Park Chan-wook's films have always been without rigorous, meticulous composition, beautiful and brutal bloody violence, and of course his favorite proposition - revenge.
Mother Evelyn, daughter India and uncle Charles are the protagonists of the story, and the huge house painted green seems to have become a character in the movie itself. In those old, countless rooms, all the mise-en-scène with green as the tone is full of layers, and the mother and daughter's room has its own tones, Evelyn's room is a fishy symbol of repressed desire Red, India's room is a bright yellow symbolizing the fledglings. The filming was done by photographer Jung Jung Hoon, who worked with Park Chan-wook in both "Old Boy" and "Kind Gold". The camera kept going back and forth between the rooms, wandering slowly, as if using a voyeur's perspective to silently gain insight into all the undercurrents. Three people are trapped in this closed world, but everyone seems to be willing.
The main cast of "Stoker" is actually only three people. In a big house with a strong sense of hierarchy, everything is like a theatrical performance. The almost perspective rooms are like fixed sets in a dark literary theater, and the characters in the story are confined to this closed space, which deepens the atmosphere of depression and suspense. Nicole Kidman's performance is still reminiscent of her "Island" from many years ago, and it's completely horror-movie rendition. Matthew Goode and Mia Wasikowska exude a cult temperament by coincidence, making it easy to associate the blood and connection between the two.
Poor English may not necessarily be a hindrance for Park Chan-wook to make his first English-language film, as his previous works have very little dialogue. He prefers to use the camera to tell the story to the audience. It's never a pretense with babble of dialogue like Quentin Tarantino did. At the same time, Park Chan-wook's narrative technique has always been very stylized. When he tells stories, he is usually not—or rather unwilling to be—restricted by time and space, and he often explains stories through one or two simple, ingenious, unassuming editing. But perhaps because of the first English-language film, the shots and editing in "Stoker" are more restrained than Park Chan-wook's previous works.
Many people have seen the shadow of Hitchcock in "Stoker". And Park Chan-wook himself has the same advantages as Hitchcock, and he will make sufficient preparations before the film starts. Although his preparations are usually video-based, he also draws each storyboard by hand. Park Chan-wook is particularly particular about the camera angle of the film. His films over the years have their own unique perspective and system. Like those memorable bird's-eye angles and horizontal panning shots in the "Revenge Trilogy." One of the most important scenes in the film is the spiral staircase where India and Charles first meet. India goes from low to high, parallel to Charles, suggesting a bond between the two. And not only that, the film deliberately highlights this level of difference and layering from the angle of photography. Including when India stabbed the boy who always troubled her with a pencil and climbed the stairs. And India took a boy named Whip to the playground to stand on the top of the slide in the wild at night. In these three scenarios, India expresses its desire to grow by stepping to a new height.
"Prison Break" actor Wentworth Miller spent eight years writing Stoker's script, and he was deeply attracted to Park Chan-wook. The family, incest, revenge, and killing in the story are his most common things, and there is something different in "Stoker" - maybe we can say it is about the growth of a girl. After the death of India's father, this desire intensified, and she completed her transformation through one of the most common things Park Chan-wook's protagonists do - revenge. It's just that the growth she yearns for is not kindness and beauty. When she left, she became a real devil.
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