This film by Korean director Chan-Wook Park is bleak, violent, compelling and damned near unforgettable.

Oddly enough, the T.O. hipster weeklies Eye and Now didn't review it, but the stuffy old Globe had a review (3 stars/4; sub. req'd) and a feature on the director.

Actually, the Toronto Star had a review (2.5 stars/4) too.

Park made Oldboy, another fine film, although I like this one better.

Both explore revenge themes (the final part of the trilogy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, screened at TIFF and will be out next spring). In Oldboy, the question seemed to be: How would you choose if forced to pick between love and revenge?

With Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the question seems to be, does revenge satisfy? Does it ever end?

There are actually two Mr. Vengeances: Ryu, a deaf-mute art college dropout desperate to save his sister, who is dying of kidney failure; and Park, a businessman who had Ryu turfed..

Ryu gets scammed by some black market organ dealers, taking his savings and one of his kidneys. To get the money to save his sister, he kidnaps Park's daughter with the help of his lefty radical girlfriend ("smash the conglomerates!"). In urging him on, she pronounces that someday, poor people won't have to pay for their health care.

Things go horribly awry and move toward a predictable conclusion, with an anguished Park telling Ryu, "You're a good guy. But you understand why I must kill you, right?"

(Don't worry folks, the ending's not that simple.)

As with much contemporary Korean cinema, this is a violent, bloody flick. If you're a novice, you might find that off-putting, to put it mildly.

My interpretation is that Park uses intensity of violence to indicate intensity of emotion. Without wanting to give too much away, he also likes to use it to keep the audience off-balance -- by having a character acting compassionate one moment and doing something horrible the next.

Park has an excellent eye for framing images and scenes, although the film's editing was a bit choppy.

But for the last half of the film, the audience was absolutely silent. And when the credits were almost over, most of them were still there, no doubt trying to absorb the film in their minds.

There are no heroes in this film and no purely evil villains, just vulnerable human beings who are wronged and, in return, commit wrongs themselves.

The ambiguity is what makes it beguiling and troubling.