her first crime, aiding the kidnapping but not the murder of a child, can never be truly forgiven by the victim because the victim is dead.  Lee will never receive her redemption through her vengeance.  The best she can hope for is to stop the perpetrator from continuing his actions.  The film rests its ending on this obvious truth, but the viewer can reason this out when they learn of her plans.  In turn, the ending comes to its logical conclusion without any sort of twist that the other Vengeance films are able to spin.  But that leads more into the two-thirds twist that diverts the film as a whole.

                Near the climax of the film, the story switches to Lee's personal vendetta to that of small mob justice, for lack of a better name.  More crimes are found against the man who had sent Lee to prison.  The victim's relatives are brought in and his sentence is chose by mob rule instead of being instantly handed over to the police.  The whole thing turns rather "Murder on the Orient Express" rather quickly.  Then the film's speed slows down considerably because of this shift in tone.  It then has to spend time elaborating on the various new characters.  It does not get to the point that each and every character gets an exhaustive, but with a cast of at least of half a dozen that already received a likewise small introduction, it becomes a bit tiring.  Throw on top that thematic change and the film can really be divided into two parts to the point where it might have been easier to just separate it into two films.  The fact that the climax and the division occurs at the two-third mark means that the last third moves slowly and is worse yet, just playing out the logical conclusion.  The viewer can guess the rest of the film at that point as they watch being played out what is going through their head.

                "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" is an enjoyable film if one can stand the film's content.  The film presents the brutal honesty of human depravity while depicting a horrible fiction.  Film artistry is there as well as a compelling plot.  The acting is spot on with the cast being able to convey the character's pain without being comically melodramatic.  Overall, it is a film that can stand next to other Vengeance films, if just standing a sit short.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Nier" for the PS3.

Entry 109: "Battle Royale"

Dear Internet,

                You will note if you have quickly skimmed the rest of this entry that the logo is the only image that I am posting for this review.  This is because "Battle Royale" is one of the bloodiest films that I have come across.  Not the most graphic considering some parts that I will cover in a bit, but definitely one of the bloodiest.  The film cannot be less graphic than it already is if it wants to tell the story and message it is trying to convey.  What is this terrible story that requires a high level of grotesque actions to exist?

                Some time in the future of Japan, a massive depression hits the country with record high unemployment.  In reaction to this, student protests erupted around the nation.  Fearing the youth, a law was passed which became known as the BR Act.  The BR Act creates a yearly death-match game.  A random middle school class is chosen every year to be thrown onto an island.  There, they are collared with electronic monitoring devices.  Every few hours, a section of the island is marked as a danger zone.  If the student is in one of these danger zones, the collar explodes.  If the student acts against the people running the game, the collar explodes.  If more than one person is alive at the end of the three days, all the collars will explode.  The last person alive will be set free, if there is one.  Every student is given a random weapon that ranges anywhere from a cooking lid, a crossbow, a knife, to a semi-automatic rifle.  These are the rules of the BR, the Battle Royale.

                Well, that is actually more the premise than the story in the film.  The story follows a few select students that participate in a specific yearly game and the former teacher that moderates it with the help of armed personnel.  I could go into details about the various characters, but that would place too much emphasis on specific ones.  This in turn would give away who finally wins the BR, and seeing as the film is a suspenseful one that relies heavily upon the outcome of the game, I will try and not talk about anyone specific.  That does not prevent me from talking about the former teacher, Kitano.  Kitano had been the group's teacher before he left because of being attacked by one of his students with a knife.  He is a multi-layered character, but is also somewhat a broken one.  This comes from the way that the game functions in the greater scheme, but I am again getting ahead of myself for the second time in one entry.  Let me talk about that graphic stuff first.

                The film rarely holds back the plethora of ways that characters die off.  Many students are killed by gunfire.  There are a number of double-suicides, and blood flows like stolen cash through a second world bank.  The film is not meant to be seen by the squeamish or the younger members of the audience.  That having been said, there is not much graphic stuff if you look really close.  Take the students that die by gunfire.  Not a single one had a bullet wound anywhere they were shot.  After hundreds of hours of watching old western films/TV shows, it has become second nature for me to look for bullet holes when someone gets shot.  In "Battle Royale," everyone only gets covered with blood.  One student, when being sliced in the back from a knife, tumbled forward to show where he had been hurt.  The blood was not what struck me first, visually, but the lack of a tear in his shirt.  Many of the "graphic" injuries that take part in the film are represented by these budget makeup tricks that make the film actually less graphic that what it is trying to be.   Sure, some people lose their heads, and quite a number of the violent acts are reproducible in a real life setting, but even a film like "Ichi the Killer" is more graphic despite being even more cartoonish than this film.  Is it the fact that the violence is being done by and towards individuals below the legal adult cutoff?  If that is the case, there needs to be a better reason.

                The film's violence is primarily being done towards and by minors, specifically 15 year-olds or so.  While from a legal point of view, they are seen as children, the film's nature throws this away with the "point" of the game.  The reason that the film's antagonist, Kitano, gives to the students as to why they are being forced to play the twisted game is that Japan has gotten tired of its youth acting like spoiled children.  From a lack of respect to the teachers, skipping school, and even assaulting people, the youth of Japan are painted as delinquents broadly.  In the real world, there are numerous problems with the Japanese educational system and the students that have to go through it.  A quick search of Japanese female bullying can bring up stories and attitudes that will turn your stomach even more than the film can.  The film, however, shows that the adults of the fictitious world shirk their own responsibilities and blame the problems of the children on the children.  It is the polar opposite extreme of the argument "I am this way because of my parents" where the individual shirks the blame higher up the family tree.  The adults of the film wash their hands of the responsibility of the children that they must raise and care for.  Take the suicide of one of the character's parents. This is an obvious running away from the responsibilities of everything in the specific character's life but most importantly the raising of his child.  Then you can take the whole BR game as a whole.  Instead of the government fixing the unemployment problem or even addressing the problems of the educational system, it decides that the children are not acting adult enough.  It concocts a death-match game to scare the students to keep going to school.  The final victor of each game is supposed to be the model individual by the logic of the game.  This only makes it seem that the model Japanese adult is one that should kill the competition ruthlessly for the sake of that one individual rather than aiding the group and working for the betterment of the community.  Then again, that does sound like the typical Japanese businessman mentality.  

                But I have digressed, again.  The violence of the film is no worse than the kind that is found in any other sort of violent action film.  The complete lack of visual wounds makes the violence no worse than stage acting, with blood capsules popping when a trick dagger "stabs" a person.  I have seen animated films be more violent than "Battle Royale," with the actions being directed at a much wider age range.  If one is suppose to be outraged at the violence being done to and by kids, you cannot at the same time sweep under the rug the real world problems that the film is trying to talk about which stem greatly from the educational system.  Japan has got one of the most messed up educational systems in the world.  Between the excessive national ranking exams and the emphasis on rote memorization rather than critical thinking skills, it is a wonder that the country is still able to function with the stress being placed squarely on the student.  If you do not get into a top level college, you are branded a failure with the stigma following you even to your job years later.  That is after you get into the prestigious high school before that.  The label of failure is placed so much on an individual who does not meet the expectations of this top percentile mentality that many people become shut-ins for years, refusing to try interacting with the world.  The mentality that these individuals should just "grow up and get a job" is the same kind that is directed to the students.  While there is some truth to the fact that one should take hold of one's life, the attitude that kids should just grow up as quickly as possible and begin to fit a broken mold is lunatic in nature.  They are the way they are because you molded them that way.  It reminds me of the lyrics of the song "Institutionalized" which went like:

                "How can you say what my best interest is? What are you trying to say, I'm crazy?
                When I went to your schools, I went to your churches,
                I went to your institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'm crazy?"

You cannot blame the child without also blaming the adult.  Both are responsible, not one without the other.

                The film is an obvious critique of the nature of Japanese upbringing where the adult is barely an adult themselves and criticizes the child for being a child.  However, the film does not make this critique well because of how it handles the reason for the game.  While on one hand, the fact that the Japanese adult makes an outlandish decision to bring forth a death-match to shirk the blame of how the youth are acting up and to attempt to discipline the youth is a great way to showcase the real life manner that parents hide from their responsibilities, it just does not come across as feasible in its explanation.  The fact that a bigger uprising against the government does not occur in response to an inhuman decision to bring back the gladiatorial games and mix it together with a Communistic fear of the government is hard to believe, but then again, there is a sequel that deals a bit like that.  The film does little to nothing to present why the game is the way it is.  It would be understandable if the true answer to the game was to not kill one another and that after three days all the survivors were let go free.  The film does not go into detail as to why the government makes the game.  Is it supposed to make the student populace obey?  It cannot since the class for the game is chosen at random according to the rules.  It is supposed to show the populace that a dog-eat-dog mentality is the best kind?  Surely not, since it would then be condoning wanton murder in the streets.  Is the government trying to control the rest of the populace into fearing for the lives of their children?  This cannot be the case since every adult, save one, thinks not for what is truly best for the children but that they should be aiming for this messed-up ideology.  The film just does a poor job in rationalizing the reason for the BR game that it becomes a nagging bug in the back of the mind.  It continues to nag for the whole film.  

                "Battle Royale" is a good film that knows how to keep the audience on the edge of their seat.  You can think of it as "Ten Little Indians" mixed with "The Orient Express."  A group of people are confined to a single place, and the mystery killer is everyone.  While it does try to tackle some modern problems of Japan, it does so ham-fisted by concocting a game with broken motives.  It would have done a better job if it tackled the problems head on, rather than going through a roundabout way.  In the end, it makes me want to pick up "Jisatsutou" which handled an apathetic government better.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is "Dodes'ka-den."

Entry 056: "They Live" (1988)

Dear Internet,

                I seem to be a sucker for a good alien movie, especially one where the aliens are trying to take over the Earth.  I have perhaps seen "Independence Day" about twenty or more times.  There is just something rather charming about fighting off grotesque cosmic horrors that wish to use us like cattle or want to squash us like bugs.  The concept is very similar to the tales of giants above the clouds, biding their time to come down and claim the ground.  Within such stories, the various protagonists are tested to determine if they are willing to set aside their differences for the survivability of the group.  When faced by a force so much grander and powerful than the single individual, group dynamics are created, even temporarily, so that life may continue.  "They Live" takes these various "aliens vs. humans" themes and transplants them from being two forces fighting above and below to being an intermingling fight where each force must contend on nearly the same field.

                "They Live" follows John Nada, a drifter who comes to Los Angeles.  There he takes on a job at a construction yard and befriends Frank Armitage, who shows him to a shanty town where the two are able to live and sleep.  Across the road from this Hooverville, is a church that houses some strange individuals.  Meanwhile, every now and again, someone seems to hack into the local television airwaves and tells the viewer to wake up to the subliminal messages being put out.  Nada, like the rest, does not think much of the "tin-foil hat" rantings until he notices that every time they occur, a certain individual in the camp runs over to the church across the road.  Nada investigates and finds a chemistry lab filled with sunglasses.  The next day or two, the police show up, storm the church, bulldoze the shacks, and mercilessly beat down a number of people.  Nada goes back to the church and finds a few sunglasses that the police were unable to find.  When he dons the specs, he sees that behind every single piece of advertising and marketable object is a subliminal message.  Bold black words messages like "Obey" or "Stay Asleep" jump out at Nada as he roams the streets.  He comes across a businessman, who when viewed through the glasses, is as kinless, bulging eyed alien.  From there, the conspiracy is no longer a theory.

                "They Live" is a very enjoyable movie filled with fun twists and turns.  The aliens are a real treat to see.  They are disgusting only a little while, but they never become old hat.  It might be because every time that they appear, for the most part, is when the camera looks through the special lenses.  Each time it happens, the film cuts the color right out and becomes good old black and white.  Even Nada had to shake his head a few times when looking through the lenses the first time.  The black and white is a wonderful nod to the classic horror films that had to do much with such a little pallet.  There is also the fact that black and white has a great impact in the mind of viewers.  It is not a natural way to look at things, and when it occurs, it jars the viewer because of it.  At the end of the film, there are a few shots that show the aliens in full color.  When it does, the effect is comical because of their multi-colored designs, which is exactly the kind of feel that the movie is aiming for at that moment.

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                The film is filled with over the top action.  From shotguns to automatic rifles, the second half of the movie goes from suspense to full on action movie.  It is a weird shift, especially since it happens so quickly.  Nada goes from disbelieving the power of the shades to ridiculing the aliens to their face to blowing them apart in about ten minutes.  At least the film had the decency to explain that since the glasses block out the hypnotic waves that the aliens put out, he is acting violently in a manner that mirrors a drug addict's withdrawal symptoms.  On top of the already over the top gun violence is a fight sequence that occurs between Nada and Frank.  The all mighty Wikipedia clocks the fight at five a half minutes, but it definitely feels much longer than that.  The fight is supposed to separate the storyline from Nada being alone to when he has an ally on his side.  It could even be interpreted as a sequence illustrating how difficult it is to make the common man believe the truth despite the otherwise ease of proof.  All Frank had to do was put on the glasses to see what Nada was saying was true.  Instead, Nada had to fervently bust Frank apart to force him to wear the glasses.  While the fight could be seen as an effort in almost futility to make the unbeliever believe, it is somewhat long to the point of interrupting the flow of the plot.

                There is one thing that the film does not address within the fact that aliens are living among the human population.  The film goes to great lengths to press the concept that the aliens are the secret ruling class.  This is not a new concept.  Tales of secret organizations pulling the strings behind curtains goes back centuries if not millennia.  The difference in "They Live" is that they intermingle to such a degree that they are almost common.  They eat with the humans.  They work with them.  They even have sex with them, which bring up a whole lot more questions.  The biggest thing that struck me was that the aliens are using the same objects that the humans are using.  There is one alien that buys a newspaper, something that is clearly shown to be one of the brainwashing items.  Why does he do this?  The item is of no real use to him, since he would see through the object in the same manner that Nada does with the use of the glasses.  It is more likely an attempt to keep up appearances with the other humans around.  If it is an attempt to do so, then the aliens have to jump through a number of loops themselves.  What else do they have to do for appearance's sake?  Eating, socializing, and working right alongside humans most likely.  At that point, the aliens are being forced to conform to the norms that they are placing upon the populace.  The pivotal difference is that they are selected to benefit more than their human peers.  It is almost as if the aliens act just as much as sheep as the humans they hypnotize.

                There is one quick thing that I want to get out of the way.  There is a character late in the story that appears before Nada and Frank.  He had sold out to the aliens and was rewarded by being given money beyond his wildest dreams.  The character is apparently the drifter shown early on in the film, something that the film hopes you realize.  However, the film does such a good job of transforming the character from a homeless bum to a tuxedo wearing weasel that I could not recognize him.  I even went back to the earlier scenes hoping to figure out who he is, but failed to identify him.  While I admit that the complete change of dress did completely change the character's image, I wish the film had at least given a line to his identity so I would not feel so lost, but maybe I am the minority in this small trouble.

                "They Live" is a fun movie that knows how to prey on our paranoia.  The only problem is also its biggest draw.  It does not take itself seriously enough, and perhaps it should not.  While the various action sequences are lively, pulling the audience in and making them wonder how the characters are going to overcome each obstacle, there is a certain level of camp flowing through the movie.  The whole thing is a bit corny, but not to the point where it detracts from the plot.  It is not like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" which has a creeping menace constantly in the forefront.  Nor is it like "Mars Attacks" which cranks up the comedy to the point of being a satire of the alien doomsday genre.  "They Live" takes its own road that delivers one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had watching aliens get splattered.  Also the ending and ultimate fate of Nada is perhaps one of the best and gutsiest finishers out there.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is "Ano Natsu de Matteru" or "Waiting in the Sumer."