Decision to Leave (2022)

Decision to Leave (2022)

starring Tang Wei, Park Hae-il

directed by Park Chan-wook

139 minutes

in Korean with English subtitles

Detective Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il) investigates an apparent suicide to determine if it was in fact murder. Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei), the dead man's wife, is the primary suspect. She emigrated from China years before. She fled China after being accused of murdering her grandmother. Detective Jang can't find enough evidence to press charges against Seo-rae and the death is ruled a suicide.

Detective Jang lives apart from his wife due to their jobs being in different cities. He develops an interest in Seo-rae while he was investigating the case. After the investigation is dropped he continues to see her. She enjoys the attention and does not push him away.

Hae-jun eventually comes across evidence that tells him that Seo-rae killed her husband. He questions her about it. She comes clean with him. She did kill her husband but he does nothing =with the evidence or the confession.

Thoughts

This movie kept my attention. I didn't want to stop watching it.

This movie jumps back and forth in time. At times it was hard to tell when things were taking place. There are a lot of moving pieces in this film. The language barrier makes me wonder if I missed more than I think I did. The cultural barrier also make me wonder about what I might have unknowingly missed.

There are some interesting visual tricks that this film employs.

This movie plays a lot with truth. Lies are told and later found out to be just that. It made the whole process of watching this a little frustrating. I'm certain that this film is intentionally confusing but I'm not certain how confusing Park Chan-wook intended it to be.

I did not fully understand this movie. It's unclear to me why Song Rae killed herself. My best guess is that it gave her a measure of control. She hoped to haunt his memory once she was gone in the same way that other unsolved cases have haunted Hae-jun. Another way to interpret this story is that she isn't really human. She has assumed human form and killing her human form is her way back to the spirit world from which she originated.

This was an interesting watch. I don't feel as though I caught on to enough to really appreciate it or rule it as excellent to great. It is clear that a lot of effort was put into this movie but I can't give it a high rating just because it is confusing and beautiful. 

Notes

I have not seen any other films in which either Tang Wei or Park Hae-il played a significant role. Park Hae-il was in Memories of Murder (2003), which I have seen but it has been over 20 years since I saw it and from the looks of it he didn't have a large part in it.

This is the fourth film which Park Chan-wook directed that I have seen. It has been over 17 years since I last saw one of his films.