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Full of gruesome acts of revenge and dirty family secrets, the film is a sick extravaganza comparable to recent efforts by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) and Danny Boyle (Trance), but it’s a more controlled work than either. The directorial curlicues don’t feel random—indeed, the film has a sustained, streamlined momentum that feels unlike much else in Lee’s body of work. The Brooklyn-based director has never lacked for energy or imagination, but his movies tend to be all over the place in terms of what they want to say and do. To see him working with such focus is striking. If the movie is just an exercise, then at least it’s a purposeful one. Lee’s trying new things here, working in a different register than he normally does.
I can see plenty of moviemakers (not just Lee) experiencing a shameful sense of kinship with the villain of Park’s film. His revenge on the antihero involves overseeing every minute of his life for decades—it’s like a comic exaggeration of a certain type of film director’s impulse to control all aspects of the world he or she inhabits. Lee, for better and for worse, is one of those directors. You can feel it in the distinctive pulse of his editing and in his use of music to define the exact emotional tenor of a scene.
