Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Acclaimed filmmaker Park Chan Wook returns to the director's chair to helm Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, one of the most highly anticipated Korean films of 2005. The film marks the end of Park's hugely popular "Vengeance Trilogy", a series of films that began with 2002's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and continued with 2003's internationally successful Old Boy. Unlike most trilogies, this trio of pictures is united not by plot or by characters, but by its thematic content, namely, revenge and its terrible consequences.

Actress Lee Young Ae (Joint Security Area, Jewel in the Palace) takes up the leading role in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, portraying Geum Ja, a beautiful woman just released from jail after thirteen years of imprisonment. Her crime? The kidnapping and brutal murder of a young child. Through the use of flashbacks, it is revealed that Geum Ja was extremely kind and generous to the other prisoners during her internment, earning a widespread reputation as a veritable saint among the imprisoned women.

However, Geum Ja's polite behavior masks her true intentions, for it seems she is totally innocent of the charges brought against her and is covertly hatching an elaborate plan to seek retribution on the twisted Mr. Baek, an English teacher played by Old Boy's Choi Min Sik who is responsible for her unjust conviction. And as soon as Geum Ja is released from prison, her demeanor changes. Once kind and considerate, she becomes cold and calculating. Enlisting the help of a retired cop (Nam Il Woo) and her daughter Jenny (who was adopted by an Australian couple during the anti-heroine's incarceration), Geum Ja sets in motion her plan for bitter vengeance, but will she succeed? Find out in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, a film that may just prove why revenge is a dish best served cold!