Following "I Want Revenge" and "Oldboy", the last part of Korean director Park Chan-wook's "Revenge Trilogy" "Friendly Gold" once again deeply shocked me with his weird style And the skillful lens language expresses it smoothly and with ease. At the same time, this revenge is different from the previous two. The first two times were the revenge of a single individual. "Friendly Gold" depicts the portrait of collective revenge. If a single person's revenge brings us more shock, the actions of a group are more likely to reflect human nature, easier to interpret the rules, and easier to trigger thinking.

The name "Kind Gold" comes from the praise of the heroine "Gold" by the sisters in prison. Jin Zi was arrested and imprisoned for kidnapping and killing children when she was 20 years old. However, she was forced to admit the crime and was actually burdened with a huge grievance. The real murderer is a kindergarten teacher-Teacher Bai. He first kidnapped Jin Zi's little daughter, and then forced Jin Zi to lure another little boy to his house because of her safety. After torturing and killing the little boy, he used the same method to make Jin Zi plead guilty for him, admitting that she had done everything herself. In order to save her daughter's life, the weak Jin Jin still confessed her crime without hesitation under the suspicion of the police. The only thing in her mind was to save her daughter's life, even if the price was 13 years in prison.

At first, Jin Zi spent a cruel time in prison. She couldn't find a way to redeem herself, she couldn't find a reason to persist in living. She couldn't get the little boy who died because of her deception out of her mind. This deep guilt drove her crazy, even though she was forced to do so. At this time, she started to work hard with a kind smile on her face, and started to enthusiastically help anyone she could help. She is as kind and holy as an angel, so that those who receive her help can even see the unearthly halo surrounding her. When we all began to think that Jin Zi wanted to atone for her sins through these good deeds, little did we know that her revenge plan began to reveal itself. Everything she did was to prepare for revenge after she was released from prison.

This is the prelude to a revenge plan that has been planned for thirteen years.

Here, Park Chan-wook actually expressed his first doubt about punishment by public power. He was originally an innocent man, but he was wrongly imprisoned because of insufficient evidence. Thirteen years of prison life not only failed to reform her from labor, but on the contrary, the biggest motivation for her to do good was the strong revenge goal derived from it. This questioning of existing rules becomes more and more intense in the second half of the film, and this slightly ironic contrast is intentionally expanded to the extreme by the director in the second half, adding to the film's infinite tension.

This kind of contrast is almost everywhere in the film.

If she was called "kind gold" with a smile and a twinkling halo in prison, then after she was released from prison, she had a touch of red eyes, wore a black leather coat, and had an indifferent expression. It can only be "gold of revenge". This also symbolizes the official launch of her revenge plan!

Similar to this is the portrayal of the antagonist Teacher Bai. The first scene showed him teaching a group of children to sing with a sincere and kind look on his face, and then the scene switched to him violently venting his animal desires on his wife who was lying on the dining table. The changes before and after are simply stunning. What's even more unforgivable is that the reason why this man with a human face and a beast's heart kidnapped and killed children was actually to buy himself a sailboat! The twisted psychology makes people angry in such a heavy contrast. He challenged the limits of anyone's ethical and moral concepts, which also laid the psychological foundation for the final collective revenge.

After Jin Zi was released from prison, she found the friends she had helped in prison one by one. With their help at all costs, she finally caught the person she wanted to take revenge on in her dream, the heinous man who cost her thirteen years of youth.

I have to mention the director’s precise expression of this process.

I have already seen Park Chan-wook's perfect use of camera language in "Oldboy", and the long shot of "passing through the enemy" in the corridor is still fresh in my memory. In "Friendly Gold", you will often see situations like this, where the shot stops suddenly and freezes. For example, after hearing the "clang" of a plate falling to the floor, what you will immediately see is a still state of a group of people with various expressions ranging from surprise to tears in their eyes. Such expressions appear from time to time, with a degree of relaxation, so that a kind of black humor unique to cult films is always implemented. The special and gorgeous baroque music adds a lot of color to the film. The bloody plot of gold going to the dead little boy's house to atone for his sins actually gives people a slightly weird and different kind of shock against the background of this music. This is probably also the contrast effect between the shots and the music arranged by the director.

After Jin Zi caught Teacher Bai, he tied him up in a small house in the suburbs. She fought frantically and shot his toes with a gun, but when she pointed the gun at Teacher Bai's head, with tears in her eyes, she knew that she could not use this method as the end of her revenge. She knew that a simple "bang" shot would not save her. The most important thing about her revenge is not to kill, but to redeem herself from the guilt and regret, the guilt for her daughter, and the regret for the dead little boy.

Kaneko’s next move caught me off guard, and what happened next was also the climax of the entire film—the group’s “homomorphic revenge.”

She found the policeman who arrested her before and showed him the video of Teacher Bai mutilating children. The police were not only shocked, but also ashamed of their mistakes. Under the influence of such emotions, he helped Jin Jin bring together all the parents of the children who had been kidnapped and mutilated, and let them watch the videos of their children being mutilated one by one. Weeping, fainting, hysteria, and finally, all turned into anger. The police said that the murderer is in the house next door and you can decide what to do with him.

This is the most brilliant irony of the film. The police represented public power, but it was he who allowed this lynching to be carried out. The director's ridicule of public relief and questioning of legal rules reached their peak at this moment. His act of borrowing gold has always aroused our doubts: Can everyone's suffering be alleviated simply by using legal means to bring him to justice? Is it possible to escape everyone's anger by simply letting him die? If the heinous sinners are not punished to the maximum extent, no one can be freed. At this moment, I believe that the primitive instinct of revenge envelopes the hearts of most people.

In such a modern society, they unanimously chose the ancient Roman method of revenge to punish this sinner. They chose different tools and carried out their lynchings four times. Finally, an old woman used a pair of scissors to end the lynching. Then, they methodically collected blood, cleaned the scene, buried the body, and finally took a group photo. After everything was arranged, Jin Zi took out his gun and shot the corpse twice in the face. After arranging the revenge ceremony for everyone, she could finally vent her anger unscrupulously, but did the gunshot that shook the forest represent the end?

I thought that this breathless revenge ritual had challenged my nerves to the extreme, but was that true?

Everyone came to the cake shop where Jin Zi worked, and sat together with a slightly uneasy feeling. The shop was dimly lit with warm colors. Jin Zi brought out a bright red cake and placed it in the middle of the table. Everyone began to share the cake, which was blood red. That's right, this is a cake made with Teacher Bai's blood. It turns out that "homomorphic revenge" will not end until this moment, and "blood for blood" will be considered the ultimate. At this moment, I even thought of the "human blood steamed buns" written by Lu Xun and the crowd of people watching. However, the atmosphere at this time is not numb and sad, but paradoxically humorous and warm.

Snowflakes began to fall outside the window. What did this thirteen-year revenge bring to Jin Zi? Did she get the relief and redemption she was ultimately seeking? Park Chan-wook gave us a fairly compassionate ending. After this bloody storm, the little daughter, who was like an angel, hugged Jin Jin tightly, and the snowflakes dancing in the sky seemed to be her bleached soul.

And the past revenge, because those people asked for the extorted money before leaving, made me feel less pure.

In fact, the homomorphic revenge in modern society is just to satisfy our inner crazy imagination. The reason why we feel shocked and even sometimes feel faint approval. Probably the concept of "revenge" in the history of Asian countries is closely related to the imperfect legal system. In our impression, the revenge of a knight who is happy with his grudges always brings excitement rather than questioning whether his actions are correct or not.

This may be one of the reasons why "I Want Revenge", the first part of Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy, was rated as a bad film by the mainstream media when it was released in the United States. The United States, which adheres to the principle of "procedural fairness", may be more disdainful of the culture packaged by this "restoration" revenge method.

Even so, every time I think of revenge as a primitive human instinct surging in my body, I still can't help but feel a chill coming from behind.

Park Chan-wook is a respectable director, and many of his works are familiar to everyone. This director is different from many Korean film directors in that most of the films he shoots have a deep personal imprint on them. Most of the usual Korean movies have a relaxed and lively rhythm, but his movie is extremely dull, and there is no refreshment at all even in the moment of revenge. The beautiful and refined Jin Jin (played by Lee Young-ae) has a beautiful appearance, but when she was 20 years old, she was accused of kidnapping and killing a child and was imprisoned. During more than 13 years in prison, Jin Jin devoted herself to helping the prisoner. Everyone here, she is called the kind gold, and is a role model for everyone here. Because of her enthusiasm in helping inmates, she was nicknamed "Kind Miss Kaneko". Finally after 13 years of prison life, the beautiful girl back then has turned into a sexy mature woman now. After being released from prison, Jin Zi immediately launched a series of sophisticated revenge plans, and the person she wanted to retaliate against was Teacher Bai, who made her a criminal.

Those who were helped by Jin Zi in prison also one by one They assisted Jin Zi in carrying out her various revenge actions, and they became a huge revenge army. But what everyone doesn't know is how strong the fire of revenge is burning in this kind Jin Jin's heart. When Jin Zi was released from prison, the original pastor came to pick her up. At this time, Jin Zi was as cold as a different person. She went to the sisters she had met in prison and told her revenge plan. Everyone was very excited. Surprised at the change in her. Her indifferent expression was completely different from her in prison, but everyone in prison was helped by Jin Zi, so they still chose to help her. Then Jin Zi went to the home of the parents of the young child she said she killed, where she cut off her little finger. All the money she earned in prison was used to reattach the finger. Jin Zi had been smart and beautiful since she was a child. , she quickly found a job working in a bakery. Before Jin Zi was imprisoned, she gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Now she not only wants revenge, but also tries her best to find where her daughter is. When she came to Australia and saw that her daughter was living a happy life, she felt very She was very happy, but at the same time she felt that she was not worthy of having such a beautiful daughter. Her daughter wanted to go back to Seoul with her, and Jin Jin wanted to take revenge, so she definitely disagreed.

But although Jin Zi’s daughter was young, she was not a vegetarian. She chose to commit suicide to threaten Jin Zi. After returning to Seoul, Jin Zi took her daughter and the boy to go out to play. Perhaps this was the best moment in her life, Jin Zi. He met with Teacher Bai's wife and discussed her revenge plan. In fact, the murderer of the young child was not Jin Zi, but Teacher Bai. It was only when Teacher Bai used his daughter to threaten Jin Zi that Jin Zi had no choice but to take the blame for him. This Officer Wang, who was in charge of the case, also knew everything. Teacher Bai's wife also met Jin Jin in prison, and she was the undercover sent by Jin Jin. They decided to attack Teacher Bai, but they didn't know that all this was seen and filmed by the priest, and told Teacher Bai. Teacher Bai sent two killers to kill Jin Zi and his daughter. The smart Jin Zi kept resisting. , she took out a special pistol and killed both killers. Then she carried her daughter to Teacher Bai's residence. Seeing that Teacher Bai had fainted after eating, they worked together to tie Teacher Bai to the house. After sending her daughter away in a house in the suburbs, Jin Jin angrily wanted to kill Teacher Bai, but she discovered the children's pendant on Teacher Bai's mobile phone. She knew that this was Teacher Bai's habit, which proved that he had not just killed one child before, but there must have been other children. In order to verify his idea, Jin Zi turned Teacher Bai's house upside down, and finally After discovering a videotape of Teacher Bai killing four children, she told Officer Wang about the incident and summoned the families of the four children to show them the videotapes their children had recorded before their deaths. When the parents saw these scenes, their hearts were as painful as a knife. Jin Zi asked everyone to judge whether they should hand it over to the police to handle the matter or end it on their own. Everyone thought that they should end it on their own and leave it to the police for too long. They couldn't wait for Jin Jin to let Teacher Bai hear the conversation in advance and let him feel the fear of death. The four parents of the family walked to the room respectively. Everyone left a knife of their own revenge on Teacher Bai's body. After that, everyone worked together to dispose of the body, and took photos and promised that no one would ever tell anyone about it. In fact, when everyone learned that they were going to kill someone, they felt guilty in their hearts. It was very scary and difficult to do anything, but when I thought about my child being killed by the beast in front of me. At that moment, they forgot what they were afraid of, and just wanted to kill the person in front of them to release and vent their inner hatred. At the end of the film, Jin Jin came to see his daughter with a cake, and she buried her head in the cake. , the whole film gives people a rather hesitant and dark feeling, especially the later shots, which are directly in black and white, and the part where Teacher Bai is being judged, which portrays human nature in a very delicate and in-depth way.