Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is the perfect finish to the Vengeance Trilogy, in plot and in theme. The 'good kidnapping vs bad kidnapping' of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance returns, as does the decade in the making scheme of Oldboy, but with a fresh and meaningful spin on them to make the resemblance not derivative but qualitative in how this film compares and contrasts to the one before it.

The film has so much to set up, and yet the pace of Park Chan-wook's directing is... a breeze is the wrong word. It's a gust, propelling to the moment of revenge but with undeniable heft and weight to the proceedings. I love the passion in his work. He takes big swings with his visual style, never coasting, and they always pay off. The growing crimson behind Lee Guem-ja's head, the illumination of her face as an admirer looks upon her, tracking shots that move from the street through the window of the nearby building... he knows that emotion and feeling may be real, but they are not always _realistic_. They're larger than life, they're visceral, they bleed into the environment around them, and he captures that so beautifully. And his experience with the last two films pay off well in regards to the violence in this one. He knows when to lean in and when to cut away, that the pool of blood cleaned up in the aftermath can be more brutal than how the blood got there, and that the lead up to and the reaction of a parent watching their child being hanged is more devastating than actually seeing it in full, all while deftly avoiding being exploitative or bloody for bloody's sake.

The treatment of vengeance here is at its most nuanced as well. The gaze of the film is empathetic and mournful, not judgemental. It understands why these people are driven to these lengths. It just mourns that vengeance will not bring them the peace they want or deserve. It cannot bring them redemption. Only living can bring some sort of approximation. And every cast member here thrives. Lee Young-ae, of course, is magnetic. You understand perfectly why people are so drawn to her, and the things she does with her face at the burning is pure magic. But the parents make use of every second of their lesser screentime, and are heartbreaking. You can see mini arcs in their eyes, they could carry character pieces on their own, and the group mourning scene in the bakery is just overwhelming in the resigned grief pouring from each of them, the communal sin, the silent promise to never speak of it again.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a masterpiece, and another example of Park Chan-wook's exemplary and passionate film-making.