Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.
Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave is a supremely crafted neo-noir romance-thriller that earns high marks across nearly every dimension. The plot is a labyrinthine, emotionally layered mystery that subverts genre expectations at every turn — it's as much a melancholic love story as a procedural, and the two strands intertwine with rare elegance. Tang Wei and Park Hae-il deliver performances of extraordinary subtlety, communicating obsession, guilt, and longing through micro-gestures and charged silences. The cinematography by Kim Ji-yong is visually inventive and immersive — the use of POV surveillance, dreamlike spatial transitions, and the contrast between mountain and sea settings is exceptional. Novelty is very high: the film has an utterly singular voice, blending Hitchcockian suspense with a deeply Korean sensibility and a language-barrier romance that feels entirely fresh. The ending is the one point of measured restraint in scoring — while thematically resonant and deliberately ambiguous, some viewers find its final act diffuse and emotionally distancing compared to the dazzling first half, preventing it from landing with the full cathartic force the rest of the film promises.