Having not watched the first two parts of Park Chan-wook's "Revenge" trilogy, although it is not clear what the director expressed in the whole series, it is definitely about the complexity of human nature and the definition of good and evil. It is undeniable that Jin Zi's role is very complicated. In order to complete her sentence in prison as soon as possible, she learned to use a mask to please the people around her, but she secretly chose to harm others. When the pastor thought she was an "angel", she threw herself into the role she played, but after she was released from prison, she chose revenge, and the play also mentioned the ugliness of human nature and the subordination between people.
The director talked about Jin Zi’s role from a religious perspective both inside and outside the film. He started with the poster. Jin was in the pose of the Virgin Mary, which offended religious groups in Korea and demanded withdrawal. Then at the beginning of the movie, it is said that the function of prayer is to wash away sins, and to put on a look that is about to be reformed. In addition, in order to highlight the role in the prison, Jin Zi is used as the "God" of the sisters. In terms of expression, there is a scene that shows Jin Zi's face glowing, metaphorically speaking, she is a "God". Jin Zi shows different looks to others, and she uses her beauty to gain sympathy and mercy, which is actually a hidden conspiracy.
When she was released from prison after thirteen years in prison, what appeared was that gold was not an "angel" at all, and the so-called "angel" was just a human imagination. She is determined to take revenge on those who put her in prison in the past. "Vengeance" is an issue full of moral boundaries, constrained by ethical and social norms. The Bible says, "If someone hits you on the left cheek, hit someone else on the right cheek". God's Word is to be "just," that is, to be willing to endure rather than be violent. However, the ending of the movie is so cruel, using people's anger to cover up one's reason and thinking. It is so cold and direct as the conductor of the action, and it is all in her applause.
In the book "Lucifer Effect", the prison experiment cites the demonic nature of people. There is no natural good person, and the so-called normal person will become a bad guy who oppresses others. Like gold, gold acts as a protector of the weak and kind in dealing with daughters and other sisters. However, when she treated Teacher Bai who put her in prison and directed her to commit crimes, she showed her anger, her displeasure, and her grievances. She could roughly stab him, poison him, but she didn't. Instead, the family of the victimized child used the secret room for revenge. Jin Zi's role is quite malleable and complicated. She is the perpetrator of the child, full of guilt for the child and her parents, and at the same time she is the victim of the incident. By. If Teacher Bai hadn't kidnapped her daughter as a threat, she wouldn't have been involved.
When setting the characters, it can be seen that the director is quite careful in this regard, mainly to highlight the contradictions in Jin Zi's identity, firstly the helplessness of being coerced, and then how she, as a mother, compensates for her daughter's lack. In addition, daughter Jenny speaks English, and Kim speaks Korean, which is also a kind of boundary. It is the identity that separates them from getting along, but the mother-daughter relationship breaks the language boundary. Although Teacher Bai's identity is the perpetrator, he is a righteous gentleman in front of the students, and a bad person can't be seen clearly from the surface. Who would have known that a normal looking man would act like this, who would have known that he would sexually assault his wife. This is about a person who always has some secrets that cannot be seen and known on the surface. Even normal people who see it will have "anomie", and no one will be wrong. When the parents of the deceased child questioned him in the secret room, he spit out a sentence: "There are no perfect people in this world."
This sentence brought the fact that when the family of the deceased decided to execute Teacher Bai privately, they were angry and tortured. Inner hatred obscures inner reason. However, during the whole killing process, he did not kill him all at once, instead, it was done according to the order of each family. In the process, he had to make Teacher Bai not like a human being, but wanted him to feel more pain and injury. It seems that this is the only way to make up for the harm he caused to others. This part of the whole movie is the part that really makes people reflect and shocks the perception. Especially when the family hurt Teacher Bai, their faces would show unhappiness and panic. In fact they didn't necessarily want to kill, but in the decision of the matter they knew that it would be cheaper for the perpetrator to turn it over to court. Therefore, they need to make their own decisions and seek justice for the deceased family members.
The more deliberate point in the whole thing is that the policeman believed that Jin Zi did not kill people from the beginning, and he understood Jin Zi's feelings and helplessness. But in the case of the execution in the secret room, he not only failed to do a good job of the police, but instead acted as a deputy in the matter. It can be seen that this was in his heart to make up for the regret of the gold, so he chose to assist and use his common sense to deal with the corpse. This may be that the director wishes to express "compassion", or that the behavior of the family of the deceased is reasonable.
The film ends in a piece of white snow, so poignantly, it teaches the audience a real "revenge", Jin Zi takes off her eye shadow and turns back into an ordinary woman. After that, her road disappeared into it like a snowy road, writing such an ending for the movie.
Overall, the film presents a violent world, and yet we live in such a world. Some people have to endure under tyranny. Lu Xun said that we exist in a world of cannibalism. This is absolutely true, but what can we do? "Kind Gold" just brings us to reflect on what choices we have when good and evil are intertwined.
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