Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Released after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 13 years, a woman begins executing her elaborate plan of retribution.
Park Chan-wook's finale to his Vengeance Trilogy is a visually ravishing, formally audacious work. The plot is intricate and emotionally layered, weaving flashback structure with darkly comic flourishes. Lee Young-ae delivers a career-best performance — simultaneously saintly and ruthless. Chung Chung-hoon's cinematography is stunning, with its desaturated palette, precise compositions, and the famous colour-bleed technique. The film is wholly singular in its moral vision and aesthetic execution. The ending, while tonally resonant and thematically appropriate, is somewhat diffuse and deliberately withholding in a way that slightly undermines the emotional catharsis — the communal revenge sequence is bold but the final beat with the tofu lands more quietly than powerfully for some viewers, earning a slight step back from the otherwise exceptional whole.