scene analysis sympathy for lady vengeance

8/10/2019 Scene Analysis Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

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Adrian Bravo

Scene Analysis: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

FIL 3006

January 2, 2013


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Adrian BravoPID FIL 3006April 16 th 2013

Scene Analysis: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Geum-ja is a woman who has found herself pregnant and alone. She seeks a home with the only

person she can think of, a teacher from her school that once told her how sexy she was. Not

surprisingly enough this bit of attention was enough to woe Geum-ja into the arms of Mr. Baek.

He is a teacher and professional kidnapper who kidnaps the children of rich parents from other

classrooms to make money off of the ransoms.

Geum-ja is convinced into helping Mr. Baek in the kidnappings, she sees them asinnocent, no one getting hurt, and the bond between the children and the parents growing

stronger. But after a year of helping Mr. Baek, he decides to force Geum-ja into taking the fall

for the murder of one of the children. It was an accident, the kid just wouldn t stop crying, but to

make sure that Geum-ja does take the fall he kidnaps her daughter and tells her that in order to

save the life of her child, she must take the fall.

Mr. Baek puts Geum- jas daughter into foster care and during the 13 years of Geum -ja

being imprisoned she makes sure to be the most kind hearted, giving, and obedient prisoner. She

is looked upon as an angel, making the lives of all the inmates a bit more comfortable. However,

it is to make sure the plan that she has in place has enough backing to actually happen.

She lies about her faith, pretending to be a very faithful Christian, gaining the trust of a

priest who pushes to have her sentence reduced.

Even though Geum-ja is acting when it comes to the greatness of her faith, she is still

convinced that she is a sinner and that she is to seek atonement for what she has put her daughter

in. She asks for forgiveness and teaches her daughter that every time she sins, she is to find a


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way to atone for that sin. When she is released from prison and given tofu to eat, a symbol of her

cleansing, she drops it to the floor. She believes that before she can cleanse herself, she needs to

cleanse herself of the vengeance she seeks.

Sin and forgiveness play a great role throughout the movie and when she finally gets

close to erasing the one thing holding her back from changing her life, the death of Mr. Baek, she

makes a realization that changes her entire reasoning behind kidnapping Mr. Baek.

The rising action and turning point in the movie comes that very moment when she

decides that she is no longer going to have her vengeance against Mr. Baek and is instead going

to give that opportunity to the parents of all the victims. In this scene there is very little dialogue,Geum-ja was to execute Mr. Baek the way she dreamed, like a dog, with no change to say a thing

to save his life. Even as she struggles to pull the trigger it is that single phone alarm that snaps

Geum-ja out of her plan and changes the reason behind kidnapping Mr. Baek.


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As she removes the gun from his eye we get an extreme close up of Geum- jas eye, as it fillswith tears, the lighting soft, the depth of field miniscule as it blurs everything but her eye and thetears that form on it. She is not hesitating to prolong his suffering, she is hesitating becausesomething holds her back from killing the man that imprisoned her and kept her away from her

daughter for so many years.

As the camera cuts to another close up of her face the low key lighting begins to change, slightshadows are now noticeable on her face, her eyes red with tears, she now struggles with carryingout her vengeance. No longer is the look unemotional, she is not fighting within herself.

A long shot of Geum-ja and Mr. Baek emphasizes this struggle as Geum-ja towers over hisweak, tied up form, a backdrop of blood red drapes, symbolizing the killing floor, thecomposition off balance creating tension on top of the suspense that is forming as Geum-jastruggles with pulling the trigger and Mr. Baek crying out and breathing muffled sighs of reliefeach time the gun is lowered. She goes from a powerful figure to a defeated one each time shefails to pull the trigger. The lighting is even throughout the long shot, creating a play like scene.


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She pushes herself to try once more. An extreme close up on her eyes as a the use of low keylighting stops being implemented, no longer are her features soft. The shadows of her furrowed

brow take away from her once beautiful image. The tense look on her face is emphasized as she

continues to stare into that lone blank eye of Mr. Baek.

Cut to an extreme close up of Mr. Baeks eye as it stares blankly at Geum -ja, the same type oflighting used on him, his eye almost appearing surreal and detached from a human, there is nofear. It is taking pleasure away from his killing.

A quick cut breaks the 180 degree rule showing high key lighting on her other side, a close up of just her eye, matc hing the gaze of Mr. Baeks lone eye, once again with a small depth of field,


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and her eye covered in shadow. She is split in two, wanting vengeance, yet not getting the same pleasure her day dreams brought her.

Another quick cut that jumps the 180 degree line to show her face again before a phone alarmrings on screen. This is the first bit of diegetic sound that has come from the scene apart fromMr. Baeks grunts . She reaches into his pocket to reveal the source of the noise.

An extreme close-up comes onto the very important and story altering object, the marble ofWon-Mo, the child whose death led to Geum- jas arrest. The depth of field minuscule for it is theonly thing of importance on screen. It is the item Geum-ja could not describe to the detectivewhich lead to his doubts and lead to the realization that Geum-ja was taking the fall for Mr. Baekand the safety of her child from that psychopath.


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A close-up of Mr. Baek s face with washed out shadows, emphasizes his tired eyes, his aging.He knows the conclusion that Geum-ja is about to come to and who this kidnapper really is.

He averts his eyes from the realizing gaze of our protagonist, who is struck with these trinkets ofchildren passed.

A close up on Geum-Ja with low key lighting on her face, her worrying gaze, her confusion, alook of betrayal washes over her.

An extreme close up as she rips the marble, the object that signified the moment her entire lifechanged, from the rest of the trinkets.


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The camera cuts to the back of Mr. Baek s head as Geum-ja, without a single word, forces him tostare at the objects of pain and suffering hanging casually on his cell phone.

He does not look at them even as the camera dollys to his front. He simply looks up at Geum-ja,ignoring the item and asking about her makeup.

The emotion once again is gone from her eyes, the lighting washing away her shadows, her facestern once more.


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He averts his eyes away from her stare. The high key lighting continues to give shadow to theevil person that has just been found out to have a great pleasure in his killings. His excuse that itwas simply to make good money off of the rich childrens parents and to even help theirrelationship get stronger by growing the longing that the parents have for their kids.

Geum-ja s jacket covers the smirk on Mr. Baek s face, the split personality that he embodies.

Acting as a loving individual and hiding all the real suffering he has caused. He never cared forGeum- ja, only using her as a scape goat to all the missing children from Mr. Baeks school.

Geum-ja slams Mr. Baek to the floor and an extreme long shot follows showing the entire roomin focus, the two of them in focus, her figure overpowering Mr. Baek. Her anger is escaping asshe finds out the reason behind everything that Mr. Baek has ever done and said why he felt itnecessary to threaten Geum-ja with the life of her child. He was a serial killer and she was whathe was looking for to finally get the heat off of him.


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As she chokes Mr. Baek we have a close up on her face, reminiscent of the fire in her eyes as shereenacted the death of Won-Mo, the same anger in her eyes that she had as she found herselftrapped between telling the truth and letting he little girl be killed.

She walks over and opens the blind and allowing for a flooding of light to illuminate thesituation, her figure in a medium shot. Her profile is a silhouette in the bright window, a low filllight makes sure to keep her slightly illuminated to the side that faces the camera.

We cut to a stare down between the two, both of them silhouetted in the bright back light, in veryhigh key lighting as the shadows are very prominent. When he opens his mouth to explainhimself but it is of no importance to Geum-ja or the storyline of the movie.


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We cut to an overhead shot of Mr. Baek about to get incapacitated. Even as he fills most of thescreen he seems weak in comparison to what is about to occur. His size makes no difference tothe framing because he is in fact an unimportant figure now, someone who needs to be taken outfrom the world.

As Geum-ja kneels before Mr. Baek, a position of weakness, she still appears much more

powerful than him as the blood pools from his wounded foot. Her position makes her appearchildlike and is a flashback to the first moment they meet, with Geum-ja looking up at the wetnaked body of Mr. Baek.

She goes into the hall finally coming to her decision, to contact the investigator from 13 years back and solving the mystery of the many missing children. She decides not to allow herself thevengeance she sought for many years. Instead she has decided to allow for the families of thevictims to bring about the vengeance they deserve.


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We cut to officers digging for the remains of the missing children, finding yet another body inthe snow.

A fragmented shot shows the hand of a person holding that missing marble, a glimpse to the endof the film, and the final dinner the entire group of parents share after their vengeance, and asthey decide to never speak to one another again.

As she speaks to the detective who has continued to uncover bodies in the forest, Geum-ja hasrealized that by her allowing Mr. Baek to talk her into taking the fall which saved her child, sheallowed for many other deaths to occur. The same way she shoves the phone with trinkets in the


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face of Mr. Baek she does the same to the investigator, who looks instead into her eyes and tellsher that those lives could have been saved if she never took the fall.

scene analysis sympathy for lady vengeance

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