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Ten Masterful Asian Film Trilogies

Ten Masterful Asian Film Trilogies

5. Vengeance Trilogy (Park Chan Wook, S. Korea)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003) Lady Vengeance (2005)

 Vengeance Trilogy

The first part of the “Vengeance Trilogy” revolves around Ryu, a deaf-mute who works in a factory while he also has to take care of his sick sister, who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. His situation takes a turn for the even worse when the doctors inform him that he is not a suitable donor and at the same time, he is fired from his job. Utterly desperate, he decides to search in the black market for a kidney, and although he manages to find some people who can help him, they prove to be con men who eventually take all of his compensation and one of his own kidneys, and leave him injured and naked in an unknown building. Seeing Ryu in this situation, his anarchist girlfriend, Yeong-mi, suggests kidnapping the daughter of his boss, Dong-jin, who has laid off many workers from his factory.

Park presented the extremes an individual can reach when they find themselves in desperate situations. Revenge, the central theme of the film, results from the aforementioned situations and is presented in four axes. Ryu wants to exact revenge from those who tricked him. Yeong-mi wants to exact revenge from the ‘Capital'. Dong-jin wants to exact revenge from those who kidnapped his daughter. Yeong-min's fellow terrorists want to exact revenge for their comrade. In this fashion, Park wanted to present the futility of revenge, as all of the aforementioned succeed in their purpose but gain nothing from it.

His second installment of Park Chan-wook‘s “Vengeance Trilogy” is the film that turned global interest toward Korean cinema, one that's a true masterpiece of South Korean cinema, and one that is still discussed for its unique aesthetics and elaborate technique. “Oldboy” screened at festivals all over the world winning tens of awards, with the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival being among them. Please note that the article contains many spoilers.

Park's films have a unique and magnificent visual style. However, as he has stated, the technical part comes second in his movies, with the first role being reserved for the characters and the story. His process starts with the writing, and the search for the audiovisuals comes after the script has been concluded. Park insists that he is, first and foremost, a storyteller, and that every element of his films must support the story in the best way. In that fashion, the script of the film, which is based on the homonymous manga, focuses on Dae-su, a businessman who is arrested for drunkenness, missing his daughter's fourth birthday. That same night, and for no apparent reason, he is abducted and forced to live in the same room for 15 years. When he is unexpectedly released, he is set on exacting revenge, although the sole evidence in his possession is the fact that he must accomplish this revenge in five days. A girl he meets at a sushi restaurant, where she works as a chef, decides to help him, once more with no apparent reason.

The third part of the “Vengeance Trilogy” presents the theme of revenge from a female point of view. The script revolves around Geum-ja, a woman found guilty for the kidnapping and murder of a child, who has waited patiently in prison for 13 years in order to avenge the man responsible for most of the evils in her life. While there, she managed to present an utterly benevolent persona, whose sole purpose was to make the friends needed for the intricate plan she has conceived. After her release, she exploits those acquaintances, but as she is about to fulfill her purpose, she realizes that the truth is much worse than she imagined.

Park focused on a female character this time, and created a unique amalgam of black humor; blasphemous irony; extreme violence, which at times, is turned on children; and liberating humanism, chiefly depicted in the final sequence of collective revenge.

The fact that ordinary people can turn into sadistic murderers presents Park's message regarding revenge: sometimes, vengeance through violence is the only way to true catharsis. In order to justify this philosophy, he paints the evil character with the most gruesome colors, to a point that any action against him is deemed worthy, and even fair. Lee Young-ae is spectacular in the titular character, with the overwhelming majority of the film being based upon her. Her transformation from a victim, to a “saint,” to a vigilante, and finally to an ordinary (of sorts) woman is probably the film's greatest asset. Choi Min-sik is, once more, quite persuasive as the embodiment of pure evil, although his part is quite small. He certainly deserves an award for the things Park made his characters go through in the last two films of the trilogy.

4. Noriko Trilogy (, Japan)

Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), Tokyo Story (1953)

Late Spring

“Late Spring” tells the story of Shukichi Somiya, a man who has dedicated his whole life into his studies, neglecting his daughter, Noriko, completely, with the woman additionally having to take care of the house and him. Eventually, he realizes his fault, and tries to persuade the dedicated Noriko to abandon the family house and start her own family, and life. Ozu paints the portrait of the “middle” Japanese family with a realism that borders on the documentary, as he depicts the everyday life of the members of an almost archetypical family of the country. Equally obvious are the conservatism and the dedication to traditional Japanese values, as dictated by the Occupation's official censorship board.

The cinematography is impressive, with the camera almost never moving, as it is placed on the eye-level of a person sitting on a tatami mat. Furthermore, Ozu only uses one lens, a 50mm, which he said was the closest to the human eye. All of the above have the same purpose, which is to give the audience a feeling as if they're an actual part of the film.

“Early Summer” also deals with the concept of family, as he presents a tight and strict household, consisting of Shukichi and Shige, the elderly parents, Noriko, a 28-year-old daughter who works as a secretary, and her brother's family. The balance of the family is put in jeopardy when an uncle arrives and suggests that Noriko should be married. Ozu directs a film about the role of the woman in the rapidly changing Japanese society of the 50's, where women were “allowed” for the first time to think for themselves regarding their domestic life, and take their own decisions. The conservatism is still here and presented through the consequences of  Noriko's decision.

“Tokyo Story,” Yasujiro Ozu's magnum opus is considered one of the most genuine Japanese films of all time, and in 2012, filmmakers voted it the best film of all time, replacing “Citizen Kane” at the top of the “Sight & Sound” directors' poll. Ozu directs a film that has an evident predilection toward the traditional values of Japanese society, in contrast to the new values resulting from the raging modernization of Japan in the decades after the war. In that fashion, the elderly couple seems happy and filled with love, compared to their kids' families that seem tortured by issues caused by modern society.

However, Ozu avoided melodrama by focusing on images rather than dialogue, in order to express his view. There are three main characteristics of Ozu's cinematography. The first is the placement of the camera three feet above the floor (the eye level of a Japanese person seated on a tatami mat), in order to eliminate space and make a two-dimensional space.

The purpose of this technique is to make the audience feel as if they are actually participating in the film, thus becoming more receptive to the characters.

The second is that he almost never moves the camera, since every shot is intended to have a perfect composition of its own. In fact, in “Tokyo Story”, it only moves once. The third is that, during the dialogues, Atsuta places his camera between the people conversing, to make the audience feel like they are standing in the middle of a conversation.

All of these techniques are implemented with this film, in the most wonderful fashion

Late Spring Amazon
Early Summer Amazon
Tokyo Story Amazon

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About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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