Revenge: A Love Story

Flicks from Hong Kong sure can be gory, as Dream Home had proved to be true. This movie clearly confirms that statement. The movie opens up with a sequence in which two pregnant women and their husbands get attacked inside of their home.

The story is told in a non-chronological order, with each new chapter featuring a black tile and a quote written on it, similar to the Ju-on movies. As the title clearly states, the story is all about revenge. The story takes turns as it progresses, as shown by the opening sequence. At first one would expect that the one who seeks revenge would be somebody who avenges the four people hurt in the opening sequences. And then we are proved wrong.

Revolving around a tragic story, revealed through flashbacks, we come to realize that our antagonist is actually our dear protagonist. This movie is nothing short of brutally violent, but not merely for the sake of it. This is not a blatant exploitation flick. There is an underlying message that is revealed at the end, one that anyone who holds a grudge could learn a thing from.

Beware, this flick is definitely not for the squeamish. There's gore, there's gut-wrenching brutality, but there is also sadness. You feel pity. This movie does it jobs by reeling you in and rooting for the protagonist. While the gore isn't over-the-top, there is one scene that involves skin that made me grab my head. For somebody who has seen a lot of over-the-top gore movies; that shouldn't have happened. But I did simply because I could relate to it through bad habits. One that I fortunately got rid of.

Go see this movie, it's criminally underrated and it deserves more attention. If you like revenge-themed movies, this one is for you. I immediately thought of Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and I Saw the Devil.

It was a surprise form me. If you change the language and the names of actors / director, this is a japan movie. HK movie (i don't like the word industry) is not as it was before in past century, so this was a very pleasant (what a word for this movie) surprise.

Revenge: A Love Story puts its best foot forward from the get go, drawing the viewer in with early scenes of remarkable cruelty that are shot with a clarity of vision one would expect from a veteran filmmaker. Unfortunately, the film stumbles and eventually falls flat.

The film is divided into 'chapters'. For fear of spoiling anything at all, I will refrain from discussing them in depth. I will say though - the first three play out over the first hour of the movie. These three, and the third especially, are strong, with a few setbacks. After that first hour, I was expecting to be rewarding this movie with 7 or even 8 stars.

I may be jumping to conclusions by saying this, but I am of the belief that this movie was simply watered-down too many times pre-production. There was most certainly something great beneath it all. In the lead role, Jun Mak showed off his acting chops and I can't say, by any means, that he was bad in the role. There wasn't enough dialogue. I felt like the movie was tailored for pop stars and took away any opportunity for them to appear to be poor actors, subsequently preventing any semblance of a strong performance. Solo Aoi almost never spoke. It was briefly alluded to that her character was 'retarded' or 'mildly retarded'. Her role in the movie felt too much like 'smile and be beautiful'.

Buried somewhere deep within Revenge: A Love Story is a truly brilliant film, comparable to prominent films in the revenge sub-genre. The recent I Saw The Devil comes to mind. In fact, there are even parallels to be drawn between the two, as Revenge too invokes the notion of pure evil when the title of chapter 5 refers to the devil. By that time, the film had already begun it's self-destruction, and we're subjected to the third installment of Jun Mak running, shirtless, in slow-motion, with his panting the only audible sound.

I would recommend this to revenge-movie geeks. You'll likely enjoy the movie (as I did). You might even be enthralled through the first hour (as I was). But be warned: If you are expecting a good, intelligent thriller, this is not it.

"Revenge: A Love Story" ("Fuk Sau Che Chi Sei") is without a doubt one of the more brutal and raw movies to make it out of Hong Kong cinema. Sure, there are lots of action movies that are equally good, but there is just something more profound to this movie that transcends, pardon the expression, mindless action sequences.

The story is about a series of ghastly murders in the Hong Kong rural villages, where pregnant women are found with their bellies cut open and their babies removed. Kit (played by Juno Mak) is being framed for these heinous acts and he sees how corrupt police men take turns raping Wing (played by Sora Aoi), a simple minded girl that he has sworn to look after following the death of her grandmother. Kit will stop at nothing before these crooked cops have paid their dues.

I will say that the storyline was quite interesting, and the characters were nicely detailed and portrayed by the actors playing them, but more importantly, the story is very graphic and visual, which I enjoyed and found to be a rather nice surprise for a Hong Kong movie. Mind you, that some of these visuals, especially at the murder sites, can be a little bit too much for some viewers to handle - so viewer discretion is advised here. There is more to the story than just revenge, especially if you look at the movie from the eyes of Kit and Wing, then it is a story of love and compassion.

Not really being familiar with Juno Mak, I will say that he put on a really good performance in "Revenge: A Love Story", as did Sora Aoi (although she has some fairly questionable movies etched in her belt), and together they really complimented one another with the on-screen chemistry.

I had initially just expected this to be an action-thriller, but it turned out to be something much better. And I highly recommend this movie to anyone fan of Asian and/or Hong Kong cinema.

My rating is 9 out of 10 stars. "Revenge: A Love Story" was as surprising as it was entertaining.

I have to admit, having previously viewed a multitude of Asian thrillers, like Battle Royale and hard boiled,I really came into this not knowing what to expect. From first impressions, it looked dark, unnerving, and overall I was expect it to be a solid and entertaining thriller with a lot of cringe inducing scenes. But, when I saw it my expectations were completely surpassed. It has wonderful music,great acting (for the most part) and it has a satisfying level of grim and gory sequences that will keep most fans of this sort of thing happy. Mind you, It has little dialogue and a few plot holes that will get a few heads scratching, and also some characters, like the girl who the main character likes, for instance, simply has too little dialogue and who's acting in general was a bit wooden. But, overall, a good film.