Review of Lady Vengeance / 친절한 금자씨, directed by Park Chan-wook

If you’re new here and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I began this website as a way to document everything I was watching and reading as a bit of a digital archive. I used to work professionally as a film critic for three years, so this was a way of also exploring my interests.

I did end up breaking off to do my own thing in the end, and this website has been an unexpected joy of mine. Although I myself am not Korean, Korea always had a soft spot for me. I lived there briefly in high school, continued this blog documenting my Korean film and literature journey, and even did my master’s thesis on colonial Korean women’s literature.

Lately I’ve been revisiting movies that I watched when I was in college and high school. I used to go to film premieres and screenings in New York City, hitting up every Korean cinema feature that was in town. I dreamed of being in industry after I got to see Song Kang-ho and Bong Joon-ho at IFC Center when Parasite premiered, and I made that dream happen!

Lady Vengeance is one of those movies I’m coming back to after all of these years. I first watched it in college when I was going through the entire Vengeance Trilogy over the course of a week, but for some reason I never reviewed this one formally on the site. I had my notes and review in my journal, but I published my other reviews on this blog.

It was the perfect excuse to come back to the movie after all of these years, and when I hit an unexpected spell of unemployment, it was the golden opportunity. I had the finances to take some time off of work and focus on my interests and writing career, so I took the chance and made some risks.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction, especially as I know it’s probably not what you’re here for.

After spending time in prison for something she did not do, Geum-ja is looking for revenge.

This movie opens with a strange season: a bunch of Christians, singing, are standing outside of a prison with a block of tofu. There’s some symbolism involved with that tofu, but they’re waiting for the release of Lee Geum-ja, who has reformed herself after being in prison for over a decade. She was convicted for the kidnap and murder of a young boy, but she was quite the national sensation when the case happened.

In prison, she dedicated herself to becoming the model citizen, and was let go early because of that. Turns out this was a farce in order to get out, as she wants to take a path of revenge as soon as she’s free. She’s bloodthirsty and will do whatever it takes, as it turns out she was framed for this murder.

A high schooler when this happened, she got pregnant and turned to a teacher, Mr. Baek, for some assistance. He wanted sex from her and kidnapped kids, and he was the one who actually murdered the boy. He forced Geum-ja to take the blame, as he said he would murder her child if he did not. This is why she wants revenge so badly, and she gets a job at a bakery.

It’s there, waiting for the right time to strike, she discovers her daughter was adopted by Australian. She no longer speaks Korean and doesn’t see Geum-ja as her mother, but she spends time with her real mother, which makes her happy.

After that, Geum-ja recruits Mr. Baek’s wife to help her kill him. He tries to stop them by hiring some guys to take them out, but they kill them easily. They get Mr. Baek, tie him up in a warehouse, and Geum-ja realizes he had murdered a bunch of other kids. He’s a straight up serial killer, and he also took money from the victims’ parents.

With the case detective that helped her out, Geum-ja contacts all of the parents, and they come to the school. He taped the murders, they watch them together, and they decide as a group to kill Mr. Baek. They do just that, then take a group photo to implicate everyone in the crime.

After, they go to the bakery. She sees the ghost of the child she took the blame for, then sees him as an adult. She tells her daughter to live like tofu, which is pure and white, and cries.

Overall Thoughts

The Vengeance Trilogy is one of the most fascinating trilogies to me, especially as someone who studies Korean film and literature. It’s such a series of movies that could only come out of Korea during this time, and it feels like it kickstarted a certain brand of movies that feels very Korean.

That said, this is the only film of the three that features a female protagonist. I feel like this adds such a specific dynamic, but it can be a slippery slope considering Geum-ja is the ideal mother in the end. I didn’t find her to be a complex character, and she was the weakest of the three protagonists to me.

I still think it’s a decent movie. I do wonder if there would have been a difference if it was directed by a woman, and what this movie would have looked like otherwise.

Go watch it if you haven’t already and are interested. You might find it worth it!

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