Lucy (2014 film)

Written, directed, and edited by Luc Besson, Lucy is the story of an American woman traveling in Taiwan where she unwillingly becomes a drug mule only for the drugs to get into her system which allows her to access the large capacity of her brain. The film is an exploration of a woman who arrives into Taiwan as a typical woman only to become less human as the effects of a mysterious drug has her access all sorts of things mentally while a professor tries to figure out what is going on with her as Scarlett Johansson would play the titular role. Also starring Choi Min-sik, Amr Waked, Analeigh Tipton, and Morgan Freeman. Lucy is an entertaining and captivating film from Luc Besson.

While it is believed that humans only have access to 10% of their brain’s capacity, the film questions about what happens if a human being exceeds that and goes to 100%. That is what the film dares to ask where it revolves around an American student in Taiwan who is forced to become a drug mule for a mysterious drug only for the drug to enter into her body where she is able to access the other 90% of her brain. Throughout her journey, she begins to have powers that goes beyond her mental capabilities as she would ask a famed researcher in Professor Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) about his studies about what the human brain might be able to. While the premise itself does seem far-fetched, Luc Besson knows that even though it does dare to asks some big questions. Especially as he knows that he isn’t trying to do anything seriously at all with these questions except suggest about what might happen if a person would access their brain’s entire capability.

The film’s script does have a sense of humor in the way it asks all of these questions about life and what the human brain can do while it is more about a woman who realizes about these powers she’s having and what they can do. At the same time, she realizes she is becoming less human in the process as she would struggle with what she’s about to lose. Turning to Professor Norman in his research, the two would try to figure things out as Lucy would also gain the help of a French policeman named Del Rio (Amr Waked) to retrieve the three other mules carrying the drug. Still, Lucy and Del Rio would have to deal with the Korean gangster Mr. Jang (Choi Min-sik) who wants to use the drug for profit as he and his gang would do whatever to stop Lucy unaware of the drug’s powers. While the script does play into conventions of what is expected from Besson in terms of action and such, he does manage to create a story that is willing to ask some big questions though it would have ideas that are quite ridiculous.

Besson’s direction is definitely stylish as he shoots part of the film in Taipei, Taiwan and in Paris with some bits of Rome and Berlin as it starts off in a comical manner where Lucy talks to a guy she meets about a job she doesn’t want to do. Some of it involves some unique shots and scenes that play into the idea of how someone would gain access to the human brain’s capacity. With Besson as the film’s editor, he would infuse a lot of montages that features images of nature and evolution to play into the idea of humanity itself just as Lucy starts to lose her own humanity to become engrossed with the knowledge that she’s accumulating. While Besson wants to infuse something that is intellectual as well as play into the themes of sci-fi, he does infuse some very spectacular action scenes that are quite entertaining to watch where Besson knows how to present the action and not make it chaotic. Though the overall results of the film is uneven where it wants to be all sorts of things. Besson still manages to make a film that dares to ask some big questions while not wanting to take itself very seriously.

Cinematographer Thierry Arbogast does excellent work with the film‘s cinematography from the way it captures the vibrancy of the nighttime exterior scenes in Taipei to the more naturalistic look of the scenes in Paris. Production designer Hugues Tissandier and set decorator Evelyne Tissandier do fantastic work with the look of Mr. Jang‘s penthouse as well as the lab where Professor Norman works at. Costume designer Olivier Beriot does terrific work with some of the clothes that Lucy wears in her many adventures.

Visual effects supervisor Nicholas Brooks is brilliant for the design and such that Lucy would see as well as some of the special effects that would revolve around her mind. Sound designers Guillaume Bouchateau, Aymeric Devoldere, and Shannon Mills do superb work with the sound effects in the film as well as in some of the sound montages that would play into Lucy‘s mind. The film’s music by Eric Serra is wonderful for its electronic-based score with some orchestral flourishes while the soundtrack would feature some electronic cuts and classical pieces for one major sequence in the film.

The casting by Nathalie Cheron is amazing as it features some notable small roles from Pilou Asbaek as a guy Lucy met a club and would put her in trouble, Julian Rhind-Tutt as a Limey, Jan Oliver Schroeder and Luca Angeletti as a couple of drug mules, Nicolas Phongpheth as Jang’s top henchman, and Analeigh Tipton as Lucy’s traveling companion in Taiwan. Amr Waked is excellent as the policeman Del Rio as a cop who is the first to see what Lucy can do as he would try to protect her while being the one person she can connect with from a humanity standpoint. Choi Min-sik is brilliant as Jang as this ruthless gangster who is hoping that the drug would make him money as there’s Min-sik has this very deranged quality that makes him a formidable villain.

Morgan Freeman is superb as Professor Samuel Norman as this researcher who realizes that Lucy is the key to the answers for everything he had been wanting to know about as well as the idea of what it might unleash. Finally, there’s Scarlett Johansson in a phenomenal performance as the titular character as this young woman who starts off as a typical American college student who is then put into a dangerous situation. It’s a performance that has Johansson display a lot of wit as well as this ability to be quite somber and eventually become less human as there is this eerie quality to her performance that just adds more weight to everything her character would endure.

While it is a very uneven film in tone, Lucy is still a stellar and fun film from Luc Besson that features an incredible performance from Scarlett Johansson in the titular role. While it is a film that dares to ask some big questions as well as be something that is entertaining though the overall results aren’t great. It is still an action that manages to be something different while showing that Luc Besson still has a few tricks up his sleeve. In the end, Lucy is a worthwhile film from Luc Besson.

Luc Besson Films: (Le Dernier Combat) - (Subway) - (The Big Blue) - (Nikita) - (Atlantis (1992 film)) - (Leon: The Professional) - (The Fifth Element) - (Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc) - (Angel-A) - (Arthur & the Invisibles) - (Arthur and the Revenge of Malthazard) - (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec) - (Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds) - (The Lady (2011 film)) - (The Family (2013 film))

© thevoid99 2014

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Originally Written and Posted at Epinions.com on 10/23/08.

After the release of 2003's Oldboy, the film became a huge, international success as director Chan-wook Park had caught the attention of the cinematic elite. While winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, American film director Quentin Tarantino revealed that he wanted Oldboy to win the Palme D'or that year though he and his fellow jurors at the festival ended up giving the award to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Oldboy was also part of a trilogy focusing on the theme of vengeance as it was preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance back in 2002. Park went back to his trilogy to conclude as his focus shifts towards a different kind of protagonist than his previous films as he switches genders from male to female. For the third and final part of trilogy, Park tells the story of a woman seeking vengeance for a crime she didn't commit entitled Chinjeolhan geumjassi (Sympathy for Lady Vengeance).

Directed by Chan-wook Park with a script co-written with Seo-Gyeong Jeong, Chinjeolhan geumjassi tells the story of a woman who had been released in prison after serving thirteen-and-a-half years for the kidnapping and murder of a young boy. Hoping to reunite with her daughter and seek a new life, the woman's taste for vengeance is huge as she hopes to find the real culprit behind the crime she didn't commit. Starring Lee Young Ae, Choi Min-sik, and Kwon Yea-young. Chinjeolhan geumjassi is a brilliant, haunting, and complex film from Chan-wook Park.

For thirteen-and-a-half years, Lee Guem-ja (Lee Young Ae) has just been released from prison for serving time for the kidnapping and murder of a young boy. Arriving out of the prison, she meets a Christian group led by a priest (Kim Byeong-ok) who believes she has reformed only to be told to go screw himself. Lee returns to Seoul where she stays with an old friend and fellow convict in Kim Yang-hee (Seo Yeong-ju). Kim recalls that Lee was an angel of sorts at the prison where her beauty and innocence captivated her fellow prisoners as she even thwarted a bully prisoner they called "the Witch" (Su-hee Go). Kim along with another convict helps Lee plan her revenge on the man that she went to prison for named Mr. Baek (Choi Min-sik). Lee's generosity in beating a bullying prisoner, saving other prisoners by giving one of them a kidney, and such has made her fellow prisoner friends to return a favor.

Working at a bakery with a young man named Guen-shik (Kim Shi-hu), Lee has an encounter with Detective Choi (Nam Il-wu). Choi recalls that Lee's false confession was only done because she wanted to protect her newborn baby from the real kidnapper, Mr. Baek. Her baby named Jenny (Kwon Yea-young), is now 13 and lives in Australia with adoptive parents (Tony Barry & Anne Cordiner). Jenny doesn't speak much Korean as Lee tries to connect with her daughter as they return to Seoul where Lee gets contact with a former convict named Park Yi-jeong (Lee Seung-Shin), who is the wife of Mr. Baek. Yet, Mr. Baek receives information of Lee's plans from the priest as he hires thugs to stop.

Instead, the plan backfires when his wife drugs his dinner as Lee confronts the man who took thirteen-and-a-half years of her life. During this confrontation, she learns a horrifying discovery that his murder of the boy wasn't just some one-time incident. With help from Detective Choi, she uncovers something even worse. The discovery forces Lee to realize that justice for herself isn't enough as it involves many other people who help her decide about their own thirst for justice.

What sets this film apart from its predecessors in the Vengeance Trilogy isn't just the fact that it's led by a female protagonist nor the film is about justice over something done wrong. The film is more about a woman who was known for her purity as she changes into an avenging angel with red eye shadow and wearing red high heels. What it's really about is a woman trying to take back the years that she lost as well as avenging the death of a boy she didn't kill yet was part of the crime for getting involved with Mr. Baek. Yet she's ravaged with guilt for making this happen where in one scene, she cuts off one of her fingers as punishment over the death of this boy. The guilt isn't just over the boy's death but the fact that she never got to know her daughter just after she was born.

Lee's guilt over the boy's death and the years loss in not knowing her daughter is what drives Lee's thirst for revenge against Mr. Baek. Yet, what is revealed in the third about Mr. Baek through a simple object is more shocking. Yet, it begins to raise more question about a man's crime as if Park asks a question to his audience. What would you do if you just learned that some man killed your child and what would you do to that person? Park's script raises that question while its aftermath reveals something that is spiritual as well as comforting where Lee begins to wonder her own new chapter in her life.

Park's direction is as potent as it was in his previous film where he takes on more stylistic choices as well as compositions. While his approach to violence is still extreme and not for the faint of heart, he takes on a more cinematic approach to the film. With uses of stylish editing, grainy camera footage, and gorgeous compositions. Park's directing shows him getting more confident in his choices while creating moments of suspense and elements of fantasy for comical and dramatic reasons. Yet, Park's emphasis to tell a story comes first rather than going for style as he raises more question about vengeance and justice while revealing the outcome of what happens. The result is Chan-wook Park reaching out to new maturity in his direction and his work as a storyteller.

Cinematographer Jeong-hun Jeong creates amazing lighting set-ups for the film's nighttime, exterior scenes. Notably the scene where two hired thugs try to jump Lee and Jenny. Other exterior shots like the yellowish, sunny Australia sequence as well as the Korean snow scenes are wonderfully exquisite. The interior sequences, notably in the film's final act, is wonderfully lit to convey a mood and style that plays true with the film in its current tone. Editors Jae-beom Kim and Sang-Beom Kim do great work with the use of jump-cuts, split screens, smooth transitions, and other styles of edits to create a film that keeps on bringing surprises with its cuts. The pacing is a bit slow yet works to convey the build-up of what's to come as it works in order to tell the story.

Production designer Hwa-seong Jo along with set decorator In-ho Oh and art directors Hyeon-Seok Choi and Ji-hyeong Han do great work in the look of the apartment that Lee stays along with her bakery and the place where she imprisons Mr. Baek. Costume designer Sang-gyeong Jo does amazing work in the look of Lee's clothing from her light-colored prison garb that she wears to the black coats and red heels that she wears on her quest for vengeance. Sound designers Chang-seop Kim, Seok-weon Kim, and Seung-cheol Lee do great work in the film's sound with the use of gunshots, objects, and other things to help convey the surrounding atmosphere Lee is in. Visual effects supervisor Jeon-hyeong Lee does excellent work in the film's visual work including some fantasy sequences involving the snow and such. Music composers Seung-hyun Choi, Yeong-wook Jo, and Seok-joo Na do great work with the film's score filled with sweeping and somber orchestral arrangements to convey the moods of Lee and her quest.

The film's cast is truly superb with small appearances from actors from the previous parts of Park's Vengeance trilogy like Hye-jeong Kang of Oldboy as a TV announcer and as the role of Baek's hired thugs, Kang-ho Song and Ha-kyun Shin from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Other small roles like Su-hee Go as the Witch, Seo Yeong-ju and Kim Bu-seon as two of Lee's former prison mates are great while Lee Seung-Shin is also great as a fellow prisoner who turns out to be Baek's wife. Tony Barry and Anne Cordiner are fine as Jenny's adoptive parents who turn out to be good people while Kim Byeong-ok is devilishly good as the eccentric priest who spies on Lee. Kim Shi-hu is very good as Lee's co-worker at the bakery whom she has a brief affair with while Nam Il-wu is brilliant as Detective Choi who decides to help out Lee in her investigation over the crime she didn't commit.

Kwon Yea-young is wonderful as Jenny, the young girl who just realized that she has a mother while wondering why Lee was never there for her. Kwon's sense of innocence is matched with Lee Young Ae's subtle performance as it adds a touch of hope to the film. Choi Min-sik of Oldboy is brilliant as the evil Mr. Baek, a man who doesn't have the look of a criminal but his actions make him more intriguing. Min-sik's performance is great for his subtlety where he seems to act and look normal until he's captured where he seems on the brink of losing it. The film's best performance is easily Lee Young Ae as Lee Guem-ja. Young Ae's performance is wonderfully harrowing with dabbles of humor as it's mostly dramatic. Yet, it's filled with regret and tension as Young Ae sells the despair of her character with such grace and beauty as it's truly a one of a kind performance.

While not as good as Oldboy, Chinjeolhan geumjassi is still a brilliant film from Chan-wook Park thanks to Lee Young Ae's amazing performance. While it's more accessible than Oldboy in some respects along with some strong themes, this film proves that Chan-wook Park is one of South Korea's great up-and-coming directors to break out internationally. While the violence may not be for everyone, it's definitely a film that anyone can relate to in what Park sets up. Overall as a trilogy, it's one of the most fascinating film trilogies ever created. In the end, Chinjeolhan geumjassi is a powerful film and a fitting end to the Vengeance trilogy from Chan-wook Park.

Chan-wook Park Films: (The Moon Is... The Sun's Dream) - (Trio) - Judgement (1999 short film) - JSA: Joint Security Area - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance - (If You Were Me-Never Ending Peace and Love) - Oldboy - Three... Extremes-Cut - I'm a Cyborg but That's OK - Thirst - (Night Fishing) - Stoker - The Handmaiden - (The Little Drummer Girl (2018 TV series)) - Decision to Leave

© thevoid99 2011

Oldboy

Originally Written and Posted at Epinions.com on 10/9/08.

After the release of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Chan-wook Park had become one of the prominent directors in South Korea as Korean cinema was starting to break out internationally. After two critically and commercially successful features in Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Park was considered to be one of Korea's finest filmmakers despite criticism for his approach to violence. In 2003, Park created a film that would stir controversy in the years since its release while would also become his most defining moment in his entire career. The second part of Park's Vengeance Trilogy that was preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and followed by Lady Vengeance, the film is considered a landmark film in Asian cinema simply entitled Oldboy.

Based on the Japanese manga comic of the same name by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya, Oldboy tells the story of a businessman who had been held captive for 15 years in a hotel room. When he is released, he becomes vengeful wondering why he was captured as he falls for a sushi chef. Directed by Chan-wook Park with an adapted script written by Park, Jo-yun Hwang, Chun-hyeong Lim, and Joon-hyung Lim. The film is a study of a how man done wrong goes for a quest of vengeance while uncovering why he was targeted and had supposedly wrong someone. Starring Choi Min-sik, Yu Ji-tae, and Kang Hye-jeong. Oldboy is a brutal, harrowing, and mesmerizing masterpiece from Chan-wook Park.

Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik) was captured by a group of criminals where for 15 years, he is held prisoner wondering what he had done. A year into his imprisonment, Dae-Su learned that his wife was murdered and he had been accused of killing her. With his daughter gone and moved to Sweden, Dae-Su has vengeance in his mind where he keeps getting visited by a hypnotist. After losing lots of weight and already planning an escape, Dae-Su is freed where he encounters a suicidal man and stealing a woman's sunglasses. After getting a cell phone and such, he stops by at a sushi restaurant where he meets a young, beautiful chef named Mi-Do (Kang Hye-jeong). After passing out after hearing a phone call from a mysterious man, he is taken to Mi-Do's apartment where he tries to figure out what's going on.

He makes contact with an old friend named No Joo-hwan (Ji Dae-han) who decides to help out along with Mi-Do. After learning about his daughter's whereabouts, Dae-Su decides to enter the building where he was imprisoned as he meets its manager Park Cheol-woong (Oh Dal-su). After beating up several of Park's men and torturing Park, he retrieves a tape leading to more clues where it was he claimed that Dae-Su talked too much which was the reason. After his assault on Park's men, the wounded Dae-Su collapses where he was taken to a taxi by a stranger as he learns that he's getting closer to the man's identity. After returning to Mi-do's apartment, Dae-Su finds the location of the stranger revealed to be Lee Woo-jin (Yu Ji-tae). Woo-jin, along with his bodyguard Mr. Han (Kim Beyong-ok), revealed to be the culprit as he gives Dae-Su a chance to find out why.

When Park and his gang return to try and attack Dae-Su and Mi-Do, they're stopped by Mr. Han as Woo-jin gives Dae-Su five days to figure out the mystery. Dae-Su and Mi-Do flee the city to hide as they become close while discovering about Woo-jin's background. It was revealed that Woo-jin was in the same high school that Dae-Su and Joo-hwan had attended along with Woo-jin's sister Soo-ah (Yun Ji-tae), who had died some time after Dae-Su had left the school to be transferred to a better school. Dae-Su suddenly recalls a memory about what happened with the siblings that led to a rumor that would eventually leave Soo-ah to end her life. After learning some more information from Joo-hwan about Soo-ah, Dae-Su remembers why Woo-jin did all of this. With Dae-Su deciding to confront Woo-jin at Woo-jin's penthouse who brings another shocking surprise for Dae-Su that would prove to be extremely horrifying.

What Chan-wook Park chose to do is reveal the fallacy of vengeance in all of its cruelty and how far anyone is willing to go, over something that happened many years ago. While both Dae-Su and Woo-jin have valid reasons for vengeance but it's Dae-Su who becomes aware of what he had done and know that he did wrong. Woo-jin meanwhile, takes it way too far and what he brings Dae-Su would prove to be horrifying. The screenplay by Park and his co-writers is definitely part-character study, part-suspense thriller with some action and drama thrown into the mix. At the same time, it reveals how careful Woo-jin set things up and how Dae-Su reacts and plays his game.

Park's direction is extremely superb and at times, hard-to-watch. Notably some of the film's violence where Park takes it to high extremes. Especially what the character of Dae-Su does with a hammer, redefining the term Hammerman (sorry M.C. Hammer). The violence is wonderfully staged and choreographed, especially in the use of the widescreen format with great compositions and presentation. Park's direction in drama, especially suspense, builds great momentum with uses of flashback and memory to figure out the mystery. Then when the third act arrives and everything comes to place, that's when the film takes on a brand new level that would leave the audience speechless and uncomfortable. The result is a film that is brutal yet mesmerizing right to the end.

Cinematographer Jeong-hun Jeong does fantastic work with the film's hand-held cameras, lighting staging for the interiors, and gorgeous scenery for the film's nighttime exterior shots in Seoul. Jeong's camera work is exquisite in its exteriors with its use of green, red, and in the third act, black and green for its climatic ending. Some of the film's exterior, notably the epilogue is gorgeous as Jeong's work is brilliant. Editor Sang-Beom Kim does great work in the film's rhythmic, stylish cutting with the use of split-screens and transitional jump-cuts to go from one composition to another in the same place where a character is standing. Kim's editing is truly superb to capture the film's sense of action and drama as it's done with style without resorting to fast-cutting, Hollywood-style editing.

Production designer Seong-hie Ryu does great work in the film's art direction with the dilapidated, colorful look of the prison that Dae-Su stays in along with the hotel room and apartment of Mi-Do. The look of Woo-jin's penthouse is wonderfully slick and rich with a great shot of Seoul at the nighttime. Costume designer Sangyung Cho does great work with the look of the characters with the suit and sunglasses of Dae-Su, the contemporary, short dresses of Mi-Do, to the suits that Woo-jin wears. Sound mixer Seung-cheol Lee does great work in capturing the film's action, location surroundings, and everything to create suspense and drama into the film. Music composer Yeong-wook Jo brings an orchestral, serene flavor to the music while using cuts from other films to play to its drama.

The cast is unique with small performances from Kwang-rok Oh as the suicidal man, Tae-kyung Oh as the young Dae-Su, Yeong-suk Ahn as the young Woo-jin, and Il-han Oo as the young Joo-hwan. In the role of the hypnotist Yoo Hyung-ja is Seung-Shin Lee who is great in her brief appearances a woman trying to put Dae-Su into a weird state of mind. Yun Jin-seo is excellent as Woo-jin's sister Lee Soo-ah, the girl who would be the victim of the tragedy that would lead Woo-jin to claim vengeance on Dae-Su. Oh Dal-su is good as the prison manager Park, who has a memorable scene in which he's tortured by Dae-Su. Kim Byeong-ok is also good as Woo-jin's tough bodyguard Mr. Han while Jie Dae-han is excellent as Dae-Su's old friend Joo-hwan who helps out Dae-Su in the investigation.

Kang Hye-jeong is great as Mi-Do, the sushi chef who falls for Dae-Su as she becomes his accomplice and lover in the investigation. Hye-jeong brings in all of the emotional baggage of a woman who may or may not be trustworthy yet provides the sense of emotional realism for Dae-Su. Yu Ji-tae is great as Lee Woo-jin, the antagonist of the film who seeks revenge for his sister's death claiming that Dae-Su is responsible. Ji-tae brings a great sense of charisma and sinister smugness to the character as his performance is truly divine to watch. Finally, there's Choi Min-sik as Oh Dae-Su, the film's protagonist who starts out as this heavy, rotund drunken man only to become a psychotic, vengeful thing yet built man. Min-sik's performance is a marvel to watch as his character is both a bad*ss and also a man with lots of flaws as he realizes his wrongs and his attempts for redemption. His performance is the heart of the film.

Released in November 2003 in South Korea, the film became a monster hit in its native country. In May 2004, the film made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the festival's second-place Grand Jury Prize though jury president Quentin Tarantino wanted the film to win the Palme D'or. The film's international success that followed a release in the U.S. in early 2005 brought the film a lot of attention. At the same time, it brought notoriety when in April 2007, a Korean student named Seung-Hui Cho killed 33 people and wounded 23 at Virginia Tech and eventually himself. Cho was seen having a picture holding a hammer in the same way the character of Dae-Su did despite the fact that Cho had never seen the film. Yet, Park had achieved acclaim as in 2005, he released the third and final part of his Vengeance trilogy entitled Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

Oldboy is an enthralling, brutal, mesmerizing, and provocative masterpiece from Chan-wook Park. Audiences new to Park's work will see this as a great starting point as well as an introduction to the new wave of Korean cinema. Fans of action films or Asian cinema will no doubt see this as essential though more mainstream audiences might be put off by its extreme approach to violence, sex, and some thematic elements. In the end, Oldboy is an amazing masterpiece from Chan-wook Park that challenges its audience in many ways that it will leave them stunned.

Chan-wook Park Films:  (The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream) - (Trio) - Judgement (1999 short film) - JSA: Joint Security Area - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance - (If You Were Me-Never Ending Peace and Love) - Three... Extremes-Cut - Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - I'm a Cyborg but That's OK - Thirst - (Night Fishing) - Stoker - The Handmaiden - (The Little Drummer Girl (2018 TV series)) - Decision to Leave

© thevoid99 2011