Decision to Leave
Park Chan-wook’s romantic crime drama draws on the Hollywood films of the 1940s as its model.
Over the past twenty years, South Korea's Park Chan-wook has become a very well-established director. 2013’s Oldboy is one of his best-known titles and it forms part of what became known as The Vengeance Trilogy. No wonder then that, despite his directorial artistry, Park became known for making films that often featured sufficient brutality for him to be admired by those drawn to tough action thrillers for their own sake. More recently, however, Park has moved away from that territory giving us a period tale of intrigue in 2016’s The Handmaiden and now in Decision to Leave offering a film which, despite its contemporary setting, draws on the American cinema of the 1940s.
Initially this new piece looks set to be a police procedural with a detective in Busan, Hae-joon (Park Hae-il), investigating the suspicious death of a man killed in a fall and treating the man’s much younger Chinese wife, Sae-rae (Tang Wei) as a suspect. Despite being married, the detective comes to fall in love with his suspect, a woman who may well be a femme fatale playing him along, and that is very much in keeping with those private eye tales once favoured by Hollywood. But in those films that element was usually just part of the mix. Admittedly, the initial death in Decision to Leave does indeed lead to twists and turns over what really happened and a further death takes place in the film’s second-half when the scene changes to the seaside town of Ipo. That death proves to be no less complex. Nevertheless, Park, working with co-writer Jeong Seok-yeong, develops the film in such a way that, regardless of Seo-rae’s innocence or guilt, the love story becomes the essential feature.
Certain aspects of Decision to Leave work very well indeed. It is handsomely photographed in widescreen by Kim Ji-yong and the two leading players are both excellent. It is also part of the film’s rejection of more modern trends that there are no sex scenes, but Tang Wei and Park Hae-il convey the sensual bond potently and satisfyingly. The music score by Cho Young-wuk also adds subtly to the mood of the film and Park’s direction finds him fully able to sustain the film’s long running time (139 minutes). But there are drawbacks. Like most thrillers of this kind, the screenplay has to handle a complex narrative which demands our close attention and that calls for smooth storytelling. Park, however, seems determined to impress us with the stylishness of his filmmaking which, early on especially, involves disorientating elements such as his use of mirror shots and reflections as well as much confusing intercutting. Furthermore, all of this occurs alongside the adoption of a fast pace which gives us little time to take things in. The effort that is required to keep up with the plot prevents us from developing any close involvement with the characters and, although some have found Decision to Leave Hitchcockian, this is a film which chooses to be enigmatic to a degree and that makes the comparison feel irrelevant. The one scene that does seem overextended is the last one, but that is because Park’s way of telling the story leaves us emotionally detached. So in the end this film is a mixed bag sometimes admirable and sometimes irritating.
Original title: Heojil kyolshim.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Tang Wei, Park Hae-il, Go Kyung-pyo, Lee Jung-hyun, Kim Shin-Young, Yong-woo Park, Teo Yoo, Jung Yi-seo, Seo Hyun-woo, Lee Jung-hyun, Jeong Ha-dam, Jeong Min Park, Hak-joo Lee.
Dir Park Chan-wook, Pro Park Chan-wook and Daeseok Ko, Screenplay Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seok-yeong, Ph Kim Ji-yong, Pro Des Ryu Seong-hie, Ed Kim Sang-bum, Music Cho Young-wuk, Costumes Kwak Jung-ae.
CJ Entertainment/Moho Film-Mubi.
139 mins. South Korea. 2022. US Rel: 14 October 2022. UK Rel: 21 October 2022. Cert. 15.