Blank Check with Griffin & David - Sympathy for Lady Vengeance with Karen Han

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

Park Chan-Wook’s loosely-linked “Vengeance Trilogy” comes to a starkly satisfying end with 2005’s LADY VENGEANCE - a normal flick…that’s all we have to say! Just kidding - we have LOTS to say about this one, with its stacked cast of lady convicts and grief-stricken parents. Our beloved Karen Han returns to the pod to correct our terrible Korean pronunciations and to tell us about “Jump Like A Witch” - a Korean reality series wherein famous female celebrities attempt to form a basketball team. Plus - it should surprise no one that this episode contains plenty of Pirates of the Caribbean discussion. Guest Links:  Get Karen’s Book “BONG JOON HO DISSIDENT CINEMA” Follow Karen on Twitter  This episode is sponsored by:  AG1 (drinkAG1.com/blankcheck) Indeed (indeed.com/check) Zocdoc (zocdoc.com/check)  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Listen carefully. Everyone makes mistakes. But if you recorded a podcast, you have to make an atonement for that podcast. Atonement. Do you know what that means? Big atonement for big podcasts. Small atonement for small podcasts. That's great.

I think it is true. I made a four-course meal out of that one. Not a five-course, but a four-course. is that including a dessert or no i yes right a moose boosh yeah into app into the app salad or pasta course killer app yeah entree and then dessert dessert or is it a meal and a bunch of side dishes as per Korean tables usually? Just four sampler platters coming out at different times? Is that really? So wait, how does that explain this?

The Korean dinner tradition? Well, this isn't like super traditional, but like a general Korean dinner table, you'll have your rice. There'll be a couple of big dishes dishes like maybe fish or something like that but the big thing it's like when you whenever you go to korean barbecue you know where there's a bunch of little plates out on the table like that's the deal you have a bunch of little plates that you can eat with the main course and with your rice it's a good way to eat yeah look maybe this is crazy but i went to a restaurant the other night and i had never been there before and the server came up to me. And he said, have you been here before?

And I said, no, in fact, you've caught me. I haven't. And he went, we do things a little differently here. And I just, my blood ran cold. And I said, what do you mean? And he explained to me the concept of family style, this radical thing. No. No restaurant has ever tried before i feel like

especially in new york that's like pretty common i flipped over the table and i walked out of the restaurant a little differently you're not teaching this whole dog new tricks i don't i don't know what you're talking about what happens if you go to a family style place by yourself well that was the problem just so low that was right well i've been to places where it is like one big table do you know what i'm talking about oh no i do i do yes i don't that's not my preferred style of dining but no i i would really need to be in a specific mood yeah to want to just kind of throw down with everybody. Also, like, not during a pandemic. Yeah.

Well, sure. No, this server, I was eating alone, and he threw out this family-style thing. So he was shaming you. He was shaming me. For coming alone. I said, I just got him off my fucking back, and now you're making me feel bad for not having a family dinner.

I don't know what this story is. Listen, this is a podcast. Whoa. A big atonement for a big podcast. A big episode. A big miniseries. We do things a little differently on this podcast. A little differently on this podcast. We don't really.

It's conversational. It's pretty normal. Tell that to certain iTunes critics. Oh, sure. I don't understand this way they do this. Why aren't they talking about... Yes. A minute one of the episode should start with minute one of the movie.

So they want a commentary. Well, yeah. Then guess what? You try the Patreon. Yeah. It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I hi david it's a podcast about filmographies and family style restaurants directors have experienced massive

success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby this is a mini series on the films a park jam look is called i'm a podcast but that's okay today we're talking sympathy for lady vengeance or just lady vengeance right it's that it was called sympathy for lady vengeance in some countries but mostly it was just called lady vengeance i feel like i've only the korean title means something else yeah it. I feel like I've only always heard... The Korean title means something else. Yeah, it does. I feel like I've only always heard Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

until recently when I've been Googling, and it was only released as Lady Vengeance in X countries. And I'm like, really? It's Australia and Russia. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of like it, though. I like it when your movie has a bunch of names.

Yeah? I think that's mysterious and cool. Okay, that's fair we talked about this in the sympathy for mr vengeance episode that that was that title was an american creation but was it riffing off the already established sympathy for lady vengeance in certain countries because that was vengeance is mine in korea is mine right and this one is just this one is just her name right right karen it's like kind-hearted gumja or it's like what they refer to as like kind-hearted

yeah this is kind-hearted like does that word cut in a couple directions or something like is that or is that uh sort of a literal translation it is is pretty literal. Oh, she's kind-hearted. Yeah, it's very literal. Except, of course, she's not really. They should have called it a lady kind-heart. David's giving a very suspicious look. I look very stupid. You look very stupid? What are you saying?

I look like a big potato. You just got a haircut. Ben agrees. He laughed. A bit of a Tim Robinson bit there. Yeah, I got a Tim ben agrees he laughed a bit of a tim robinson a bit there yeah i've got a tim rob my hair is short and the zoo background i just kind of look like yeah getting worked all right david david really quick can you just go i didn't do fucking shit i didn't do fucking shit oh my god he's so funny. Don't ask about the tables.

And the first thing I think is I'm excited. I don't have to go to work. For 50 seconds, I thought there was monsters on the world. You know, tables. I should be doing new season. Fran and I, Fran Hoffner. Blockbuster Fran Hoffner. We got in a big discussion

She doesn't like the Will Forte sketch Where he's under the car It's good That shit is so good He's got the cigars on his phone Wait, Ben hasn't seen it Oh, I'm sorry I gotta get caught up

It's hard to spoil a Tim Robinson sketch It's really about the vibe. But yes, I'm sorry. I will say no more. What were we talking about? Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Oh, what I was gonna say, it's so funny that they try to theme the English titles

when in Korean they're totally unrelated. And then you have Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, and then you just have Oldboy. It's like, you didn't even take this naming convention all the way. Why bother? Sympathy for Mr. Oldboy. Yeah.

I don't know how much sympathy that movie has for him. Yeah, that's, well, you know, he has a tough run of things. He does. Yeah. All those dumplings. People make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. There's no such thing as a perfect person do you think all the movies should be called that they should just be called people make mistakes one two and three like that would be a fine title for each

of these movies if i had to say what what the overriding thematic concern is of this ersatz trilogy i would say it's poe buddies nerfect i would say that's that's exactly what he was thinking poe buddies nerfect do you think he's familiar with that phrase absolutely i think he has it stitched inside of all of his clothing like never cursed it's it's in the lining of every piece of clothing director park has uh our guest today what what david i was trying to introduce our guest what you should introduce our guest and i'm going to tell you where uh no pobity's nerfect originated oh shit wait now i want to hear this quick i can't wait for that tell me quickly mad magazine really those geniuses they came up with it what was what was their specific piece

that was the origin i think they started using it in the 70s you know it just took a crack team of writers to sit down and realize if you swap those letters you know there's there's an irony there but they must have not trademarked it right i i guess not it is everywhere probably not okay well it's been said that pobody's nerfect but we have a perfect guest today uh return to the show uh uh author of bong joon-ho dissident cinema a book about the runner-up to this year's March Madness competition. The great Karen Han, back on the show.

Thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited to talk about this movie. It is my favorite of his. It's your favorite of his. You took it right away. I was like, what do you want? I think you knew. I think that's what you texted you texted

me after i told you you're like yeah i knew you'd pick this one i think we talked about it before yeah what you consider his his s tier i think and this is right there um karen as someone who's literally written the book read a book on bang junho a man who came one vote away from being covered in this stunning yes uh did you have picked out which one you would have wanted to do had he won no much harder choice than than this choice uh yeah i i feel like i with pak chook, I have a lot more ups and downs in terms of what I like and what I like more than other ones. Whereas with Bong Joon-ho, it's pretty across the board tense for me, across the board est here. Yeah, I'm trying to think if I dislike any of his movies. He certainly he doesn't he doesn't have a trio.

Moon is the sun's dream really well i haven't seen the first film the first one's just okay you kind of defend it yeah i mean relatively speaking i think it's really good but like in that in his oeuvre so where it definitely is more just okay than the rest of them but like upon rewatch i I was like, yeah, this is really funny. I like it. Yeah, you're right. It's kind of wall-to-wall bangers. What, David? I think you would want to do the host, Karen.

Yeah. Yeah. Because when we had... Karen and I had a conversation. Congrats. For the launch of her book. We've had many conversations. At Town Hall, yes. Yes. At Town Hall. conversation congrats uh for the launch of her book we've had many conversations at town hall

yes yes at town hall um and we we watched clips from memories of murder and the host and what was the last one karen we did a parasite yeah right that one uh famous movie that's um but i feel like we had the most fun talking about the host. And I think about that clip all the time. I think about that scene all the time. It's so good. I mean, I do feel like it's the most like throwing a bowling ball and it hits strike fun.

You know what I mean? As opposed to the other ones, which are maybe like a little more... Not that this isn't... Not that the host isn't emotionally taxing, but it's a little more uh traditionally fun does that make sense yeah yeah 100 yeah i'm just i'm flashing back not not to be all nikki fink told you but flashing back to that oscar night the last semi-normal oscar night and we you and i both

were sort of cynically like is fucking mend Mendes going to sweep this thing, right? Right. I was trying to remember what the fear was. What the... 1917. Yeah, fucking 1917. And I feel like going into it, it was like, it will feel like a victory if Bong wins one of the three. If he wins director, screenplay, or picture. And you were like, maybe there's a scenario where they give mendes

director but they throw parasite picture the opposite you want one of the three and then it was like when he won the first one you were like i guess it's out of the running i guess that was the consolation prize and i was like david i think it's gonna fucking go the distance and then he won best director and you were like, it's absolutely going to 1917 now. Yeah, yeah. And then the moment when it was like, he fucking did it. Yeah. I feel like you could tell even in like watching his acceptance speeches where he's like, I got one. Like, that's pretty good.

Probably not going to get another one. And then they were like, holy shit, this is also pretty good. Probably not going to get another one. And then they fucking did it. And he just like had international film in the back pocket the whole time. And then it just kept on stacking up. It was a pretty incredible feeling. It was an amazing night.

It was just really great. I don't know how else to describe it. Yeah. I lost my mind. I cannot imagine. I feel like I've seen video of you reacting. Yeah, there's video of Karen losing her mind. The most mortifying thing is that they played it on CNN.

I was like, you didn't tell me you would be filming this video on national TV. And I wish I had known beforehand. I don't think I knew that. I remember it all. Yeah. But he didn't win. Bong, the loser I call him. Yes. Big all. Yeah. But he didn't win. Bong. The loser, I call him.

Yes. Big L. Right. He won the Oscars, but that's a local show. This year, Blank Check was international. And I think somewhat surprisingly, yes, it went to Park Chan-wook, who you have more of an up and down relationship with, you said. Or just, is that is that fair i find it

easier to like rank his films as it were okay sure all right so this is number one yeah baby what's number two oh i mean i do really like old boy which is maybe a boring choice i also do like jsa yeah yeah old boy's great and also coming out again i guess i don't know when this episode is coming up but they're putting the movie back in theaters so go watch it if you haven't and also please don't look anything up if you haven't and just go it's coming out in about a month okay exactly a month in august 16th this episode's dropping july 16th nice uh and i am excited for that um and uh i think it's cool that it's coming back that's great

you think everything that happens in that movie is cool? I think everyone's good in Old Boy everyone does a good job and nothing wrong I think it's despicable everyone does kind of do a good they get things done in Old Boy

I'll give them that there's there's there's actions taken i think it's kind of despicable that director park condones the behavior of every single character in that movie can you imagine if that movie like freshly dropped right now and all of that media discourse was around old boy being like wow he supports this behavior i am not saying this in the tone of, what are we going to reckon with Oldboy? But it is just kind of astounding how that movie is just completely grandfathered and is like,

we all love this thing. Yeah. Like, it's kind of just kind of universally beloved for a movie that perverse. And yes, if it came out tomorrow, it would destroy the internet. That having been said, the last couple of years, every year, there's a movie that I think is going to be the one that destroys discourse and the one that actually does is something else.

What most recently? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was the year where I felt like licorice pizza got the discourse that I thought Red Rocket was going to get. Oh, OK. Last year, I thought the whale was going to be the one that destroyed the discourse the discourse and instead i think everyone was just kind of like oh i don't even want to see it i can't be bothered and a24 was brilliant they were like you get one still yes then the movie was out and they're like one still and they're like what do you mean the movie's like on dvd i can play one still there's one picture from that movie that's what what he's sitting no more questions i'm trying

to even think like what is the one that i think got i don't know it even felt like at the end there there was more people like more insane discourse around everything everywhere than there was the whale everyone was just kind of like whatever whatever whatever it does feel like it's just like a reflection of how big those movies are or how like mainstream they are because like licorice pizza got that because it was paul thomas anderson and more famous than whatever was going on with red rocket and same with everything everywhere all at once where that had just so much more buzz that even if it was positive,

which even if it was positive, which it was, it had to curdle at some point. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I remember the one that felt like it was the monkey paw swap of The Whale, even though they're radically different films. Although I do think in the last month when it felt clear that everything was going to sweep,

then all the ire went there. Glass Onion was the one that I felt like no one could be normal about for a movie that played at a film festival and everyone was like, fun, a good time. Yeah, don't release your movie on Netflix. That's the moral of that story in my opinion. A little catch there. Anyway, now everyone's normal about every movie and that's

yes that's right good yeah whenever a new movie comes out people greet it with like ah an entertaining flick and that's all i have to say people just tweet that over and over again an entertaining flick and that's all entertaining flick yeah twitter. An entertaining flick. Yeah, Twitter is good again. I'm going to, as a social experiment, right now on Monday, June 19th at 9.30 p.m. We're recording this episode over Zoom because Karen's on the other side of the country. Sorry. I'm going to just tweet a normal flick

and that's all I have to say. And see how people respond to this. Everything you tweet is insane everyone's gonna go crazy and what they think i'm talking about i am interested to see the results of this unfortunately i don't think there's a lot of good answers to what you could be tweeting about right now but go for it a normal flick dot dot and that's all i have to say exclamation point exclamation point everyone is gonna think you're talking about The Flash. It's going to go so bad.

That is the thing they're going to think I'm talking about. The thing is, I do want to see Michael Keaton on the big screen. I have not seen The Flash yet. We've seen him. I love Michael Keaton so much. He's looking good. Favorite living actor and one of my favorite screen performances

reprising at a thing I thought would never happen. I'm treating the idea of going to see that movie like it is laundry. Yeah. The Flash! He run fast! He run fast. What you're missing right now is David

doing his impression of the Flash running, which I have to say is very good. He does run in a funny way in those movies. He does run does run like that yeah he's like a speed skater and for the listener at home it looks like they devised tim robinson running really fast is sort of what i'm seeing here on this i like this i'm turning my video off that david is indistinguishable from tim one haircut and now lady vengeance lady vengeance what is what is the first film in this filmography that you would have seen and when did you see lady vengeance what's your relationship to this director i actually think this was the first one that i watched because um similar to

my relationship with bang joon-ho like i i started watching pak chun-hook's movies like because of my dad because he was into cinema and korean cinema and i think this was also his favorite movie i'm not clear on that but i we had this dvd and so it was the first one that i watched and obviously it was very high impact yeah i mean how old would you have been um late teens probably i don't i don't think i was like allowed to watch it for a little while for obvious reasons you didn't see it when it came out in the states on dvd or blu-ray yeah okay um and so this was the first of his films that you saw and so a seminal favorite in a way for you yeah yeah i think so i'm trying to think if i had seen any of the other ones before but i don't think so yeah this is the first one yeah and it set you on

the clear course for the rest of your life in terms of seeking vengeance at all costs right yes um i i wear exclusively red eyeshadow now i mean it's a's a good look. It is really good. I do love that everyone was like, what's going on with that? Yeah, what is going on with that? Because your friends would. If you just suddenly changed your look, they'd be like, why are you goth now?

Yeah, well, but it looks cool. That's all you'd have to say. I mean, she's so great. I mean, yeah, when people change their appearance, you know, people sometimes will notice and they'll be like, wow, wait, look at look at what you've done. Karen, I don't know if you've heard the news. This is the first episode to come out since we have revealed this publicly. It's you can't see it, but it's also the first episode, this miniseries that we're doing over Zoom where someone has not had the ability to study Ben in person.

But Ben recently made a radical physical transformation that is in and of itself announcing a brand new era in his life and his identity. Absolutely. Bad Boy 2.0. Now, I think truly, Ben, try holding your ear as close up to the screen as you possibly can. I want to see if there's any way this is... Yeah, I see it. Okay, you see the little glimmer? Yeah, absolutely.

That's nice. The one stud, the one ear piercing. Yep. It's a new chapter. How long do you have to keep that stud before you can do different ones? Four months. Four months, okay. Do you have plans already?

A big hoop okay okay yeah absolutely i can't wait for that me too uh here here's a question for the group uh has has anyone which version was watched in terms of the the regular or the the fade to white as it's called oh is it fade to white or is it oh well i the first time i saw this movie was the standard version and i think re-watching it for this time i watched it on movie and the version that they have is the fade to black and white version it is incorrectly on the blu-ray griffin called the fade to white version which would make no sense i know i just i thought it sounded kind of poetic but i was going off of what it said yeah but but imagine if the the screen just was white in the last third

it's like wait a second i can't see anything but yeah this was the first time that i'd seen this version of it and while i was watching i was like i don't remember this movie being like this it's i i watched it this way i had never seen that version of it before but i've got the blu-ray and it's available and i was like i've seen this movie i'll try this out yeah and i gotta say i think it's pretty cool i think i was impressed effective yeah and i i got the little intro from sexy sexy director park uh two minutes of him describing that he looks good in the intro he looks shit i want to see now i mean he's incredibly handsome dude yeah yeah he's a good looking man great hair great hair and it's really working for him in this video you know it's all big and poofy and he's got his glasses and he's just like yeah you

know here was my idea with this whole like fading the color thing and you know man i hope you like it you know like he's not like being like you know hello it is i the master of cinema you know but it's it's um koreans for you uh it's very it's very cool i think because it's cool let's just clarify his original intent was in the second half of the movie the color starts fading away gradually until you get to a point that it's basically black and white with certain highlighted colored elements a sort of subtler version of a sensitive type thing so they shot the movie with that intent and then when director park saw the footage from the second half the movie he thought it looked so good in color that it would be a shame to take the color out of it and also it sounded like there was a bit of a thing where

when they tried the process they weren't happy with the effect so they released it full color all the way through and then after the movie was a success on dvd they sort of went back and did that original version so now both did it up exist out there in the ether yeah i mean it's it's funny that like sort of similar stuff has also happened with parasite and also mother not to just talk about bong again but like the black and white version of parasite came out like when like the oscar campaign was going out so people could have a different version of watch and then with mother like they had originally done it i think they had thought about it in pre-production of just doing it in black and white but then when it it obviously just released in

full color and then they the cinematographer like went back to do it in black and white and originally just as like a gift for the crew to like watch again but that version is out there somewhere if you want to find it yeah they they've played it at like a couple film festivals i think it's harder to find that yeah i never watched the black and white parasite cut i don't know i guess i'd watch it if you made me i like the colors yeah it does look really good i mean that's sort of the thing with this movie too where like the standard version is also really beautiful like that was what i was thinking in the scene where she finally does meet the adult one mo like in the

bathroom like my memory of that is like very clear with like that sort of orange yellow tile and like that's the version of it that i think of which was why when i was watching it i was like wait did i like totally just like fugue state in this movie being in color well that was i mean yeah it's interesting when he looked at the footage he yeah was taken enough with it that he had second thoughts about taking the color out of it what's the the dp's name it's his usual gdp no it's uh yeah chung chun hoon he basically said like if i had known they he would have released it with the color in i would have lit everything differently so i think yeah but you know prefers don't worry about it buddy like it's great either way is the thing i watched it on tubi and it was kind of um disconcerting to have ads pop up at

certain moments in the movie you could use a modelo light around now yeah it would really be jarring to be completely honest this movie's also got the fractured timeline thing going on where it's jumping all around from sort of like her memories the present her perception of things or whatever if it just suddenly cuts to a swiffer commercial probably takes a second to realize it's not part of the film yeah yeah i would recommend i i would recommend getting a blu-ray or watching a movie for sure um well lady vengeance let me give you guys some context about it um there is this whole sort of backstory to the quote-unquote vengeance trilogy which is a very informal trilogy i think um that when he was doing a press conference about old boy uh director park was sort of like asked something along the lines of like why another

movie about vengeance and he was like what's wrong with vengeance there's a long history of vengeance in storytelling going back to mythology so he said i can do 10 films in fact i'm planning a third film right now and then and he says like and that was the first time he had even thought the idea. And he was like, what if I did a vengeance movie with a lady? Sort of a lady vengeance, if you will. Look, I think he's a self-deprecating person. I don't know if it's exactly right, like this simple. But he does basically say, I don't know. That'll show them you could do more

vengeance movies that's what like that's how all filmmakers should respond when someone criticizes them for like repeating themselves let's just be like it's a franchise yeah right what's wrong with that yeah i'll do another one it's the same line as she does like no not as i was like well because the line that she says when she comes out of the prison in the first time and she says it's it's translated let's go screw yourself but the more literal translation of that is like why don't you mind your own business basically that's the vibe of it where it's like maybe i like vengeance yeah we know see the movie don't see the movie now apparently his real first inspiration for this movie was the case of the frog boys do you know about this karen i don't see the movie now apparently his real first inspiration for this movie was the case of

the frog boys do you know about this karen i don't know that specifically but i know that he's talked about it was because he i watched an interview with him recently where he was saying like he was inspired to make this by a story of a young woman who killed a young boy while pregnant and so that's the second thing okay the first thing was there's some sort of famous case of five teenage boys or less than teenage actually most of them were around 10 11 12 uh who went missing in korea in 1991 uh they were supposedly looking for salamander eggs for some reason it became known as the frog egg boys and um they uh were never found they were found many many years later in 2002 uh and they were probably murdered uh they had some kind of

blunt force trauma i don't know i think it's very it's still no one really knows what happened and he was thinking of doing a movie about this very case and then the the boys were found the the bodies were found and he decided like okay i can't i can't do like exactly that yeah because it'll it's it's whatever because it's too complicated to actually sort of draft off of this case and then yes he also had this other uh real life story about a woman who a pregnant woman who had stolen a child i guess is what yeah he abducted a child and he was like i would love to understand why you know something like that would happen and i want to have a female protagonist um he says an old boy the lead female character, Mido,

she's not privy to the truth and that didn't sit right with him. Obviously, the necessity of the narrative is she doesn't know what's going on, but it is obviously quite distressing what happens to her in Old Boy. And he says, you know, in the film industry, we haven't had a lot of female protagonists.

When you place a woman at the center of a film, it makes the film much more enriched and sophisticated, and he's got a daughter, who he talks about all the time. He's always making the most demented movies on earth, and he's like, I was making this sort of, you know, with my daughter in mind.

I feel like after this, he uses a lot of female protagonists yeah uh like karen no sorry i just i before we move on from this of relevance to our guest karen do you know we've pulled up basically every time he says that he made the movie for his daughter inspired by his daughter and his daughter sees the movie and is unimpressed. The comparison point is always, she's more into Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, right. He's always like, do you like I'm a cyborg, but that's okay. And she's like, no, I like Jack Sparrow.

I'm more of a gore head. That's hysterical. of a gore head that's hysterical i mean i i know he he's also said that he wanted to give young the lead actress something more to do after jsa as well yeah she's because in jsa at the start you're like great this movie is about her like she's she's the investigator she's uncovering the case and then like pretty quickly you're like no no no it's about it's about you know all the boyfriends uh and i love all the boyfriends that this movie came out right after she was done with this k-drama called which was she was like one of the most famous people in korea at this point and like that drama is still like very very well known i i yes i believe that drama was watched by like

half the country right like it's on her wikipedia page yeah yeah it's really really nuts and like i mean she apparently like had sort of wanted to do something different which this very much fits the bill do you have any insight karen there's like a huge gap in her career where she does this in 05 and then comes back to TV in 2017, doesn't do another movie until 2019. But there's basically like a 12-year gap with no credits. Yeah, I mean, I don't know personally, but what I would speculate is that this tends to be something that happens to female celebrities basically of a certain age, where it's like, happens to female celebrities basically of a certain age where it's like you get married and you have kids and that's sort of like what you do um and i and that said she also like wasn't

just gone for that time like she was in a lot of ads i still think like even like i just went to koreatown in la recently and she is still in some ads on there she became like a different kind of celebrity right like even just off the back of tae, she probably, I think, was even pre that wasn't a lot of ads because she was so beautiful. So this comes out in 2005. 2007, she becomes the global ambassador of LG household and health care's premium beauty brand. 2009, she's married. 2011, she has twins. 2017, she returns to acting yeah you just kind of don't

have to do anything if you're getting that kind of ad money yeah that's wild um but she's a good actor she's terrific yeah so my hat is off to her if she wants to act more i'd support her i personally think she should do it she's got a good number of credits since 2017 Like now she's come back Yeah, it seems to be a fair amount of TV Especially, but yeah She has done, yeah, yeah, yeah But yeah, you're right, right, she's in JSA And she is somewhat underused, although she's

Very, you know Charming and Arresting in it But also I just feel like after this it's like you know i'm a cyborg that sort of co-leads thirst song kang ho is the lead of that obviously stoker that's a female lead handmade at our female leads decision leave is sort of a two-hander there like you know i feel like he does pivot more to female protagonists after Lady Vengeance.

You gotta have a girl around if you're trying to be horny. And he's very horny. That is the kind of Robert McKee level insight. You should be peddling a master class, Karen. You should be sitting in a big leather chair. Yeah. Smoking a cigar. You gotta have a girl around if you want

there to be horniness but it's true he's such a horny director yeah but he's also a girl dad yeah i would say this is one of his less horny films yes that is correct not that it does not have uh prison cunnilingus uh you know there's there's some there's some you know shocking material is upsetting yeah it's bad it's quite upsetting yes um usually his movies are i guess certainly shot through with some horniness yeah there's there's no it doesn't feel like there's any really good sex in this movie i would say no well no one's having a good time in this movie no right here at any point right um lady vengeance okay um with uh old boy uh that's the first time park had worked with chung chung hoon who is the cinematographer who works on him with if with every movie going forward all the way to the

handmaiden and now inexplicably not inexplicably because he's incredibly talented but uh he's now working in hollywood and he did last night in soho and please uncharted oh he shot uncharted wow which i don't remember looking bad but i don't remember it looking good um and he also did every episode of uh obi-wan kenobi oh wow does that another show where i'm like i don't remember it looking bad but i don't remember it looking good it's kind of dark in my memory you know like all those disney plus shows you're kind of like what's going on i wish he'd gotten on andor That's a good looking show That's a handsome show And he also Co-wrote this movie with

Chung Seo Kyung I mean Karen help me with these names You don't have to help me but tell me if I'm Chung Seo Kyung probably Well you know Yes I mean Your Korean pronunciation Is unsurprisingly excellent also korean romanization is fucked up man like it's never quite right right right i know that

there's it's a losing battle here for me to try to do it accurately you can just cut in me saying them in the edit For every episode That definitely wouldn't get weird At any point And he's written all of his films Since except for Stoker With this person But she

Is I guess She's just very positive on him Even though she's coming aboard with him post-Oldboy, she's like, he's always treated me as an equal partner, even though I kind of thought he was so impressive. She told this amazing story about the table read for this movie, where apparently Lee Young-ae initially came in

and did a much, I guess, harsher or kind of bolder read of kumja and she could tell that like that puck and everyone else in the room was kind of like oh i don't think this is really what this part demands or i don't think this is really working and but no one was saying it because young is so famous and so eventually she was the one who was like hey like i don't think this is really working or like don't you think you should try this a little differently? And she could feel like the whole room just go cold. Because again, like, this is the most famous person in the room. Like, you can't really tell her what to do in that respect.

But then later, and someone else in the interview was like, so Director Park, like, didn't back you up at all? And she was like, no, he hung me out to dry. But she made it work um absolutely uh griff i just noticed that you tweeted that tweet again i had a typo the first time so okay okay okay i was just interested yeah yeah yeah no i'm not trying to juice up my numbers unfolding saga i wanted a pure uh sample well okay so will will goss a friend of the podcast quote tweeted the one with the typo a good joke and then he thankfully uh did it again with the corrected tweet which is a normal flick and that's all i have to say and then his quote tweet above it is griff reviewing a bug's life in 1998 which is the most correct and most innocent interpretation

that's very nice guess I saw from anyone was assuming that I'd seen Mission Impossible early. I was worried that would come through too. Yeah, that would be my guess. Your take on Mission Impossible 7 was that it was normal which would be a weird thing to walk out of the theater with. How is it normal?

That's all I have to say. So far no one's assuming it's Flash Which is good There's still time Chung also says Park's wife Should basically be credited

In all his movies Which the director has also said That she always Looks at all his scripts and rewrites them Anyway So Lady Vengeance um that that she always like sort of looks at all his scripts and rewrites them uh anyway um all right so lady vengeance um sort of a deceptively simple narrative i would say but presented disorientingly as is that crazy like if you actually lay it all out end to end you can sort of comprehend it fairly quickly but it just you know the way he unfolds it um is is what's you know arrest keeps keeps you sort of uh guessing right yeah i mean it is structured in like a mystery in that way

where you get the clues as he wants you to get them you don't get it just a to b but i also think that's the case with almost all of his films like i mean old boy is really kind of the exception because old boy is like you basically know as much as the protagonist knows and you're trying to figure out alongside him sure versus there's this one big thing he doesn't know big thing he doesn't know um but most of the other ones like handmaiden does a similar thing where you think you understand what movie you're watching and then it kind of keeps resetting the timeline you're understanding your perspective yeah that said i think even this if you laid it out linearly there's still sort of that twist like when the final act like begins the reveal that the final act hinges on like that totally

changes where you think this story is going or at least it did for me with the first time that i saw this absolutely um so uh he's starting with the person he's starting with this character how do you how do you say her name karen i this is one of the gumja gumja um so he says like you know she's just you know she's decided to prescribe and execute revenge on this mr beck the person who turned into a criminal um and he's you know park is sort of like in a way it doesn't seem like enough initially like as you're saying here like you know when you're watching it you're like okay she's decided you know to go after this guy who participated in some incident in some way you know but like you don't really know what's going on um and uh park said he basically structured it this way where you don't really totally know

every layer of it because he wanted a sense of isolation between the audience and the protagonist he didn't want you to identify with the protagonist really he wanted you he wanted her to feel like she's sort of like outside of reality in a way outside of society right like she does feel almost superpowered or supernatural or something you know like like that she can like x-ray people with her eyes i don't know i don't know how to describe her there's also there's this whole element to like this character pled guilty there is a media narrative that we're basically introduced to as we're introduced to her in the movie where you understand the way the public thinks of her. It's a narrative that she continues to perpetuate.

And so you're both sort of hearing her telling at times of this sort of accepted version of the story and then slowly peeling back selectively, depending on who she's talking to and what she's trying to accomplish, what really was going on, and then why she even got herself into the situation where she would have pled guilty yeah i mean it comes across so beautifully in her performance where she seems so calm and collected at all times like throughout i

would say like the first 50 of the movie there's only one scene and it's like two seconds where you see her not guarded somehow like the very first day that she gets into prison where she's crying like that's the only moment that you see her as anything else like otherwise she's acting in a certain way whether it's acting as this angel for people to like her in prison or acting as this very kind of hard to approach woman as soon as she gets out. Yes. I love. What's his name? He's in. He's got such a strange face.

And the haircut. He's got such a funny face. Right. He's got the blonde hair in Oldboy. He's like the bodyguard guy. And in this, he's got this like mushroom hair. He's like her biggest fan. He-Man haircut. Yeah.

You're speaking my language yeah uh but yeah what what a weird face that man has i really my hat is off to his weird face uh he's not that important in this movie obviously but he is he is he is around yeah i love you i love you beginning when right the movie is sort of keeping you in the dark is when he has his the greatest amount of screen time where at least his hair is something you can hold on to it's like a consistent life raft um no it's an interesting starting point to basically have this woman who pled guilty to like a horrendous crime but you're introduced to her as here she is being released she's basically this cause celeb as like an example in the public eye of like

prison reform in effect right or or prisoner reform yeah in in effect right here look at her what a transformation she made and it's like you know a because it's like look at this hot lady who went to jail in this way that like does happen in the media you know yeah uh where when people get weirdly sexually attracted to a criminal but also the idea of like well it does seem like she changed inside and then the movie just starts immediately peeling away like we're presenting someone to you did something that's seemingly unforgivable but the public has basically forgiven her for it and then we're gonna untangle why she actually didn't do it and why she's now justified for

what she's about to do yeah the explanation is explanation's so fun. Like, I do like the flashback structure. Like, getting to meet each of the women that she befriends in prison is, for me, like, the most fun part of this movie because there's not that much to be found at the end of it. Yes. And also, you're initially like,

okay, is this about her assembling a crew of ragtag weirdos? Like, okay, you know, I can get on board with that. We've been recording Ocean's trilogy and the surrounding movies. Ocean's films. The Ocean's films, commentaries for Patreon. And there is this section of the movie

that feels like that. Where it's like, why is she assembling this ragtag crew? And you're almost like learning about a heist in reverse. It is so good that like the way that it's set up, because I feel like the intro to every woman fits that mold. But as soon as you see the meeting outside of prison, it's so clear. Like the women themselves comment on this where they're like, oh, you're just using us. Like you don't actually have any affection for us. like we are a means to an end for you i mean she's she's got nothing left other than like means to an end at this point right it

does feel like she's a person who exists basically driven entirely right yeah right she is she's sort of a non-person she is both not the you know yeah the angel she presented herself as in prison but she's also um everything she's doing feels calculated out of prison in some way and it's just about trying to understand what the calculation is. And initially, obviously, you think that she's a scary villain because she killed a baby. Bad. A child. Bad, yeah. But she didn't actually do it, guys.

She didn't do that. Spoiler alert. Yes. I'm not sure exactly what... It's sort of revealed in flashback What probably like sort of half an hour, 40 minutes into the movie. I'm trying, I'm trying to think of when that,

when that becomes super clear. I don't know. It doesn't take too long because it's, it's, it's pretty much revealed. Like you get a pretty clear sense of it as soon as the detective comes to the bakery, as soon as she gets that job,

like it becomes very clear that she did not actually commit this murder right well she starts yes work at a bakery with a acute cutie shop assistant who she's mean and scary too and because he's young and was young when her case happened he does not know and so she has to explain it to him yes after we've like uh already just sort of been brought midstream into the redemption arc uh you have to hear her explain what she has been accused of uh which is like as we said uh pretty upsetting and terrifying and then a quick sidebar the bakery owner od Odolsu, that actor is the voice of the monster in the host and also was recently semi-canceled.

Interesting. Oh, no. For being the monster. I was about to say, what a cool guy. No, it was like some sexual harassment thing. Oh, well, that's also monstrous. Different kind of monster, yeah. We should mention,

I guess we haven't mentioned within the episode yet that all four of us i came on the zoom and i picked the same zoom background that david did so then ben and karen both match it all four of us have the exact same background well which is describe the background a very iconic image from this yeah I mean, this is like a dream sequence. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Of her. How do you even? She's like in the middle of like snowy plains dragging a sort of taxidermied horse. It's like a dog converted into a rocking horse.

Dog sled. Dog man sled. But with the human head, right. right yeah and then she shoots it with a gun uh she also has a badass leather sort of jacket dress on and boots and she looks absolutely one bajillion dollars um but uh yes it's one of it's one of the things that I feel like the movie throws out in its first hour where it's just like, chew on that, you animals. And you're like, ah, which is sort of the magic of Park Show. I just feel like, you know, if I sat down and told you the narrative of one of his movies, you would be like, that's pretty crazy. And I would be like, sure. Beyond that, he also is going to tell it to you in a pretty aggressive and unusual way.

This will not be related conventionally. Can we, for the sake of making it easier to talk about, just basically lay out the bones of what's going on in this story? Go for it. The bones of their money. Yes, and so are the worms. I mean, let's make this a group effort

because I want to make sure I don't fuck this up. She gets pregnant as a teenager. Yeah. She approaches her teacher. Yes. Played by Choi Min-sik. Choi Min-sik.

Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Karen. The star of Oldboy. No, no, please. No, don't be sorry. Star of Oldboy, who feels like just unafraid to take any part, this dude. I know he's a major, major, major Korean actor,

but God bless him. After Oldboy, Park Chul-wook's like, how about this part? And he's like, yeah, sure, whatever. I'll do it. She's understandably terrified, doesn't know what to do about the kid, terrified of the judgment of being made

to be an outcast, what have you. So she goes to him in her terror for help. And he basically, in exchange for getting the child put up for adoption and covering her pregnancy ropes her into helping him in an ongoing sort of ransom ring scam he has going on kidnapping children she is not aware that it's not going right right i and i believe i i believe this is the first time that it happens right yeah that's my impression yeah because she tells the detective at the end if you caught him then these other kids wouldn't be dead right so much of what i feel like her profound sort of guilt and shift just her basically using her but

they're always these things of like creating these systems of control and power you owe me favors and you're in a position where you can't say no to my whims and what have you and so yeah she doesn't totally understand what she's doing uh once she does she's into i also was under the impression that the the intention maybe i'm wrong about this but the intention wasn't to give up the child prior to her going to jail because later she tells jenny like i had to give you up because i went to jail as opposed to i plan to give you up before that i think that's ambiguous yeah she's just seeking help i guess and we don't really right we don't really know what it all goes wrong because yeah because he's a child murderer

he's a child murderer he's the worst person who ever lived yeah the additional twist the worst person right you could go to you think he's very bad bad because he kidnaps children for ransom money and in fact he pretends that he's kidnapping children for ransom money so that he can just murder them to get his rocks off yeah yeah he's very bad um just fyi also to blank check listeners and voters i am increasingly like why did you pick this director who i admire and love yeah but who half of his goddamn movies are about child murder david doesn't like child murder david's come out very recently to be an anti-child murder it is worse when you have a child advocate yes and the weird thing is i actually re-watched the entire vengeance trilogy when my daughter was like

three months old i think they got i think i mentioned this they put them on criterion channel or something like that and i was like oh man like you know i'm gonna watch those like vengeance truly and i watched them no problem whatsoever which is a great sign of how cooked your brain is when you have an infant you're just kind of like yeah whatever yeah what are they doing cool also she wasn't talking yet she was like a potato she was a potato she didn't care i mean she watched the whole damn thing with me it's insane but i let her be in the room for this she gave them all four out of five on letter box she was into yeah exactly she's big on letter and then i yes she's my daughter huge on letter box yes she's uh i don't know insert the name of a funny letterbox user there emoji pointing finger uppy question mark yeah exactly um and uh my daughter does say uppy

a lot which means um but uh but yeah i re-watched this movie and i'd already watched you know the other two vengeance movies which are not exactly you know fucking light affairs right and for some bananas reason i even remembered the ending of this movie where i'm like yeah then they all get together in like a big abandoned schoolhouse and they kill him and i was like why did they kill him yeah i don't know he's no good like you know and i just forgot how awful i you know like and i i had to i mean i had to fast forward it's a horror it's like an incredible ending but it's it's horrible to watch. It's a very impressive ending.

Yeah. I think the ending of this movie is amazing. And I think it's such a cool and interesting ending to a quote unquote vengeance trilogy. Like, I know that the idea of this trilogy is somewhat informal, but I do think like it's fascinating for him to watch like to present like a group vengeance you know that is executed in this sort of like thought through and quote unquote moral you know and also completely insane way like it is it's like where he's just like does this make sense and you're like obviously what you're showing me is so surreal but also yes it yes, it makes sense, right?

Like that you have to grapple with that. I also think like, so much of this trilogy is about like the ugliness of vengeance, right? And he's sort of like going up against the reliability of the like revenge-o-matic as a genre movie and digging into the actual underpinnings

of the emotion of what's driving those kinds of movies rather than just making it the surface level fun. But this is the movie where I almost feel like he's going, trying to circle back around yet again and go like, but within the tone of vengeance that I've set within these films, can I almost make a a set of circumstances where you start to question whether it is justified right like sympathy for mr vengeance

is just like this guy keeps fucking up this situation just gets worse and worse if you operate from this place everything just like unravels yeah and then old boy is just like these two people destroying each other's lives right this is the most straightforward in that respect yeah yeah and then this is basically just like setting the deck so wildly that you basically get to the point where you're like do i think that 30 different people are justified in murdering a man. It's funny. It's like a dozen.

The writer talked about this where like when she was writing the script, she asked Park like, hey, like what what did he need that money for? You know, where they ask him at the end where it's like, what do you need that money for? He doesn't have a family. He doesn't have kids. What does he need the money for? And Park said like, oh, it's like for. Yeah, like almost kind of offhandedly was my understanding of it. And at first you're like, wait, what? That doesn't make any sense. But then you're like, no, this completely justifies the anger that these parents are feeling at the end.

Like it makes it worse where it's just he's doing this for a purpose that's so stupid and so silly that and has hurt so many people in such a profound way yeah well my my take on it maybe i'm over reading it right but like she thought he was doing it for the money then she finds out he was doing it for the love of murder and then it raises the question of like then what did he do with the money right yeah it's almost like he would take he would take the money of course he would make the ransom call my read was like oh it's almost like the murder the money was the red herring to keep his name clean as just your run-of-the-mill child kidnapper rather than a murderer and then once he had the money it's like what are you going to spend it on i don't know money wasn't the point for me what What do rich people buy? A yacht? You know, which is almost like more disgusting to be like. So he also took our money and it wasn't even for any greater purpose. Like all of it is just so craven and hollow.

to this guy uh she is seen taking the child to the bathhouse and he forces her to take the fall by basically abducting her child and being like hey if you don't take the fall i'm also going to kill your baby so she goes to jail she confesses to it the detective sort of realizes that there's something wrong but can't do anything about it she goes to jail she helps a bunch of women in jail um and to the point that they owe her favors basically once they get out she gets out of jail she collects on all those favors to try to exact revenge on this guy she manages to kidnap him in the meanwhile she reconnects with her daughter who was adopted out to australia and then comes back to korea with her uh in the process of kidnapping this man she realizes that he has killed four more kids and at that point decides to bring those parents into it to

sort of that's when like the real like sort of justice part happens because she goes to the detective and is like what are we going to do about this fucking shit all the parents come to a school an abandoned schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere where uh mr peck is held captive and they decide what to do with him which is they will all kill him together right they will which is which is complicated they will kill him but slowly enough that they can sort of spread it out a bunk amongst a bunch of people so everyone can kind of have their shot at him well and they will take a picture all together so that no one can we are all culpable in this. Exactly. It's both like, let everyone have their little bit of catharsis

and ownership of this, but also everyone's equally guilty now. So no one can really turn on anyone else. Right. But he does deserve it. Yeah. You know, as much as you can...

There's just no question about that. ...say that people deserve these things, right? Which is obviously a sort of fraught question. But yes, he's so comically evil. But that's my point. It's like he's made two movies where he's basically saying, like, is it insane that we think about this this way? Of that, like, vengeance must be paid, right?

You need to get revenge on these people who do these things to you does anything good come of it and then this feels like the movie where he's daring you to not support it you know yeah i mean they even pose a question where she's like the other option is we just hand him over to the cops and everyone's like that's not gonna do anything right what happens right what comes of it like yeah I don't think he's saying, like, would you in this position do the same thing? But I certainly think as an audience member, you get to the point where you're like, well, absolutely. Yes. As me, the person watching this's intercut with them just sitting there to their reactions like minutes later is like so, so horrible. When the film really has suddenly like crept up on you and become basically monochrome. And it does put everything into very stark relief in an effective way. And then it's an Oral-B commercial all of a sudden.

Yes, of course. The famous scene where it cuts to a water pick. Yes. He has cast such good faces for all of those parents too is the thing. Like they all have really striking expressions. Here's another thing I was thinking about with him, because he's so good at using these sort of scene fragments, because he will kind of, like, obfuscate his narrative and give it to you out of order but also he will give you uh sometimes just the briefest moment of a scene of a setting of a time of a place just to give you some image in your head and it always feels so lived in and like emotionally deep and especially for movies where people are dealing with incredibly difficult things, you know?

Like, Lady Bird is a movie that does a similar thing where there are a lot of, like, 15-second scenes in that movie as it, like, jumps ahead. But it's a comedy, you know? There's, like, emotion in that film, but the tone of it is fairly light even when the characters are yelling at each other. Versus, like, this is a movie that will cut into someone who has just heard the worst news you can possibly imagine and it's just that for 10 or 15 seconds before it cuts over to the next thing and it is really effective it's really effective but it's also just like i i think it is an underrated skill set of like like someone like tarantino talks about he never will do a pickup where he just has an actor like just do the one line oh i'm only going to use this shot this angle for this one line so just say this line for this setup or even if it's like a pickup an insert shot of someone picking something up from a table

he wants to do the full scene top to bottom so that the actors have the ability to live in it and the emotions are right so when they do the one thing that you're actually going to use from that setup it's invested with enough weight i don't know how he does it but it's like you're seeing these scenes that are almost sort of like ellipses of what you could imagine being a 10 minute scene in a different movie yeah but every time he cuts to it you feel the intensity of that actual scene playing out in full it's funny i mean it's just such a meticulously planned out movie like sort of what you were saying like even with the prison flashback sometimes you only see like five seconds

of it at the beginning and then you'll sort of get more context for it later and that's part of the fun of it like figuring out what's going on and also like he knows what details to fixate on i guess like even there's the one most parents like they they know later on in the movie where it's like the father like couldn't handle blood at all and it's the mom who eventually has to go in and enact her vengeance because her husband kind of doesn't have the right temperament to do it but then like at the beginning that detail is like already planted where uh kumjak goes to their house to try to atone for what she's done by cutting off her fingers and it's all in there and there's also like there's so many fun moments like the prison scene where there's something happening in the foreground but you see kumjak coming in in

the back and it's still like out of focus but then the character leaves and slips on the soap and falls and it's all just planted in there. But then the character leaves and slips on the soap and falls. And it's all just planted in there. You just have to be paying attention to it. That's very interesting. I did not put, I feel like, some of that together. I also want to point out, the actress that plays that horrible woman in the prison, Ko Su-hee, is I think one of the sweetest people in the world.

Or at least she seems like it in real life. I highly recommend. There's a reality series called Jump Like a Witch on Netflix where a bunch of Korean women celebrities try to form a basketball team, and she's on it, and she's so, so sweet and nice. It's insane. Whoa.

What a concept. A lot of things just... I'm sorry. One little run there, Karen. We might need to stop and circle back for a moment. Oh, sure. Wait might need to stop and circle back for a moment. Oh, sure. Wait, there's a reality show in which Korean celebrities

try to form a basketball team? It's like a bunch of adult women, Korean celebrities, who form a basketball team. It's sort of an offshoot of a pre-existing show where a bunch of men

form a sports team, but for this one, it was specifically a bunch of adult women forming a basketball team. None of them have really played basketball before um and so there's like musicians uh newscaster and also this actress in there and she's terrific what what's it called again jump like a witch of course okay well that even raises some more questions but how much of the show with the way you put it like trying to form a team how much of the show, the way you put it, like trying to form a team.

Well, it's because they're all really bad at it at the beginning. Sure. But like how much of the show is about the games versus like, have you really gotten into like the team spirit? Like how much of it's about like, you know, just their basic like working demeanor with each other. They develop, they all get along pretty quickly. So the fun of it is like them trying to support each other as they play basketball really badly like they also like some

of the first exercises are they pit them against a team of children to see if they can be good apparently she's also in barking dogs never yeah she is and she's in she's also in The Host. She's in one of Bond's shorts. She's terrific. She's terrific. She's underrated. So, okay. One thing I wanted to say. I found this in the dossier.

This is interesting. So there's a Japanese film called, and this is another great title, Female Prisoner 701, colon, Scorpion. Yeah, I've heard of it. Which is a Japanese women in prison film that had several sequels and is kind of your classic, like,

women convicts escape from jail, form a brigade, go and lose vengeful hell, right? Cool. And Park says, like, in the first act of Lady act of lady vengeance i'm kind of alluding to that i'm trying to draw the audiences in uh with those kinds of cliches of the revenge story and then when she is gonna you know when she finds out about the uh other victims is when i'm basically shattering that right i'm just dropping just dropping it completely. And it is, it is quite a clever,

you know, you, it's because she's such an impassive, maybe that's not the word, but like, she's such a sort of striking and impressive and scary figure. And you're sort of like, what's going on with her?

She's a little inscrutable. Yeah. Like it is, it is, you know, you can, you can just sort of go with it. Like,

well, I guess she's, you know, forming a vengeance team. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be about lady vengeance., you know, forming a vengeance team. Yeah, I mean, like... This movie's gonna be about lady vengeance.

That's what makes later scenes more impactful. The fact that she so carefully hides her emotions, the scenes in which she doesn't are the ones where you feel more scared of her. This is another thing that director Park said at one point, which is the scene where after they've drugged Chen Min-sik and she's cutting his hair, apparently he will still talk about the fact

that he was so scared while they were shooting that scene because she was so intense while she was shooting it. Oh, yeah, right, yeah. Okay, so yeah, the prison recruitment, is there anything in particular there we need to highlight? Because I feel like there's a lot of big, interesting characters and backstories that we learn i mean i love the couple that gets arrested for doing a robbery together they're so sweet and also his tattoo of like the arm into the arm into the arm shooting

a gun is terrific it's a cool tattoo um i i have the menu for the Arrow Blu-ray playing in a loop right now on my TV, so I keep on seeing that shot of the tattoo every 10 seconds. David, you were saying you want to get a tattoo. You should get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. I do want to get a tattoo. That's what it should be. You nailed it.

I don't think it's going to be that. But it could be a sandwich instead. Customize it. One or the other, David. A's going to be that. Wait, but it could be a sandwich instead. Customize it. One or the other, David. A sandwich tattoo would be good. Either a gun going into a gun going into a gun or a sandwich. I think those are your two options. What if it's like a long one where you have the two slices of bread on the side

and then you can decide what ingredients you want to put in there as the tattoo grows? Oh, I can kind of make it into a club sandwich i can kind of keep stacking yeah wait i'm into this i like the idea of you having like you setting up a sleeve a long term tat project that just starts with one slice of bread and then over your life you build a dagwood sandwich you know running up to your bicep i'll invoke her again fran friend of the show fran hoffner blockbuster fran uh blockbuster fran she's got these tattoos of fruit and she started out yeah with just a couple and now she's got so many fruits and i love her her fruits it's a really cute sleeve so okay uh should we talk about the uh swimming pool uh prison cunnilingus like what

else should we talk about here it's that actress is um that woman who gets assaulted that's her feature debut that i'll be done she's great i feel like you really want to talk about the prison cunnilingus i feel like you've dropped that exact term i just keep thinking about it and i kind of do like the term i guess uh but no no no i i there was something about um he wanted he so uh sympathy for mr vengeance and old boy both got like 18 ratings in korea right unsurprisingly they're very intense films narcy for some reason park thought maybe he could get the less restrictive rating, which I think is a 15, sort of similar to the British ratings, for this one. I guess because this movie is less violent, I guess, although it's still kind of violent. Yeah.

It doesn't have like a hammer attack sequence, maybe. I mean, the child endangerment feels like worse. Like when you watch the music. before exactly then you have all that right but but i guess anyway uh he said he wanted it to be seen by an audience uh 15 uh years and older it got the highest rating um and he thought it was because of the uh oral sex scene but apparently the korean i'm sorry the what dav scene. But apparently the Korean Film Commission I'm sorry, the what, David? President Cunnilingus. But apparently the Korean Film Commission just did not like

that there was a portrayal of violence inside the jail system at all. I'm quoting from Director Park here, but they would have preferred to see the positive side, the inmates getting re-educated and well-adjusted in order to go back into society

you know I didn't he says I didn't put all this in to be critical of the jail system I don't think it's that big a deal that's why I let my then 12 year old daughter watch it three times no cut it out stop it

every time with these dossiers I'm, but you didn't let your daughter watch this one. He's like, well... Maybe you need to find a new way to connect to your daughter. Maybe go fucking rock climbing or watch Real Housewives or some shit. Feels like he needs to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, that's what he needs to do. Yeah, exactly. He probably did.

Just go with her. It's fine. just climb on board with the black girl he's like they really those guys were cursed they were cursed they're all skellingtons he don't he shouldn't have taken that gold they should not would it be in that if they announced like tomorrow disney hires park jam will pirates of the caribbean six seven and he's just like I really want to make a movie that my daughter likes I finally figured it out I'm really butchered here the whole gang is back I need her approval

Tim and Shake is playing Jack Sparrow yeah a lot of bootstrap Bill yeah bring back bootstrap Bill what happened to him did he die yeah he perished he did he was on dead story ended in number three but doesn't he come back wasn't wasn't someone their kid yeah yeah yeah orlando bloom is his son no but i'm saying wasn't elizabeth swan and will

turner's kid one of the boring boys in one of the later sequels? Brandon Thwaites? Wait, was he? Yeah, I think so. And then also Barbossa's daughter, which made me cry. That's the twist in Dead Men Tell No Tales that Skins Girl Kyla Scolodero

Skins Girl! Was that one Brandon Thwaites? Because the other one was Sam Claffin in A Mermaid, right? That one is Brennan Thwaites. Okay. Karen, you and I saw that film together. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean, Salazar's Revenge, or whatever the fuck.

Salazar's Revenge. Together. I cried. I hated myself for crying. And you were in tears. Yes, you were in tears yes you were in tears when he falls like a stretcher

I was like when fucking Jeffrey Rush fell off the big chain or whatever the hell happened to that goddamn movie that should have been

sunk to the bottom of Davy Jones' locker you were correct yeah now that you bring it up it has been a while since we've heard from Salazar

I feel like I haven't seen him in anything in years i've heard he's he's making phone calls and he's planning to enter the republican primary in 2024 uh and his entire uh campaign is just ola jack sparrow and people are trying to talk him out of it they're trying it's pretty good they're like salazar people want to hear about health care better platform than most of them you're not wrong that's true i'm with salazar disney's backed themselves in this corner where they're like fucked if they do bring back jack sparrow they're fucked if they don't right like they got this like they're in they were trying to do it with margot robbie or whatever right yes but got this like they're in a perfect conundrum. They were trying to do it with Margot Robbie or whatever.

Yes. But it's like. Yeah they were thinking about that. A portion of the population is furious if you don't bring debt back and the other half is furious if you do. It's really lose lose. Yeah. Yes.

So what if they just announced tomorrow like we've heard your cries. We are in fact making the next Salazar film. We're continuing off the Salazar story. no that would still have jack sparrow yeah all right me i'm looking him up on the pirates wiki you're looking at salazar oh my god yeah because i cannot remember i get all right look he died apparently his last words jack this guy was so one track. David, when you say these characters have died, aren't all of them undead to begin with?

Isn't that one of the defining things? That's a fair point. I don't know. It says death here. What do you want from me? I also do think I'm conflating details about Salazar with the rock jungle cruise mythos at this point. He's also immortal. That was the... One of the guys turns into a bunch of

bees which was yes that guy that guy had some good points though i really thought he had some interesting things to say that is one of those movies the reveal is that the rock was one of them that he was a conquistador but all of them have accents and he inexplicably doesn't yeah also all of them have a master of disguise yeah yes all of them have accents and he inexplicably doesn't. Yeah. Also all of them have master of disguise. Yeah. All of them have a gimmick too. Yeah. What the fuck?

Salazar looks like a fucked up Shrek, like a Shrek crossed with Edward Scissorhands. Edward Scissorhands. As we all know, Salazar looks like Drake in that 7-Up, or was it Sprite commercial? Was it 7-Up or Sprite? Or it's like the Backstreet Boys music video

where they're all in Halloween costumes. Maybe the funniest thing I ever said on the podcast. Yeah, yes. Salazar looks like all five Backstreet Boys from the Larger Than Life video mushed together. Yeah. That was intentional. Salazar, not to go back,

but Salazar does feel like a Tim Robinson sketch where he shows up and Tim Robinson's like so what's your deal what's your thing figure out what you do yeah he's like duck spout or what they're like no no no it can't just be that he turns into a skeleton I get it this guy is like a squid head I get it what is your deal what is your deal Salazar

he's cracking that's his his he's cracking he's got the crack the crack he is cracking it's true but different from crack n yes because they did he's not crack n that's true got beached sad yeah i just finished my big book about the boat uh the way i'm sorry you just finished your big book about the boat. The Wager. I'm sorry. You just finished your big book about the boat? Yes. David Graham's new book, The Wager. Shit. Okay, I gotta read that.

Which I'm sure will be a film in five years. Yes. Okay. And it's about a big old boat that shipwrecked and there was a mutiny and there was all kinds of crazy stuff that happened. Just got my copy of Flower Moon, Killer Moon. I'm excited for that.

There you go. To read that um yes um but half the book is just him being like so here's what it was like to be on a boat back then uh bad bad really bad no fun eating the shit up i ate it up like and salazar's in there tune them out uh Salazar, of course, it turns out he did it. It's his fault. This carefully reported work of nonfiction, chapter 80 is like, anyway, it turns out it was all Salazar. Unfortunately, Salazar did in fact get his revenge

on all of us. Unfortunately, Salazar returned. And by extension, you, the reader, he has foiled you yetazar. Unfortunately, Salazar returned. And by extension, you the reader. He has foiled you yet again. Oh, man. No one outfoxes Salazar. Lady Vengeance.

Yeah. No relation to Salazar. No. So, a thing we have not really talked about is that while

we're learning about the past and we're seeing our protagonists in the present she visits her daughter jenny who is now you know whatever a kid i mean she's not a teenager even really what has it been 13 years yeah she's like 13 some amount of time she's maybe 13 right uh and she is uh essentially australian because she was adopted is she going to australia that was the one thing i like what's the deal she goes to australia to visit right right and sort of like but then she just sort of uh uh collects her and brings her back to korea jenny threatens to kill herself if she won't let her come with her yeah right um and so you have this sort of strange burgeoning

relationship with jenny which i think again this is sort of before the big hammer blow of the big the final reveal like maybe you're sort of like well maybe this is the person that will like bring her back from whatever world she's in right you know maybe maybe this is the sort of unsur this is the surprise element of this plot that uh that will change her perspective but that's not exactly how it works jenny is sort of crucial to her you know like this aspect of her humanity that is mostly lost right but like that's what i was gonna say i view her inclusion more as like there has to be some glimmer of light in this film i mean a you're about to find out about such horribly monstrous things that have happened to other children but b you want like he does want you

to have some sympathy for lady vengeance and he wants you to believe there's something in there worth uh uh surviving i'm not even saying saving right like there's a reason for her to even uh stay alive post vengeance if she just feels like she's a vengeance golem and once this mission is complete that she's like done it's also it's like the fuller idea of revenge where the idea of revenge is like what do i have to do to set things right to equal the scales again and it's not only i have to take care of this guy but there's also this other part where i owe somebody as well which is my Yeah, and I think also you have, oh boy, not a great father-daughter movie, right? No. assignment she commits suicide the kid dies by accident all this sort of stuff in the same way that he's challenging himself to like let me try to make one with a proper female protagonist who has narrative agency it's also like let me maybe make one where the the child parent relationship

isn't the most fucked up aspect of the film let me try to make one where a kid survives and seems like they're maybe going to be somewhat okay you know it also presents i think a certain amount of stakes right where it's like she if without jenny she doesn't really have anything to lose right right otherwise she's just gone she's she's beyond i mean it's a movie uh i love dearly that i have invoked now maybe in all of these vengeance episodes but um uh you're never Here, which is like similarly a movie about someone who's given themselves over to this thing so fully that they're just like dead inside, just like completely destroyed. And it's similarly like when he finds this girl and forms this relationship with her for the first time, there is like a thing that he actually feels he is responsible for that makes him want to stick around to some degree yeah it also it just makes the ending so i'm saying it's also so many times but really i'm just piggybacking off your point it makes the ending so much sadder where it's like this thing

that you have been fantasizing about for 13 years you've completed it now but has it really fixed anything do you actually feel better like your life is still not in the shape that you necessarily want it to be in you have to atone to this child for what has what her life has been because of these things that happened to you and that you were sort of complicit in yeah very well said um those poor australians they don't know anything about what's going on no they they seemed like they they don't ask enough questions no they definitely didn't google also no maybe maybe they could have just done some good like googling light light googling yeah big ass news story lost though. You remember how in Lost, you know, everyone was Australian?

Yeah. The mechanics of, well, the flight left from Sydney, so everyone had to have been in Sydney for some reason. Yeah. Yes. And so they would do the flashbacks where Sawyer's like, I found the man I need to kill. He's Australian.

Yeah. Oh, I miss Sawyer. I miss Sawyer, too. What's he up to? I guess he's to i guess he's on some other tv show i don't know oh josh holloway yeah he's around yeah oh you mean sawyer the character what is he yeah david what's the character doing i guess he's he's in that uh church they all ended up in yeah yeah i guess they all died yeah who knows um wow actually yeah he you know oh he did oh he had a recurring Who knows? Wow, actually, yeah. Oh, he had a recurring role on Yellowstone. Oh, shit.

Well, good for him. Feels like he should do some Yellowstone. He's got the look and he's the age range. You know what I mean? Like, no one on Yellowstone is young. It's like, it's the Wes Bentley, Josh Lucas sort of zone. Did they make him cut his hair for Yellowstone? Is it short or is it still Sawyer long for Yellowstone? Longer.

It's down to his ankles. Oh, wow. Let's see. No, let's see his hair. Yeah, it's long. It's Sawyer length. Good. What year is the Yellowstone with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren?

1923? 1883? No, you and Helen Mirren. 1923? 1883? No, you're right. It's 1923. 1883 is the other one with Sam Elliott and Tim McGraw. God, what a world. Incredible. I was doing my very exciting part-time job

where I go over to my grandmother's apartment and fix all her devices in exchange for babka. Nice. No, babka ain't bad. She wanted to scale the mountain. She wanted to know if there was a way I could get her on Paramount Plus specifically because she wanted to watch that series. And so I got it queued up and I put it on her iPad and started playing. And she looked at me and she was like, this isn't Yellowstone year it was right she was like this is an 1893 or whatever whichever year it is and i was like it is and she's like absolutely not this is something else this is

something else playing and i was like it's a guy in the middle of the woods getting shot at by like a musket what makes you think this couldn't be yellowstone i don't know that's happening now they're always up to something she wouldn't believe me until helen mirren showed up What makes you think this couldn't be yellow stuff? I don't know. That's happening now. They're always up to something. She wouldn't believe me until Helen Mirren showed up. Wow. Your grandma's a real pip. Yes, she is. Has she seen this movie?

You know, that's a good question. She does like Park Chan-wook. She was very surprised to hear we were covering him. She still thinks this is a show where we interview directors. Oh, okay. Look, it's never too late to turn over a new leaf. Explained it to her a number of times.

Is this my favorite of his? This is my favorite of The Vengeance. Oh, you were questioning if it's your favorite of his movies, period? It's up there. I'm a big thirst boy. I'm thirsty. Also, so nice to see Song Kang-ho in this movie big thirst boy. I'm thirsty. Also,

so nice to see Song Kang-ho in this movie also. Yeah, he pops up. I really just, I assume kind of as a favor, right? Like I assume that's just him being fun.

I guess. I mean, that's why I wanted to bring up the scene, Griffin, when you were talking about the daughter too, where it's like, that's why this moment has agency

where you think it's, it's possible that she loses her daughter and the fact that she, the, the point of like her remembering what the range on this gun is, is so good. It's so good. Yeah. It's very cool.

Um, the other assassin is, is also from JSA, right? Shin Hak-yoon. Yeah. Both of them have been in his movies before. Yeah.

I've been in multiple movies before yeah have been in multiple movies yes he's also he's the he's the lead of sympathy for short of the lead he's the he's the deaf guy in sympathy is song king ho showing up in this like the equivalent of fucking ryan reynolds showing up in everything like for us it's fun but if you're seeing this in south korea in 2005 i don't think so i think he was still pretty beloved like i don't think he has ever crossed the rubicon in that way um uh yeah it feels like a fun wink for the audience and it helps that he's not for the super fans sure no no they show up they're scary assassins and she fucking takes them out yeah are you implying that sometimes when ryan reynolds

shows up for an under five or even a non-speaking role in a big budget film starring one of his friends that he is perhaps winking to the audience and in fact takes you out of the movie by his mere presence i would never dare no because what if you want to work with mr reynolds i mean you know uh he's so funny some of me some of that aviation gin, baby. And he's a WGA member. Oh, yeah. And he's got gin out the wazoo. And like a phone company, right?

He does. Mint Mobile. Soccer team. But then they sold Mint Mobile. Didn't he sell Mint Mobile to a different? Yeah, he probably sold it for so much money. Whatever. He's a smart businessman.

What do you want from me? Like, his whole fucking thing was was like don't sign up with one of those big phone carriers like sprint sign up for mint mobile and then like two months ago he was like exciting news sprint is buying mint mobile look i've been with sprint for a generation i love sprint i'll never leave i i hope you enjoy all your new cousins from the Mint Mobile side of the family Minty phone Oh we should also shout out the Yuji Tei cameo the guy from Old Boys

in this as well He is grown up And so is Mito from Old Boys she's in here for five seconds also Really who is she? she's like a tv announcer blink and you miss it um right right right right um so okay again it's sort of hard to go through the narrative this movie because it is out of order but okay yes um we we learn more and more

about mr bake that's how you say his name karen it's more like peck i guess beck peck um who is a children's teacher at a preschool essentially that's that's what he's doing now uh he's probably planning once again to you know do something terrible uh he hires these thugs to kill gimja, but she kills them back. And then that's when she's got him. She kills him right back. And then that's when she fucking nails his feet to the floor, right? I mean, that's when she's got him.

And then that's when she figures it out. Yeah. I mean, that's the wildest reveal of what she has asked her prison friends to do, right? Is that she has asked someone to go be his wife. Bad assignment. Yeah. Is it the friend that gets the kidney transplant?

Is it that friend? No, it's a different friend. The kidney transplant is the girl who helps her make the gun. Her husband makes the gun for her. Okay. Yeah. I wouldn't want a knee transplant that sounds horrible um so she finds this orange marble right this sort of trophy

he collects these trophies and even in the black and white version the trophies retain their color throughout which is this you know very clever very powerful effect um and she finds all these horrible tapes he made and it's so bad and i kind of had to fast forward and zone out for a while it's horrible yeah uh yeah and park even i think admits like it's a little like he was he says there's stuff he took out like it was really like a frame by frame of like how much can i put in this movie without completely losing the audience yeah uh these very because he's like obviously you need to uh you know convince the viewer of of this man's like pure villainy and these like the horrible thing that he did um but it's it's it's impossible to watch yeah even by

his standards i think yes uh i tried to avoid dwelling on the distress of the children he said um anyway so he's but he's very yes he's very bad yes go ahead griffin no i was just gonna say i mean it's uh i i think he shows you the exact amount of it he needs to yeah like i i i don't think he uh dwells on it too much but as we're saying like right you do need to yeah you do need to feel it viscerally and it's just it's compounded by the parents reactions yes it would be different if this movie was she chops his head off because he's a bad guy but because the, um, the final act of this film is 40 whole minutes. Yeah.

Of the parents reacting of the debate over what to do over them, killing him. And then the sort of like coda of them all together, you know, like it's, you know, yes, yes. It's sort of,

it's more, it's more essential. It needs to feel immediate for the audience right you need to have lived through it in some way it's really breathtaking like there's no way to prepare for that kind of widening of scope as soon as you see the other charms that are on his phone like that's the horrible detail right where he's kept these souvenirs from all these kids on his cell phone like it's so brazen and so horrible and as soon as you realize that and as soon as these other people's revenge are brought into the equation it kind of blows

the movie open yes um it makes it into the masterpiece it is i think yeah yeah um and it's a very interesting elliptical strange movie before then And then you're just kind of like, holy shit. Yeah, yeah. I have to say something unrelated to this right now. Do it. Is it about Salazar? I'm so sorry. No, thank God. Not that.

Not him. No, no, no. I could not take that news right now. Not that guy. You know, we have Ben. Ben has his nicknames on this show. We talked about it on the opening episode of this mini series uh and for for the george miller series we called him haas

pig in the city or something like that right right normal uh someone uh just pointed out i just saw this or haas pig is the kitty was the other one but go on wow no bet no no this is it ben pig is his kitty oh yeah i like haas pig in the city better but but pig is his kitty you don't understand karen his his cat is literally called pig yeah wait is that true yeah yes yes that's the joke no ben pig is his kitty okay then fine that's what it is all right we'll adjust back to this horrible chisel it in stone yeah uh back to the gathering of the parents and relatives of the missing children who watch tapes of screaming children and decide to murder him together no the the broadening of scope you're saying karen that is the thing that's

so surprising about it since we've been like on such a single-minded quest from one person uh to then make it so immediate to so many characters who you're being introduced to this late in the film where the stakes are this high right we don't know these people right no brand new to the film. Yeah. No, but it's like, if you introduce us to characters under these circumstances,

we're immediately going to feel for all of these people. Mm-hmm. Yes. But it's still pretty bold to bring in an entire ensemble. Yes. Like, it's a whole, you know, new cast.

Right. The last act of this movie becomes like women talking suddenly. It is useful, though, that each of these family members has a very distinct personality. Like he's immediately dialed in on who every single one of these people are. Yeah. Are these actors well known in any way? Like are these or is it just sort of, know the usual kind of um definitely not to the

point definitely not to the point of like song gang ho popping up like some of them you'll have seen a lot like one of the women for instance is like one of the old ladies in train to busan if you remember there's like a pair of sisters who are old ladies sure so some of these are like pretty well known kind of more character actors some of them are a little lesser known but none of them are like oh holy shit like that person's in this movie i would say it's not like we're bringing in you know 12 angry men we're bringing in just heavy hitters uh just you know so you you can keep these people you know whatever they make an immediate impact but but they are all yeah they are all like you say karen distinct if you're watching k dramas you'll probably seen it before

yeah well sure look i'm trying to fucking complete zelda and evil four got two jobs put it on while you're while you're watching i don't know if i could delve into an entire country's television culture on top of everything else i'll try legally now you have to watch all of taejanggum a very long uh fine i will fine i'll do it it's okay i haven't watched it either but i know my i think my mom really liked it anyway well i've met your mother a lovely woman yes she hung out your mom yeah um how'd you guys meet not talk K-dramas I met her at this event that Karen Han was doing At Town Hall Guys meet!

It'd be weird if I was like Oh, you know Around Mixer Took a swim class together PTA meeting Let's do some water aerobics Yeah, no Cool lady pta meeting yeah let's do some water aerobics yeah um yeah no uh cool lady uh is there anything else

we should touch on there's a lot in this movie honestly yeah the we we should touch briefly on that the post-murder stuff but yes is there anything else about the uh the group murder? There is, it is like, it's comical at moments in that kind of way that he can bring off where you do see the very sort of very dark, horrible humor in these little moments. Yeah, it's like the surrealness that you were talking about, I think.

Like in the whole discussion of where they're like, do we kill him all together or separately? Then how are we going to divide the groups to go in and then like who's going to go first let's draw numbers and the fact that that's all being piped into the room that he's sitting and so he can hear them talking about it it's incredible but like it's like their their mission is so pure you're like yes absolutely have your vengeance but then it does take them just sort of talking down and be like okay so i'll chop him a bit and then you i won't chop him too much and even the second to last group going in where she's like dad like you have to be careful because there's a person after us yeah you have to leave something

for how many like what we were talking about like big scenes he leaves out or only shows you a fragment of, that's the exact kind of scene most filmmakers would skip, right? Like they make the decision and then the next thing you see is someone walking in with an axe or whatever. And instead it's like, it speaks so much to his priorities that it's like, well, so wait, how do we establish a pecking order here? And even the fact that Kumja is not the person who gets to kill him like when she finally uses her gun on him he's already dead like she effectively gives over her claim on this vengeance in a certain way to these other people who are kind of more directly affected by the stuff that he did and in indirectly affected by what she kind of failed to do by going to prison for him yeah absolutely right also the scene or the bit where the the police detective is there and he's like don't

stab him like this because then your hand might he'll cut him like instead you should hold a knife like this or stab him like this so the details are so good helping out yeah yeah i love that he's on board too that he's like you're right this is the best way to go about i'm not gonna fucking help you it's probably like a splinter in his mind too he's like i knew something was wrong to begin with when i was putting this woman in jail and i didn't do anything about it or i couldn't do anything about it yeah um so they take a group photo uh for the memories obviously and also so that they cannot implicate each other they bury the corpse they gather at the bakery and have this sort of like funereal meeting especially in the black and white version it really does feel

like the fucking end of schindler's list or whatever like they're gathering to light a candle you know what i mean like it's this like very mournful moment uh and then there's this like you know surreal uh meeting with uh the murdered child who who who then grows to you know the age she would be if he lived right like this this very moving moment i don't know like the first time i saw this movie my freaking jaw was on the floor and all this stuff i remember yeah it's it's it's an incredible ending and it's weirdly the only one of this trilogy that has an ending that you could even vaguely classify as sort of a hopeful yeah uplifting it just at least feels like there's some sense of inner peace, perhaps. And even that's generous because the scene that Kim Jae-suk shares with the adult Won-mo,

it is not as though he's forgiving her. Yes. I guess inner peace only in relation to the other two movies where everyone's dead and everyone is sort of destroyed internally or the second one in which a guy basically chooses like I'm just gonna keep on doing a fucking horrible thing and try to make myself forget it yeah

but she does have Jenny and she does tell her to live purely like Tofu and Jenny is there as this yes somewhat hopeful character in a way right and the reveal that she's been the narrator this whole time right yes

and she's sort of untouched by all these horrible things that have happened almost shockingly in a way like that she did just get given up for adoption that this guy did actually not kill her, right? Like, if you think it through, like, but I guess it's, you know, because of the public nature of everything. Also, a brief sideburn, the way that Park uses subtitles in the discussions between Geumja and Jenny is so interesting.

kumja and jenny is so interesting like when you watch um the korean dialogue pop up on screen as jenny's speaking in english it populates in i guess english word order and leave spaces in the middle for where because korean grammar is so different like it does that and then even the scene where they're going like no yes no yes like you can't you i can you can you can't like you see just the one word kind of blinking in and out because they're saying sort of like at least some of that vocabulary is repeated it's it's just really it's like it's not super pivotal to what's going on but it's a very interesting detail in the movie it is it's it's i i was wondering about that because the even just to look at it it just presents itself differently than yeah subtitles do in it for a western movie uh the way it kind of comes out yeah yeah and even the

because of the uh language here between her and jenny there's the interesting sort of thing they do with the the sentences getting repeated back and forth in english and korean with peck as the translator this film was a huge hit which is somewhat surprising but i guess at this point because sympathy versus vengeance did not do very well but i guess at this point old boy is such a smash that his name alone is sort of enough to carry anything right it's just a guy i know joint security area was a gigantic hit obviously yeah also again she's incredibly famous and she's very famous this is it made 23 million dollars at the korean box office which is close to what jsa made and it's just true blockbuster status. And then of course, Charlie's Theron was going to do a remake.

Right. I forgot about that. I feel like I've still heard recently that talks are like still sort of happening about it. And I really hope that doesn't happen. I do not. I cannot imagine a world where a American adaptation of this movie is necessary or would be very good obviously

you know you never know but it just does not feel doable by hollywood no like so many details of the ending like you can you can already sort of guess like what a hollywood adaptation of this would do differently not to say that this is what the adaptation would do but like oh like she'll get the final blow on the guy like they'll like figure everything out and everything will be happy like there's so many sad half choices made in this in this version of the movie like not clear resolutions that it feels like hollywood execs would be like no we can't have that we can't do that right this film is unsatisfying like yeah it should like right it is very it is very difficult to walk out of this being like fuck yeah lady vengeance got hers and also the fact that the fact alone i love charlize theron but i don't

think she's the right choice for this like again it's sort of the same as the anecdote i was telling at the beginning we're like coming out with it on this with a strong read and her being like, I'm a badass and I'm strong. It takes away from the character so much. The American version of this that shouldn't exist should be like Rooney Mara or someone. That's who you need. Someone delicate or yeah. Karen's shaking her head no i'm not saying that's the right person but i'm saying like don't pick someone who is a proven

action star don't pick someone who is a bad i will say this was 2009 and obviously it's obvious that charlie's sort of hit on a sort of new persona for herself you know in the 2010s right and this is probably one of the many projects she was looking at where she was like you know what can be my what eventually is like my matt max fury road or whatever you know like sure this is in 2009 when she's lost like charlie's there and in like fucking she's in the burning plane and the road and stuff again i have heard stuff about this more recently. Right, it's still bubbling around, although, I don't know, there doesn't seem to be much.

Danny Boyle said he was approached to do it and wasn't that interested. Right, that's why it came up somewhat recently, right? He was talking about that in interviews. Right, but he just seemed aware of, like, I don't know that you could do that like he's right he's right you know would would pop right you know it's like it's been done perhaps this is naivete on my part but like uh we talked about this in the old boy episode but how there was like such a quest

to remake old boy for so long before they end up making this remake that no one gives a shit about that bombs really hard that even like spike lee semi disowns it does feel like you don't hear in the same way when international movie hits big the immediate hollywood feeding frenzy for remake rights it does feel like there's a bit of like post parasite post squid game maybe people are not as put off by subtitles maybe these things do kind of crossover once they're on streaming services maybe we don't

need to do the Americanized version of this thing unless there's like a very specific take I hope so but we are getting the HBO Parasite series so and also the Train to Busan remake maybe I don't is that still happening? And also the Train to Pusan remake, maybe. But is that still happening too?

I don't think that's happening either. Right. All these ideas get floated and then no one actually fucking does it because they realize it's a bad idea. And even the Parasite one, it just every time I came to interviews, he was sort of like, I'm trying to come up with something different enough that justifies making a Parasite TV show. And I'm like, well, then maybe don't do it,

you know, but he even knew, like, I can't just remake the movie with an American family. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's,

that's not happening. No, I don't think, um, I think that stuff's kind of ending. I don't know. Well, who knows?

I mean, you never know. I think I'm going to remake lady vengeance though, with Charlie's there and I'm going to direct it. I think I'm going to remake Lady Vengeance, though, with Charlize Theron. I'm going to direct it. Congrats. I'll do a good job. Thanks.

Now, Griffin, for the box office game, we have been doing the sort of limited releases of these films in America. Boring. Hunk shoe, hunk shoe. But the wonderful, wonderfully named Twitter user Golbatosaurus. Shout out Golbat. A great Pokemon. Yeah. Classic. Has translated

Korean box office data for me. Yeoman's work. He links me to the original site, which is in the Korean language. But he has done the work of uh summarizing the opening weekends of all of these movies in korea so i think we should do that for the box office game sure yes let's do it uh this i the one reason i think we should do it is

mostly american movies good oh interesting let's also say we we've recorded this series very out of order because of guest availability so this is the episode when we have suddenly gotten access to well the korean box office but you might hear some of the future episodes to come where we don't have access to it we will but we'll definitely do this for handmaiden and decisional leave yeah um but we didn't do it for thirst or cyborg maybe we'll just do it later i don't know who knows i don't know catch up but lady vengeance came out in korea okay in july 2005 uh i think it came out in america maybe about a year later but this was a summer 2005 film in korea okay um yes because then it played venice it played the new york film festival and blah blah um it opened number one okay selling 1.1 million tickets

okay i have ticket data for you here i don't have financial data i'll take it um i'll take it if you will i'll take the ticket uh yeah you'll take the ticket number two at the box office is an american uh 2005 uh sci-fi blockbuster it's an american 2005 sci-fi blockbuster are we looking at like a day and date release here was this also a big summer release or is this coming out later in korea day and date this is coming out maybe a week later in korea tops this is a july 2005 war the world big blockbuster movie it's not war of the world sort of a flop kind of a flop this film uh despite a big name director not a beloved director exactly but a big is it the island it's michael bay's the island wow okay

have you seen it karen no i know i know of it it's the ewan mcgregor scarlett johansson correct you're not wrong i've not seen it and they live on they live on an island that is sponsored by dasani and does not make you old. Their organs doesn't make you old. The island. One day we'll do it on this podcast, Griffin. Do you agree? Yes, I agree. I promise.

A solemn promise. We swear. For a Bay mini series? Yeah. Yeah. Pain and gain, guys. Call me. Okay.

You sure you don't want Transformers The Last Knight? I'll think about it. You might have fun with it. You want to talk Cogman? Cogman feels like a Karen's boy. Cogman feels like a Karen's boy. Have you seen Transformers The Last Knight? Are you aware that the butler from Downton Abbey

voices a robot butler called Cogman? I've been told about it. I'm aware of it. But you haven't met Cogman no I have not okay well he sings opera he slaps himself in the head with fish oh wow really number three at the box

office he does yes no it's true is an animated film and Song Kang Ho as I mentioned on a previous or maybe future episode voices the lead character of this film in Korea. Is this the first Madagascar?

Madagascar! So it's being released about a year later. Sucking Ho is the lion. He's Alex the lion. Isn't that fun to think about? Wait, who else is in the Korean dub? I have to look right now.

I don't know. I don't know, but I can probably find it. Korean voice cast, Madagascar. International dubbing wiki, yes. Lord knows there is an international dubbing wiki. Yeah, I mean, good. Thank you for your work. Like, who's the Korean Bernie Mac?

That's what I want to know. All right, so Bernie Mac's character is, of course, called... Wait, Bernie Mac's not in Madagascar. Oh, fuck! He's in Madagascar, too. Ah, this is terrible. But who's the Korean David Schwimmer? Great question.

The answer, of course, is someone called Hong Jin-wook. Okay. Not someone I know. Number four at the box office is a film that Griff, you and I were recently talking about. Somewhat of a forgotten action programmer. Also day and date,

you know, late July 2005. You and I were talking about recently three new stars three new stars you and i were talking about it recently yes we were joking about the career of one of these stars with one of our famous friends one of our famous friends was joking about the career of one of these wait you said it's an action programmer yeah it's an action film it's got a little sci-fi twist to it it's got a little bit of a sci-fi twist july 2005 i feel like i have to watch the korean dub of madagascar now you have stars right now immediately okay okay what distributor is this uh it's from the good good people it's sony pictures that is columbia sony pic it's a columbia release 2005 sci-fi three new

stars are they coming from tv or are they really just fresh off the bus oh no their movies start no no no they've been in stuff but i feel like it's sort of like, why have one A-lister when you could have three B-to-C-listers? One of them was definitely in his TV show. One of them had won an Oscar before he shot this. Oh, it's stealth. It's stealth. It's stealth. It's stealth. It's stealth. It's stealth. The film is Rob Cohen's Stealth. The film is Rob Cohen's Stealth stealth we were saying it's about time you and i watch stealth that is a glaring josh lucas jessica bill james jamie fox right and jamie fox stealth wins the oscar after filming stealth but he dies first in the movie, but the marketing campaign sort of put him front and center

after he had become such a big star. Correct. Number five of the box office, it's another animated film. We just talked about it on another fucking episode. I hate talking about this movie. You hate talking about this movie.

Robots? Robots. It's a good looking film. Karen, have you seen robots um no uh i know the character designs i have not watched the movie amazing designs terrible movie that's not surprising to me yeah as william joyce you could just tell the written by david lindsey a bear david's hating that i'm talking about all this again there must have been david l Baird just won an attorney.

You could tell there was something good in it at some point. That's a shame. That's like the worst. That's like the worst feeling when you're watching a movie. But it's just like needle drop every 15 seconds. Every single speaking role is like inexplicably like, why is it Jay Leno playing a fire hydrant for one line? It sucks.

Look, I want to tell you that the other films of the box office, there are three other American films. There's War of the Worlds, as you guessed previously. There's Boogeyman. That was with, obviously, there's a new Boogeyman film. That was with- Barry Watson. Barry Watson, there you go.

It wasn't Tom Welling. Tom Welling's in another one of them.ry watson uh barry watson there you go wasn't tom welling tom welling's in another one of them he was in uh the fog remake there you go and uh and also mr and mrs smith uh but there are two korean films one is called heavens soldiers uh appears to be a um well initially appears uh you look at the poster and you're like oh this is a period action movie there's a guy with a sword but then you look behind him and there's a guy in a in a world war two soldier's outfit and you look behind him and there's a guy with like a military futuristic weapon so i think it's like a time travel action movie uh sounds kind of cool cool okay uh the other film uh korean film is called voice um which is about a singer it looks like a horror movie uh the fourth installment in the whispering

corridors supernatural installment wow uh film series about teenagers having spooky stuff happen to them. Okay. That sounds cool. It does star Kim Ok-bin, who is in Thirst. Later. So that's cool. Very fun to do the Korean box office.

You know, the American box office is fine, but did we really need to talk about the debut of runaway vacation again griffin did we rv baby yeah six inch summer or whatever it is six inch summer karen i i in my mind's eye i was so confident this was going to be your five timers club induction but this is only your fourth proper appearance on the podcast which is wild they've basically all been paced exactly two years apart which isn't saying you need to wait two years until you come back on but i feel like no one's waiting come on no one's waiting but

our best programming this show is hard listeners are will often find like oh what is the weird pattern to the movies we have? This guest always covers movies like this or whatever. And then someone like Esther will, at a certain point, be like, I'm breaking the pattern. I don't want you to keep making me do movies like this. I want to do this. Your four films are. They've all been pretty different.

The Weight of Water. Yeah. Tim Burton Dumbo. Yeah. Escape from New York. Yeah, Lady Vengeance. At this point, no idea. I mean, you're calling pain and gain. But with Last Night as a spoiler.

I'm okay with that. Yeah. Is that the one that has Merlin also? Correct. Stanley Choochee plays Merlin. But Age of Extinction's the one with the dinosaurs. Yes. Doesn't this new one...

Oh, but this new one is not Michael Bay. No, this is... The new one is not Michael Bay. Stephen Caple Jr. This one has the Maximals. It has the beasts. The animals. Rise of the Beasts. beasts right but it doesn't have

dino bots oh that's a shame uh yes stanley tucci is in two separate transformers movies as different characters the first time he plays a silly guy with glasses he just liked it so much loved it the second time he plays merlin i think there is something fun about making those Michael Bay movies if you have the right attitude. All those character actors. It's crazy to see. Doing them. Yeah. There's that wild thing of just like people identifying like,

oh, Michael Bay clearly loves Coen Brothers movies because he just grabs all of their fucking supporting players. Yeah. And puts them in these functionary roles. That's what I would do if I had the power to do it. Absolutely. They all seem to have a good time. Oh, are you okay? Sorry, my cat just

sometimes gets my attention by putting her nail into my side. She really scared the shit out of me. Cats are so insane. I'm going to say that is the signal for us to wrap this up. Ben Pig is the kitty. It is 11.20pm. Karen, is the signal for us to wrap this up Ben Pig is the kitty It is 11.20pm

Karen, is there anything you want to plug? Well, you guys mentioned my book It is out now so if you are interested in it you can go get it It is out in anywhere you can get books probably We have a copy

Proudly on display at the blank check headquarters and it has an introduction right from friend of the show sweet sweet kind kind kind david laurie a very lovely um introduction and interviews with tilda swinton cho shake a bunch of other people uh their stuff is really cool you don't even have to read what i wrote just read what the cool things they have to say about working with bong cool uh absolutely thank you guys for having me on i i mean i hope it's not two years again before i see you but no no i'm saying let's break the pattern yeah fuck that if anything there's no pattern if anything that means do anything guess we gotta do

michael bay next guess guess michael bay's top of the pile now i mean i do want to i kind of do want to do him but i don't know i feel like also he needs to what's his last movie oh ambulance ambulance which you love yeah yeah los angeles let's let's sit on the let's sit on the dock of the bay. It's kind of a lot of movies at this point. Yeah. All the more reason to do him sooner rather than later. He does have a lot. It's true.

He does have a lot. And this is a promise to you. We'll get to Michael Bay eventually. You don't have to promise me that. No, I'm promising you that. You'll come on the show again soon Karen you're the best Karen I hope I see you sooner than that thank you for being here and thank you all for

listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show Marie is also the best Leigh Montgomery the great American novel for a theme song he is also the best. Leigh Montgomery, Great American Novel for a theme song. He is also the best.

Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for artwork. They are also the best. AJ McKee and Alex Barron for editing. They are also the best. I'm just too deep in on this now. If I leave anyone off, it makes them feel like they suck. Did I mention everybody? JJ Burch for research, who is also the best.

But don't get cocky about it, JJ. Don't let this go to your head. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, where we do franchise commentaries, as we said. We're swimming across some oceans right now. Some heist capers. And we're doing a little drummer girl over there as well.

Fuck, yeah well which I'm excited to talk about tune in next week for next week of course on this podcast we will be discussing the film Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning oh my god

so we got a two week break from Director Park as we cover two new releases on the docket mission impossible twice opening week already i've already have plans to see it twice in the span of one week uh dead reckoning part one and then the following week will be oppenheimer and then we're back with thirst correct or no i'm a cyborg and then thirst yes and then stoker and then the handmaid and then decisional leave and then oh i and then Stoker and then The Handmaid and then Decision to Leave and then oh I almost said the next miniseries

you tried to get me but I didn't do it I'm a little punch drunk yes not only did I wake up at 6 today but I went to the beach so I'm all sun kissed as well

this is this time of year where David just complains I woke up at six today, but I went to the beach. So I'm all sun-kissed as well. Oh, God. This is this time of year where David just complains all the time about how much the beach life is getting to him. It's Juneteenth. It's also true. One of the last times I saw you was during the summer. I visited during the summer and you were like, yeah, I just came from the beach. Yes, and I had just been to the beach. This is basically David's version of the guy who just constantly apologizes that he's still on island

time because david takes his day trips to the beach and he goes hey i'm sorry i just a little burned out from the beach yeah all right well now i gotta go to sleep it's a beautiful life thank you guys for recording so late oh of course it was a joy to do it Karen yes it was a joy thank you so much for having me on yes it was and as always I offer a very sincere apology to our listeners and to David for getting his hopes up

Mint Mobile was in fact purchased by T-Mobile David you will not be able to welcome them into your Sprint family well unfortunately they also own Sprint so I basically am.