Park Chan-wook, Vengeance Trilogy Korean Region 3 box set, image from madmad.co.kr
So it's already been about a week since this was out, but the "Vengeance Trilogy" (also called revenge trilogy) films of director Park Chan-wook are collected together into one special 7-disc boxset, and it's on sale now in Korea -- which makes it region 3. Time to break out the region-free dvd players! This would be the definitive way to see the collection, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance (복수는 나의 것 Boksuneun nahehgut, 올드보이, 친절한 금자씨 Chinjeolhan geumjassi). Now, all the films have English subtitles, but as usual, the extras don't.

Japan already got their trilogy box set back in March 2006, Tartan UK put theirs out in October 2006. But in the original country of Korea there was a significant delay (almost 2 years since Lady Vengeance was first put on local DVD), and now we know why -- they were putting together the completely new extra features especially made for this boxset. Besides the obvious packaging redesign, these new extras are:

* Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
- 2 new audio commentaries (1 with Director Park and leads Song Kang-ho and Shin Ha-kyun revisiting/reflecting on the film now, the other with film critic Kim Young-jin)

* Lady Vengeance
- 1 new audio commentary with Richard Pena, Program Director of the New York Korean Film Festival (I can only guess this is English Audio of Pena with Korean subtitles, 'cause otherwise it would make no sense. UPDATE: this was already included in English language releases of the film in UK and US, so it's only new to the Korean edition)
- Short Film "The Freaking Family", by directors Park Su-young, Park Jae-young (this is recommended viewing from Director Park Chan-wook, Original Title 핵분열 가족 roughly translates to "The Nuclear Fission Family")
- "The man reading the pictures for you" - Picture slide show with Director Park
- "Get together" - behind the scenes of the reunion photo shoot (for this edition's package) with the main actors of all three films

You'll notice that Oldboy has no new extras. Because there was already 3 editions of the film in Korea (regular, Ultimate Edition, post-Cannes award Final Edition), they've decided to simply most recent edition and all it's extras (the Final Edition) into this Trilogy-pack as-is. But this also means that the Autobiography of Oldboy, which was a 3-hour production diary spanning 6 months of filming, was and is only available on the ultra-rare, out-of-print Ultimate Edition.

I won't get into the nitty gritty of the films themselves, as by now they've been lauded and praised the world over and again. If anything, watch any one of these if you haven't already and I guarantee you'll want to see the other two. They are not related to each other except the theme, which is of course about revenge and the human drama/psyche that causes and results from it.

Personally, it's exciting that we finally get to hear what the actors themselves thought of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. For what started it all, and as both Shin Ha-kyun and Song Kang-ho (and of course their director) are such bigger personages than they were back then. Also curious is the view of Richard Pena, committee chairman and program director of the Film society of Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival (I write about this years fest in my next post, scroll up or click here).

Read on for the full specs of this collection, and you can buy it now from YesAsia.com.


Region 3
7 discs
Korean Audio (English Subtitles on films)
DTS 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround


[Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance DISC 1]

# audio commentary 1 - Director Park, Ryu Seung-wan
# (NEW) audio commentary 2 - Director Park and leads Song Kang-ho, Shin Ha-kyun
# (NEW) audio commentary 3 - film critic Kim Young-jin

[Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance DISC 2]

# My Boksu Story
# In Process of Mr.Vengence
# Production Note
# Moving Continuity
# Staff Interview
# OST & Photo
# International Trailer
# Easter Egg

[Oldboy DISC 1]

# audio commentary 1 - Director Park, Director of Photography Jung Jung-hoon
# audio commentary 2 - Director Park, leads Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong

[Oldboy DISC 2]

# Making of Documentary part 2 - Flashback, Production (every list i see of the contents only has part 2, and even the FInal Edition itself lists as such)
# All that Background - Production Design, Computer Graphics, OST
# I want to tell you my story - Director Park / original manga writer Garon Tsuchiya / Choi Min-sik / Yoo Ji-tae / Kang Hye-jeong / Yoon Jin-seo / Kim Byeong-ok, Oh Kwang-rok, Oh Dal-soo, Lee Seung-shin, Ji Dae-han (actors of smaller roles in the film)
# Le Grand Prix de Cannes
# Deleted & Alternate Scenes

[Lady Vengeance DISC 1 : Color Version]

# audio commentary 1 - Director Park, lead Lee Young-ae
# audio commentary 2 - Director Park, Director of Photography Jung Jung-hoon, Art Director Jo Hwa-sung

[Lady Vengeance DISC 2 : Black & White Version a.k.a. Fade-to-Black Version]

# audio commentary 1 - film critic Kim Young-jin
# (NEW) audio commentary 2 - Richard Pena, Program Director of the New York Film Festival

[Lady Vengeance DISC 3 : Extras]

# Conclusion of the Vengeance Trilogy, Lady Vengeance
# Full of Actors and Staff's passion and laughter, Behind the scenes of filming Lady Vengeance
# The Varied and numerous people Lee Gwun-ja has met
# The flowering and lyrical style of a revenge tale headed to salvation
# Alternate Scenes
# Sketch of the 62nd Venice Film Festival
# Promotion
# (NEW) "The man reading the pictures for you" - picture slide show with Director Park
# (NEW) The Director Park recommended short film "The Freaking Family"
# (NEW) Get Together - behind the scenes of a reunion photo shoot (for this editions package) with the main actors of all three films