TIME Names The Top 12 Female Revenge Movies, Includes 2 Korean Films

[uledy.livejournal.com]

They fight for justice, and we cheer. They slash out in anger, and we cringe. From The Women to The Help, and from Carrie to Lady Vengeance, we honor a dozen movies that brandish female fury

The box office winner this past weekend was The Other Woman, a comic valentine of vindication for three women (Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann and Kate Upton) against the weaselly entrepreneur (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who cheated on all of them. Earning $24.8 million at North American theaters, it unseated three-time champ Captain America: The Winter Soldier and gave audiences a respite from Marvel superheroes until The Amazing Spider-Man 2 lands on Friday.

And though The Other Woman is no film for the ages, it does tap an age-old tradition of movies about women enraged by their sorry status, taking revenge on those who wronged them. It’s a story as old as the Greeks’ Medea and as modern as any YA novel-turned-film, whether The Twilight Saga, The Hunger Games or Divergent. We present a dozen movies, from Hollywood, France and South Korea, that treat the vengeful-woman theme with fondness or dread, as comedy, melodrama or stark tragedy. You’ll think of other films, too.


LADY VENGEANCE, 2005. Directed and cowritten by Chan Park-wook.



Korean melodramas are like classic Hollywood fare gone totally nuts. The crimes are more vividly displayed, the retribution way more lurid. In this capper to his bloodily operatic Vengeance trilogy, following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Oldboy (2003, remade by Spike Lee last year), Chan hands the reins of revenge to a woman. Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young-ae), convicted of murdering a schoolboy, becomes a model prisoner and on her release is welcomed as a sinner reformed to sainthood. It’s all a ruse in her long-gestating plan to get even, and then some, with an English teacher named Mr. Baek (Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik), who has tortured and killed many children, including the boy whose death Geum-ja did time for. In the spirit of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Geum-ja convenes the parents of the murdered kids to kill Baek slowly by knife, scissors and axe.

THE HOUSEMAID, 2010. Written and directed by Im Sang-woo.



Another wronged woman metes out vengeance in this remake of a 1960 Korean film. Lovely, innocent, working-class Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is hired by a wealthy family that festers with corruption and malice. The husband, a prosecutor, is a narcissistic philanderer who quickly seduces and impregnates the girl. On learning of the adultery, his wife, also pregnant (with twins), nearly smashes Eun-yi’s head in with a golf club. As Eun-yi stands on a high ladder cleaning a chandelier, the wife’s mother, a glamorous Dragon Lady, kicks the ladder over, hoping to kill the girl. Each family member bears animosities toward the others; but when the unity of this sick brood is threatened, they stand together. We get it: Rich people are awful, and the poor their pawns. Beyond its reductive social view, the grim, gleaming Housemaid has a silky thread of tension tightening around the viewer’s rooting interest, right up to the cutting revenge Eun-yi takes on her torturers.

sources: vivendientertainment | viso trailers | time

i never really felt that the housemaid was much of a revenge flick, but lady vengeance will forever remain flawless. i'd throw bedevilled in there as well- that movie was bananas...

what do y'all think?

Comments

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

Lady Vengeance is amazing, so hell yes! I haven't watched The Housemaid but I will, 'cause I've loved Jeon Do Yeon since I watched You are my sunshine.

[tempestdance.livejournal.com]

i only watched the housemaid for the porn

shame on me.

[belintuchiha.livejournal.com]

same with me tbqh

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

I didn't know there was so much sex scenes and I can tell you I was a bit shocked. but I should have known it because the advert in my country was not this gentle bathroom picture.

[love-keiko.livejournal.com]

the sex scenes were fabulous i aint even mad. i thought the movie was a little over the top in other aspects but the sex?! SURE SURE no problem!

[fireandbread.livejournal.com]

Can we watch it on the internet? .... :D

[eishastan.livejournal.com]

Lady vengeance is amazing!

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

...kate upton acts?

[leighbee333.livejournal.com]

Hardly. But she is in the movie, lol. I don't know why the idea of her trying to embark on a serious acting career is so hilarious to me, but it reminds me of when Brooklyn Decker & Rihanna tried to break into the industry with Battleship. Just stahp.

The Other Woman looks terrible; I'm so depressed at the state of movies that are made for and marketed towards women. I want the "chick flick" in its current phase to just die.

[momomoing.livejournal.com]

I hated The Housemaid

[uledy.livejournal.com]

i don't much care for it either, i'm interested in hearing why you hated it so much?

[xkat-attackx.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to watch Lady Vengeance, I've heard great things about it. The Housemaid was so strange. It got all supernatural at the end and I was so confused. The acting was really good though.

[xoxgoodbye.livejournal.com]

The Housemaid was a strange movie

[redhandedjilll.livejournal.com]

I don't feel like the main character in The Housemaid got revenge at all. That last, weird scene after the climax basically showed that they could move on and not give a shit about her ever existing and continue their facade of a happy family. She was pretty disposable to them.

[leighbee333.livejournal.com]

LOL I feel like this writer for Time either hasn't seen many female revenge movies or there just aren't many in that genre to begin with, because the Housemaid is not a very good movie at alL (and it's a remake iirc).

But the list namechecks films like Frozen, The Hunger Games, and Twilight (...?) so I'm not sure if they even understand what they're talking about.

One underrated female revenge flick I've always liked is "Teeth," although it does get a little grisly/disturbing.

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

apparently Frozen is a feminist film ^^ but revenge?

[fireandbread.livejournal.com]

Is Teeth that movie where the girl has a vagina that bites off guys' dicks? -___-

I think Twilight is a horrible example of a female character but what's wrong with the Hunger Games?

I don't like Jennifer Lawrence but the character itself is not that bad IMO. It's way better than most of the blockbuster franchises these days with female characters, including Divergent.

[bulleusekat.livejournal.com]

"brandish female fury", well The Housemaid kinda is a revenge movie however it's not supposed to be the focus of this movie as her revenge only is the short final act of the movie hm....

Lady Vengeance yey !! (but I still find that a little stretched how she accepted to do time for the crime of the little boy)

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

the housemaid? "they fight for justice"? lol she was not innocent in the way things happened. I'm not going to tell the end but I don't see how it's a revenge.

[love-allure.livejournal.com]

the housemaid remake was horrible.

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

an English teacher named Mr. Baek (Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik), who has tortured and killed many children, including the boy whose death Geum-ja did time for

A movie about torturing children? No thank you -__-. I can't stomach such a horrible thing.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is Jaime in GOT, right? I love that guy tbh.

[allegsiseu.livejournal.com]

for what it's worth with the exception of one they are not shown. and the one that is shown is not gorey and is over in less than five seconds.

the english teacher is a sub-plot really. the main focus is geum ja preparing her revenge against mr.baek

[xxx-deea-xxx.livejournal.com]

I've watched Sympathy for Lady Vengeance twice and I found it very boring. Idk maybe it's because I found it very chaotic and due to that I was constantly confused about what was happening. Can somebody give me an interpretation of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance?

[luvey.livejournal.com]

the Housemaid was a remake?
i liked it.
i also didn't feel like it was a revenge film, but i can see how they got that feeling from it.

i still don't fully understand that ending though. some of the korean film endings leave me a little perplexed....especially in the horror genre (i love the movie Yoga to death...but that ending...i got it, but i didn't get it, but i got it.)

[obviousgirl.livejournal.com]

Where did you see Yoga at? I started watching it on Netflix but then they pulled that bullshit of making you purchase a membership for both dvd's and streaming, so I never got to finish it.