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SPOILERS AHEAD
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, directed by Park Chan-Wook and released in 2002, is a dark, offbeat film following quirky characters that reflect the internal conflict between North and South Korea, highlighting the effects of South Korea separating from the North as they go on a quest for vengeance. This political unrest is specifically portrayed through the interactions between the characters. Their conflicting goals are told through the choice of dialogue and cinematography of the film, reflecting that between their country and its next-door “enemy”.
This theme of socio-political conflict presents itself in one of the workers from Dong-jin’s company. This worker attempts harakiri, a ritualistic form of suicide used by Samurai, in front of Dong-jin, ultimately failing to kill himself, instead attacking the businessmen with his knife. Although this scene does not necessarily represent the conflict between countries, it highlights an important effect caused by South Korea’s conversion to capitalism. In an economy ruled by oligarchies, or “conglomerates'' as Yeong-mi calls them, there is a massive gap in wealth between classes. This worker’s choice to opt out rather than continue to struggle financially makes Ryu’s decision to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman almost justifiable, something that Ryu’s sister ends up struggling with, leading her to successfully commit suicide. This scene is also important to Yeong-mi’s mission to bring South Korea back to communism.
Ryu’s girlfriend Yeong-mi makes an interesting analogy, telling him of a story about a man who thought he had two heads so he shot himself in one of the heads to reduce the headaches he has. Ryu isn’t quick to understand, taking the story too literally. However, what Yeong-mi is getting at is the relationship between North and South Korea. Each country causes the other so much strife and pain that they are hyper-focused on the other. They are so focused on the other’s moves that it is almost as if they are holding a gun up to the other country with a finger on the trigger, threatening the other, declaring it an enemy. Each country wants the other to cease to exist and unify as one, just like Yeong-mi’s story of the man with two heads when, in reality, they come from the same land.
This same scene not only reflects the conflict between two countries, but the conflict between two people. Ryu and Yeong-mi’s values are not in sync. This is shown by a mirror obscuring their faces down the middle of the shot while they are talking, yet their bodies can be seen on different sides of the mirror. This scene is important because it shows them as one head with two bodies, unlike the story of the man with one body and two heads, showing how they may share the same plan, but their goals and values are not the same. This is also reflected in the following shot as Yeong-mi talks to Ryu through the mirror, creating a distance between them. Ryu sees the mirrored signs of their conversation while the viewer sees Yeong-mi’s true meaning.
After Ryu and Yeong-mi kidnap Yu-sun, they take her to a playground where Yeong-mi entertains the little girl by teaching her a song and dance. What seems like a sweet scene has a much more serious meaning. The song is an anti-communist propaganda song, which, of course, Yu-sun does not know and is seen singing the song again in a later scene. Yeong-mi may have taught her this song to throw the cops off her trail since she is notoriously part of a pro-communist association. The tone of the song gets lost as a child sings it for fun, not knowing the dark history and nationalist meaning behind it. Similar to the cartoons Yu-sun watches, what is mindless entertainment to a child holds a deeper meaning to an adult, or in this case, someone (Yeong-mi) who is aware of the long history between North and South Korea.
Another thing about this scene is the camera angle, specifically at 24:48. As Yu-sun joins Yeong-mi in the song and dance, the shot switches to looking down on them, resembling security camera footage, making it seem as if they are being watched, or monitored, a trait associated with communist or dictatorship ruled countries. This could be alluding to the fact that the police and Dong-jin are looking for his daughter, but there is a strong theme of South Korea’s history with communism as Yeong-mi seems to be mocking the anti-communist song and the camera angle right before this shot pans upwards capturing an interesting contrast. In the foreground, there is the playground, and in the background looms an almost brutalist-style building resembling iconic Soviet and communist architecture. This follows the theme of a child’s innocent oblivion to the bigger picture as Yu-sun is focused on swinging and dancing around the playground while the song she sings is reminiscent of the building in the background.
Another quirky character who portrays a glimpse into the corrupt South Korean society is the man with special needs. He has clearly been neglected as his clothes are soiled, his hair matted, and he wanders the riverbank by himself. He is clearly intelligent as he tries to alert Ryu to Yu-sun falling into the river as well as helping Dong-jin uncover Ryu’s sister’s body. The neglect of this character tells the story of the poor healthcare system in South Korea. This is also seen with the senile elderly man who is shown multiple times sitting alone on rotting furniture. The only one who stops to help him is Ryu, who is disabled himself. The failure of the country’s healthcare system deepens as Ryu gets scammed and his kidney stolen by a drug addict surgeon and her sons who run their business out of an empty warehouse. Of course, there is Ryu, who is treated poorly and even fired because he is deaf, and his sister, whose kidney disease causes Ryu to go to extreme lengths. There is a sense of emptiness and loneliness that follows these characters, emphasizing how the healthcare system has failed them. They have either been abandoned or left to their own devices to fend for themselves in a country where healthcare is only for the wealthy.
The socio-political unrest between the North and South follows the characters through to the end of the film. When Dong-jin is about to kill Ryu, he tells him, “I know you’re a good guy but you know why I have to do this.” The same could be said about the people of North and South Korea as both countries are filled with innocent people, but political pride makes them do bad or unfavorable things to maintain their reputation. However, the quest for vengeance continues in the pursuit of communism this time. After Dong-jin has seemingly taken care of his business, men from Yeong-mi’s anarchist group hunt him down and kill him, staking a pro-communist flier to his body.
Just like Yeong-mi’s story of the man with two heads, each character ended up getting themselves killed as they recklessly chased after “solutions” to their problems, driven by the desire to right someone else’s wrongs. This represents the endless war between South Korea and North Korea, two countries driven blind with rage towards the other, each holding a gun up to the other so no one wins; there is only a sense of loss or what could have been.
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