Park Chan Wook’s most recent film is a visually pleasing, but unusual combination of genres that works exceptionally well in some areas and less well in others.
To start with, I was massively impressed by the cinematography and camera movements in this film and would go as far to consider it to be one of the most visually impressive films released in 2022. Park Chan Wook definitely has a unique and distinct style when approaching the ways his scenes are shot and it is clear that both him and cinematographer Kim JI-yong put lots of thought and care into how they wanted this film to look. He uses many techniques which I would consider visionary that not many other directors use, making this film stand out from many other films released in 2022.
The plot was good and clearly well thought out with some deep, gripping emotional scenes, however I feel that the execution could have been better as there were a few things that felt poorly explained or too subtle, causing it to be difficult to understand at times.
I found the concept of the combination of romance and mystery interesting, as the idea of a detective falling in love with a potential suspect felt different and worked fairly well in most areas, but it could have been done better, mostly due to some elements of the plot being too subtle and possibly trying to hard to be complex. There weren’t any mind blowing plot twists like Oldboy (2003) or the Handmaiden (2016), but the story, although slow and boring at times, was still interesting and one that I enjoyed following for the majority of the runtime.
The performances were mostly good, especially some of the scenes with both Song Seo-rae (played by Tang Wei) and Jang Hae-Jun (played by Hae il Park) together, because the chemistry between them was strong and well built up. I enjoyed the relationship between these two characters, however there weren’t any individual performances that stood out massively to me. On the positive, there also weren’t any bad performances.
Overall, Decision to Leave is a great, well crafted film that excels on a visual standard whilst providing a slow but well paced and relatively entertaining story with a unique concept. It proves to be another example of how exceptional films emerging from South Korea in recent years are, making me wish that they would become more widely available and accessible to Western audiences.
By Ewan Danyluk
BFI Film Academy
Recommend0 recommendationsPublished in Entertainment, News, TV & Film
I really enjoyed the film, but I agree with your statements about the plot. I think it lost its momentum leading up to the climax, even though the ending was still dramatic.