I recognize this movie’s faults but it left such a strong impression on me that I had to rewatch it the next day before writing this review. I highly recommend watching it a second time if you’re feeling lukewarm after a first watch.

Hits the right notes for me with the dark humor, deliberate pace, mesmerizing, chilling yet oddly engaging lead performance, personal stakes, and splendid editing through multiple time periods. A second viewing brings to light a lot of hidden details in the early parts of the movie that only matter later, details which you can easily miss the first time around.

I’m seeing these revenge films all out of order but I don’t think it really matters. It’s mostly a fabricated trilogy anyway.

I really like intelligent but damaged characters with a plan, an infallible one perhaps, who are dead set on a mission backed by well defined motivations. I also like how this movie doesn’t glorify violence, and also doesn’t carry a big reveal or anything of the sort.

I think from a technical and stylistic standpoint this is quite similar to Oldboy, but this one worked much better on a personal level for me. The two movies are interestingly similar in a way: in Oldboy, we follow the protagonist against the backdrop of a villain with a vicious plan years in the making. In this movie, it’s flipped around on its head — we follow the protagonist with a vicious plan years in the making. I much prefer this iteration.

Regardless, I need to rewatch Oldboy before I make a final stand on this. I can easily see this movie going up another notch on rewatch a few years down the line.

The way I see it is… this movie is quite simply a striking work of art.