Decision to Leave

From the very first destabilizing moments of this movie, Park dazzles you with the beauty of his images and the intoxicating bravura of his unfettered imagination. And then, just when you think you have found your bearings, he unmoors you yet once more, blowing minds and shattering hearts, yours included.

The South Korean director, working at the top of his game, drops tantalizing clues that are best analyzed in multiple viewings which, it can be reported from first-hand experience, will be very helpful.

With this seductive, serpentine neo-noir, Park Chan-wook raises the bar on the 2022 Cannes competition programme and reasserts his position as a peerless visual stylist. But there’s nothing superficial or superfluous about his style here: it’s all in the service of the film’s mercurial and at times disorientating blend of crime and passion.

The fog shrouds the storyline here, but makes it all the more intriguing and addictive.

Wei is magnetic as the would-be killer who uses her patchy Korean as an additional smokescreen to manoeuvre behind. She ties the detective in knots, a shapeshifter whose true nature is beguilingly unclear.

To this viewer, it develops into a pretty nifty piece of genre work, a thriller that’s expertly made even if it doesn’t quite hum like the best Park films. The fact that a good, well-made thriller feels almost like a disappointment given this creator’s pedigree is just a testament to the work he’s produced before.

Needlessly complicated and at times almost impossible to follow, its narrative inscrutability often coming across less as the result of nonlinear storytelling than as simply a cinematic affectation.

Beyond perfect. Film noire at its best. The cinematography is spectacular. The ending beyond words.

(Mauro Lanari) To innovate the everlasting theme of impossible love, is it enough to amalgamate it with a direction inspired by anime and with a **** police plot ("Vertigo")? I have the impression that, if I'll remember the film, it will be for the considerable efforts of aesthetic originality and not for the rather latent emotions (femme fatale/dark lady and final scene included): the former do not reinforce the latter, rather they weaken them, perhaps because the complexity of the subject is discovering impossible to manage or even just to describe (drama, thriller, neo-noir, romance, melo, crime, mystery, etc.). The script void between the first and second parts and a disarming verbosity remain unjustified.

i really feel like they wanted her to be baddie like Amy (from 'gone girl') but they failed the story and i just can't give in a higher rating

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Sauf exception, j’aime beaucoup les films de Park Chan-Wook, son ironie, sa mise en scène au cordeau et son talent pour installer des atmosphères… ou pour se lancer dans quelques provocations… au fil de scènes plus ou moins choquantes ici ou là… bref, c’est un sacré style, difficile à décrire d’ailleurs. Mais ici, il s’est loupé le gars, complètement loupé…! il ne se passe rien ou quasiment rien pendant plus d’une plombe dans son film de merde (une plombe et quart même) et on s’aperçoit (car on regarde régulièrement sa montre avec un air de reproche) qu’il reste encore une putain d’heure au compteur !! Non, ça va pas le faire, vraiment pas… parce que si on continue comme ça, on va mourir d’ennui ! littéralement. D’autant que la fille est plutôt moche -excusez-moi, c’est un jugement de valeur, je suppose, mais voir une actrice moche, ça me déprime. Et déjà qu’on s’emmerde à mort… alors bon, voilà quoi. Et le pire dans tout ça, c’est qu’il ne s’est pas foulé côté histoire le gars, puisqu’il s’agit -je vous le donne en mille- d’un ‘Basic Instinct’ qui ne dit pas son nom…! mais une mauvaise, très mauvaise copie, édulcorée et chiante comme la pluie ! avec une actrice moche qui a le charisme d’une vieille moule cabossée. Et toujours habillée, car tout cela reste étonnamment très prude. Et le dindon, le flic insomniaque a plus l’air con qu’autre chose… en définitive. J’ignore comment ça finit et je m’en contrefous, pour tout dire : j’ai assez perdu de temps comme ça avec ce film de merde !