Lady Vengeance
The weirdest thing that lead me to this felt-first-time-but-actually-second-time watch was what I watched before this: 10 minutes of over-the-top-animation-violence; the lost chapter of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. In Fortnite.
To follow it up with this is like eating 20 chicken nuggets and drinking pint of beer followed by a three course meal by candle light. Alone on a sunday with a storm raging outside, barely noticable but clearly there when looking out the window. Just to be clear: I really like chicken nuggets.
Lady Vengeance is the antithesis to that. Not so much the whole bloody affair, because there are thematic parallels between both women. But to those 10 minutes of crazy this film is the other side of the coin. That quiet storm. But you never open the window to feel it. You don't even know where the storm came from. You don't know the reason of vengeance. For a while you do not know who will be the victim. You follow a woman who will exact revenge. Driven by a thirst for vengeance. It's about her and her why. Her how. With whom. When and where. And what it means.
And when you reach the last act, you might question right and wrong. You may condone everything that is done in the name of vengeance. Because justice does not look like that. Because it is left outside and was never really an option.
But this vengeance is, as a viewer, mostly quiet and uncomfortable. For us it does not take long. It's not celebrated. It's not visually satisfying. Its bloody, brutal and honest. What we don't get to see is the road to and from that point on. But one moment out in the cold leaves us at our most emotional. And it is as bitter as it is salty and sweet for her. For as tears and cake don't go that well together.