Killing is like smoking - only the first time is hard
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022
#10 : 헤어질 결심 (Decision To Leave)
South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s sensational black-widow noir romance, starring Tang Wei, keeps the viewer off-balance at every turn.
I've heard this is good and have seen a few of Park Chan-wook's films (both Oldboy and The Handmaiden are excellent and I'm surprised I've not had the opportunity to write about them yet), so I'm looking forward to this.
Woah, this is twisty. At the core of it is a relationship between Jang Hae-jun, a cop (played by Park Hae-il) and Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei), a woman who may, or may not (yeah right!) have killed her husband. And, to be honest, that's probably as much as I really need to tell you - the whole thing goes backwards and forwards and round in circles so much that it's hard to keep up. Towards the beginning, I'd have to say that some of Hae-jun's behaviour is particularly bizarre - yes, I appreciate that we're being told that he's obsessed but his obsession goes to levels here where I can't help but feel that HR would have been called in. It is, however, worth sticking with and comes to an ending which ties the plot twists together in an acceptable way, with a final twist that I totally didn't see coming.
A film like this is going to live or die on the central performances and Park Hae-il and Tang Wei do a great job here, particularly the latter with what feels like a very nuanced performance - some reviews I've read said that the film features a lot of Korean-specific nuances, so it's more than possible I'm missing several layers but I still very much enjoyed it. I would also call out the actors who play Jang Hae-jun's partners (both of whom do a good job of adding a layer of sanity to his obsession) but I'm unable to work out what their character names were, so I can't give them a name check - sorry.
As you'd expect if you've seen Park Chan-wook's work before, it looks absolutely gorgeous - there are some spell-binding shots in this (it also features the finest looking mountain I've seen in a long time). The pacing is also good with it being a definite slow-burner - The Guardian described it as Hitchcockian which feels a fair description to me.
I don't feel I've given you a lot to go on here, but that's probably best - if you can handle a twisty subtitled film then I think this is well worth a shot (and stick with Hae-jun's behaviour in the first half because it does pay off). If you're not aware of Park Chan-wook's work, then I wouldn't necessarily start here because I think it's merely good as opposed to great but I still think it's been one of the better films I've seen on the list so far. At time of writing, it's available to stream on MUBI or to rent on all the usual locations.
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