Though a proper category for Korean Cinema is absent from this year's Philadelphia Film Festival, there are still a handful of worthwhile Korean films to be seen. The most noteworthy selection for Danger After Dark fans is Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a film that is billed as an uncompromising return to the basics of noir filmmaking. The film is Park Chan-wook's directorial follow-up to the blockbuster Joint Security Area, one of the biggest and most successful movies in the history of Korean cinema. The director was essentially given carte blanch as a reward for the success of his previous film, and instead of producing something with more commercial appeal, he chose to make this grim and depressing study in revenge.

The film focuses on the lives of three major characters: Ryu, a deaf mute factory worker, his left-wing activist girlfriend Youngmi, and a wealthy businessman named Dongjin. It seems that Ryu's sister is suffering from an undisclosed illness and desperately needs a kidney transplant to survive. Ryu selflessly offers his own, but his blood type does not match. Dejected, he happens upon a sticker in a rest room advertising an organ trafficking service and decides to investigate. The folks who run this "business" promise to trade Ryu a matching kidney if he gives them one of his. It seems like a fair trade to him, but the next thing he knows, he's lying naked on the floor and missing one of his kidneys, along with 10 million Won.

In a cruel twist of fate, a kidney donor is found soon afterwards, which doesn't do much good for the now penniless Ryu. In order to raise the necessary funds, Youngmi concocts a scheme to kidnap the pixie-cute daughter of Dongjin and hold her for what she deems a modest ransom. Though their first attempt is stalled by a disgruntled ex-employee of Dongjin's, the pair eventually succeed in securing his daughter. The first act of violence has now taken place, but the film is just getting started. From here, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance spirals into a bizarre and surreal series of revenge events that lead to the deaths of just about every character in the film, even those who are incidental to the story.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance starts out strongly enough. The various backdrops depict some rather bleak settings, but they are infused with vivid swatches of color that impart a striking contrast to the grim events of the film. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance may be bleak but it's never boring. The film succeeds mainly on the strength of its lead actors, all of whom craft sympathetic characters who engross the audience in their respective plights. Shin Ha-kyun offers a very subtle and reserved performance as the mute Ryu; over-emphasizing his disability is never an issue. Muffled, low-frequency rumbling sounds are used very effectively in scenes that put us inside the head of Ryu to simulate his silent world.

Though she is perhaps a little too wicked, Youngmi is also a well-crafted character who provides a suitably contrast to Ryu's sweetness. I especially enjoyed seeing her sign to Ryu while she rode him cowgirl style, though I admit that I did boo when Youngmi disseminated her left-wing, Anti-American propaganda. Even though I'm supposed to hate Dongjin for being an upper-class elitist, I couldn't help but empathize with him after the abduction of his daughter. Elements of black humor are pervasive throughout the film, though they sometimes work to undermine the severity of certain events. And though this is no fault against the film, I absolutely hate seeing cute Asian girls of any age killed or maimed. I think I might start a coalition to prevent such things from happening.

The gore effects are sick and convincing, from seeping surface wounds to high-pressure Carotid Artery spray. The blood flows liberally throughout the latter half of the film, as the revenge events become increasingly brutal and vile. Though the visceral gore is plentiful, the most gut-wrenching sequences are autopsies that are conveyed solely through gruesome sound effects. It's not necessary to witness the actual dissection, as the sounds of rib cages cracking and the horrified reactions of onlookers offer a much more compelling experience than bloody organs ever could. In all cases, the squirm potential is high for viewers not accustomed to seeing these types of elements.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance almost feels like a tale of two films. The first half deftly establishes the background and motives for each character, and shows us intimate glimpses into their personalities. Where it starts to fall apart is in the extended series of overly-creative death sequences in the latter stages of the film. I normally cheer the exploitation of bodily harm in genre cinema, but I felt it worked to the detriment of the spirit of the film in this case. I was moved by the circumstances that befell the characters up until the point when their deaths started resembling an episode of Happy Tree Friends. With sequences of visceral violence, there is a thin line between nauseating brutality and cartoonish hyper-insanity, and I feel that Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance crossed that line far too frequently for its own good.

I understand the tenets of noir cinema, as well as Park Chan-wook's desire to show us a grim, somber world in which well-meaning characters are dispatched in horrific ways. And indeed, I was disturbed to see human beings who deserved a far better fate hacked to pieces or electro-shocked into a bloody urine-spewing mess. Though their circumstances are certainly extenuating, it was a little perplexing to see such genuine characters degenerate into gore-crazed psycopaths so quickly and freely. I can identify with the desire to exact revenge on a child's kidnapper, but the extended torture that Dongjin puts Ryu through simply undermines his previously-established persona as a sincere, loving father. Perhaps there is a layer of subtle characterization that I completely missed, but I just couldn't swallow some of the more deranged revenge events.

I think that Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is still worth seeing, especially for fans of gory genre cinema. Several highly-respected sources have been touting the film as a masterpiece, but I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree with that assessment. It certainly possesses its fair share of redeeming qualities, both technical and artistic, but taken as a whole I found Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance rather unfulfilling.

Thumbs Sideways. Though mostly a quality, affecting experience, a scant few instances of cartoon-like violence bring Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance down a notch.