If an innovative film is being released, all that is required to make it worth checking out is having Park Chan-wook’s name in the credits. That’s the contagious skill of great directors — it hardly matters what story they tell or which actors they cast; so long as their name is attached, you know what to expect. A thought of a Park movie immediately connotes a hyper-stylized combination of beautiful images with sudden violence, highbrow classical music and farce comedy, really scary stories and very lush romanticized cinema.
However, this isn’t anything new with Decision to Leave; this may feel like that for an hour or two though. Half of this might be Park’s most accessible film yet, a rom-com thriller in which a detective falls for the suspect in a murder case. We’ve seen this before (à la Basic Instinct or Sea of Love), but again, by the very fact that this is a Park Chan-wook film, Decision to Leave was always destined to be utterly distinct. This director just can’t seem to fail.
Park Chan-wook turned the murky ethics of revenge into high art with his Vengeance Trilogy (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), and channeled horror and sci-fi into beautifully operatic anomalies (Thirst, I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK). He has continued to achieve international mainstream success as his films become more like grandiose steamy thrillers: he went on from Stoker through The Handmaiden unto Decision to Leave.
Decision to Leave still seems like Park’s recent work but surprisingly enough it’s pretty hilarious; then again it’s really ‘everything.’ The film somehow feels too short at two hours and 20 minutes because it contains so much exposition, time jumps, likable characters, slapstick comedy scenes real romance and tragic loss. Even if Decision ends up starting with quite a typical plot, Park obfuscates any traditionalism through his quick jump cuts, seemingly random non-sequiturs, and loads of detail; Despite its ordinariness in parts, Decision to Leave is at all times extraordinary thanks to Park’s rich storytelling.
When an experienced and decidedly not suicidal mountain climber dies in Busan there is a suspicion that he was murdered. The police in the city led by Hae-jun (played by a brilliant Park Hae-il) begin their investigation with the man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei who has never been more convincing). Covered with bruises and wounds, she had been repeatedly beaten by her husband — she’s an exiled Chinese immigrant woman whose husband helped her survive in his country but could easily have gotten her deported.
Hae-jun is your typical world-weary detective: sleepless and deadly serious while Seo-rae brightens something in him. He orders expensive sushi rolls for her when she comes into the interrogation room where they flirt very subtly; she is a prime suspect, he is one married detective seeing his wife only on weekends therefore there is always a doomed sense of destiny about their quietly lustful encounters.
He observes her through binoculars during nightlong stakeouts, taking note of how she eats ice cream and when she falls asleep in a mixture of business with pleasure. On the one hand, he doesn’t want her to be the killer on the other hand he doesn’t want this case shut. He enjoys following her and she enjoys being followed.
It’s all very romantic and fun, then Park pulls the rug out from under the viewer. Just when the audience thinks they have Decision to Leave figured out, Park ensures that they spoke too soon by jumping into the future to a different town and a different murder. Of course their love was doomed to unrequitedness as in Hae-jun’s case it left him as a despondent wreck in his days ahead but reentry of Seo-rae back into his life through another investigation fire up his dying ember.
Aritual depiction is made in Decision to Leave, being linked together differently; thus telling anything about it in much detail would obviously spoil what should be an exciting film for it was made so deliberate. The film may seem perplexing due to numerous minute details that must be tracked, but rather than trying to make sense of Decision To Leave on occasion overwhelmed audiences should get their first taste of Park’s filmmaking ingenuity; although.
Park’s plots have become increasingly elaborate, moving from somewhat straightforward tales in Vengeance Trilogy films to intricate twists and turns found in The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave. His earlier films had plenty of visual bombast and extreme choices despite being based on slight stories – some argued that style prevailed over substance for him – however Park’s aesthetic changed with more majestic scripts. Today, style is substance itself.
This is not at all suggesting that Park has lost any energy though Decision To Leave might not present spurts of stylized violence set against blaring Vivaldi Four Seasons like we saw earlier on because even at this stage the filmmaker is seen to have transformed his style by using lesser tools and devices but getting to know how to use them effectively. If “Oldboy” was like a Jackson Pollock painting – all loud, messy colors splattered about – then Decision To Leave could be compared to Rothko’s late works – subtler, more monochrome masterpieces that are focused on one particular thing.
Park’s perfect framing and the immaculate cinematography from Kim Ji-yong (who worked on the acclaimed Bong Joon Ho films Parasite and Okja) combine to make every scene stunning, even if some are simple. The editing from Kim Sang-bum, a frequent collaborator with the director, adds wit and excitement to what otherwise could’ve been a much more straightforward romantic thriller. Park has a way of making linear narratives feel nonlinear, editing scenes in surprising ways and cutting almost arbitrarily. This might add to the frustrated confusion of some viewers, but it helps make Park toe the line between mainstream and arthouse, possibly pleasing fans of both.
Herein, Tang Wei is an absolute star in this challenging role. She is required to play both a suspected killer and a love interest convincingly; she does so with abandon, striking just the right balance between menacing and fragile. While Park Hae-il’s detective may be endearing to be with, it’s Wei who forms the emotional core of the film. Bright but damaged, beautiful Seo-rae is resourceful and cunning but ultimately sad because of her sorrowful past and gloomy fate that forever make her prey to men on either side of the law.
Park also has his usual eye for casting great supporting actors who bring humor and personality into what are basically small roles that help to highlight the two main characters even more. The best examples in this case would be Go Kyung-pyo (as Soo-wan) and Kim Shin-young (as Yeon-su), who appear as Hae-jun’s fellow cops during different periods without any limits which can sometimes turn them into nothing but comic figures.
During two hours, Park together with his talented cast build an intricately designed house of cards only to blow it down with one hell of hurricane within last 20 minutes of the movie. Like most films by Park Chan Wook, Decision to Leave keeps you guessing till its last frame while still being funnier and more romantic than nearly all other his works. It seems like whatever Park does – be it bafflingly obscure, stunningly conventional, cinematically explosive or sotto voce – he never disappoints anyone.
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