Casey Chong with ten essential revenge movies…
The long-gestating reboot of The Crow, which famously suffered from development hell as early as 2008 with numerous directors and actors coming and going, has finally flown into cinemas, starring Bill Skarsgård as the titular character with Rupert Sanders of the live-action Hollywood version of Ghost in the Shell directing [read our review here]. And so, we’re taking a look back at ten essential revenge-themed movies about avenging the death of loved ones. Check them out here, in alphabetical order…
Blue Ruin (2013)
Violence begets violence in Jeremy Saulnier’s second movie, Blue Ruin. It’s a revenge thriller with a dash of dark humor that doesn’t sugarcoat on the violence as the story follows Dwight Evans (Macon Blair in a subtle lead performance), a vagrant who lives in his old beat-up car and scraps whatever edible food he can find in the garbage bags. Then, he learns about a killer freed from prison and everything changes.
Saulnier approaches his movie in a minimalist fashion with no flashbacks to fill us in other than giving us sufficient, need-to-know basis. What we have here is Dwight’s quest to track down the killer who kills his parents two decades earlier. He takes matters into his own hands but his vengeance against the person only triggers a series of consequences, resulting in an otherwise typical revenge-thriller territory that subverts the audience’s expectations. In Saulnier’s point of view, revenge isn’t merely a one-man mission that takes courage to kill someone. It can be a double-edged sword that complicate matters when the vengeful protagonist finds himself unexpectedly deal with an aftermath.
Death Wish (1974)
This classic genre film sets the tone about a vigilante (typically a white or blue-collar civilian) ends up taking matters into his or her own hands killing those who deserved to die. Although Death Wish spawned four sequels and a 2018 remake, the 1974 original remains the best in the film series. Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, a mild-mannered architect and family man based in New York. But his life changes forever when a trio of muggers (one of which includes then-unknown young Jeff Goldblum’s big-screen debut) assault his family. His wife, Joanna (Hope Lange) is beaten to death while their daughter, Carol (Kathleen Tolan) is brutally raped.
Director Michael Winner envisions New York City as a city of hopelessness and despair with Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey becoming the judge, jury, and executioner of a vigilante in getting rid of street crime. Bronson’s perfectly stoic personality fits the role of a remorseless vigilante while Winner doesn’t shy away from graphic violence and sex.
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Director Kim Jee-Woon brings the familiar terms of revenge and violence begets violence to the next level in I Saw the Devil. Vengeance for NIS agent Soo-Hyun (Lee Byung-Hun) isn’t a one-time kill because he wants Kyung-Chul (Choi Min-Sik), the serial killer who is responsible for the grisly death of her fiancé (On San-Ha) to suffer. So, he tracks him down and what follows next is a mean-spirited depravity of cat and mouse game.
The movie is not for the squeamish because Kim Jee-Woon pulls no punches when comes to graphic violence, blood, and gore. The game in question revolves around Soo-Hyun’s unorthodox method of catch-and-release the serial killer before torturing him and letting him go again. And vice versa, making him feel the utmost pain imaginable. I Saw the Devil is a pure visceral cinema not only in its depiction of the revenge genre but also a hard-hitting metaphor of one’s inner rage, desperation, and deep sorrow.
John Wick (2014)
The last three John Wick movies are more about the level of insanity and creativity in delivering the intricately choreographed action set pieces. But all these wouldn’t have happened if the seed isn’t firmly planted in the first movie. The one that started it all. Before all the world-building structures that introduce us more characters in the John Wick universe, the first movie tells a simple story about the titular retired assassin (Keanu Reeves) spending his days grieving for the loss of his beloved wife, Helen (Bridget Moynahan). What he has now is a puppy that his wife left for him. But everything turns upside down when an arrogant Russian gangster, Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) leads his men to break into John’s house, kill the puppy and even steal the Mustang. Bad mistake and all hell break loose as John reverts to his old ways on a revenge mission.
What makes John Wick such an iconic genre movie is the propulsive action beats of John’s ability in dispatching his enemy using guns with pinpoint accuracy under any circumstances. He’s quick, agile and above all, he has nothing to lose. Chad Stahelski’s direction is top-notch as he favors lots of practical stunts over CG-heavy set pieces. The elaborate choreography is both stylish and thrillingly staged and at the heart of the movie is Keanu Reeves’ uber-cool lead performance as John Wick.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2003, 2004)
It’s a free-flow of blood, rage, and mayhem in Quentin Tarantino’s two-part Kill Bill saga. The story follows The Bride (Uma Thurman), a former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad is left for dead during her wedding rehearsal. Her husband is shot to death and so does her unborn child but she somehow survives. After recuperation, she subsequently tracks down her former colleagues responsible for the massacre.
The first movie pays homage to old-school Shaw Brothers kung fu genre and samurai movie with a notable callback to the late Bruce Lee’s iconic yellow-and-black jumpsuit seen in Game of Death. The latter has Thurman’s The Bride donning the aforementioned jumpsuit as she engages in a blood-soaked swordfight against the Crazy 88 gang, Chiaki Kuriyama’s Gogo Yubari, and Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii – easily one of the greatest action sequences ever seen in the 21st century.
The second movie references heavily from the Western genre, notably the ‘60s era including Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! (the crawling-out-of-the-grave scene) and Once Upon a Time in the West (the blurred shot of The Bride walking through the desert). There’s a shade of Shaw Brothers kung fu movie, notably on The Bride’s gruelling training session with martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu). Kill Bill Vol. 2 culminates in a final showdown between The Bride a.k.a. Beatrix Kiddo and the titular Bill played by David Carradine with one of the martial arts moves known as “the five point palm exploding heart technique” inspired by 1977’s Executioners of Shaolin.
The Brave One (2007)
Neil Jordan put a feminist spin on the vigilante classic Death Wish, substituting Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey with Jodie Foster playing a radio host who ends up taking justice into her own hands in The Brave One. The movie may have trodden familiar ground with been-there, done-that kind of story but Jordan’s assured direction helps elevating it. He made us root for the protagonist’s plight, whose doctor-fiancé (Naveen Andrews) is brutally beaten to death by three street thugs in Central Park. He also successfully captured the aftermath that forever scarred Jodie Foster’s Erica, focusing on her internal fear and paranoia through disorienting camera angles and how she initially has trouble leaving her apartment.
The Brave One also benefits from Jodie Foster’s engaging lead turn as Erica as she convincingly evolves from a scared victim to a reluctant vigilante killing those who deserve to die with a gun that she bought illegally. Credit also goes to Jordan for not resorting her vigilante justice and the act of gun violence to a gratuitous exploitation fantasy. Her character may grow addicted as she is getting used to killing but the movie never goes over the top with just enough subtle restraint in between.
The Crow (1994)
The late Brandon Lee tragically died making this 1994 cult classic. Based on James O’Barr’s graphic novel, Lee plays the rock musician Eric Draven who returns from the dead to avenge the murder of his beloved girlfriend. Dressing in skintight black clothes and a Goth-style, pasty white makeup, he sets out on a revenge mission to kill the responsible thugs played by David Patrick Kelly, Angel David, Laurence Mason, and Michael Massee.
The Crow marks the second directorial feature for Alex Proyas and here, his extensive music video background is put to good use. He incorporates dark and gothic visual palette that looks stylish with Graeme Revell’s ominous score perfectly fits the macabre tone of the movie. At the heart of the movie is Brandon Lee, whose lead performance as the sympathetic and vengeful Eric Draven showcases his dramatic acting prowess apart from his martial arts background.
The Foreigner (2017)
Martin Campbell’s works tend to be erratic but The Foreigner thankfully isn’t one of them. It’s a gritty revenge thriller that showcases a different side of Jackie Chan for a change since the international martial arts superstar is often associated with action comedies. He plays Quan, a father who is devastated with the death of his teenage daughter (Katie Leung) killed in a terrorist bombing. He’s determined to find out the culprit responsible for his daughter’s death, which subsequently leads him to a shady British high-ranking government official played by Pierce Brosnan.
The Foreigner may get too weighty for its own good covering terrorism, conspiracy, and corruption instead of streamlining it as a straightforward revenge thriller. But Campbell still manages to bring out the best in Chan’s no-nonsense performance while his character being a former Special Forces means we get to see him in the action mode. The movie made the right choice not to showcase him in his usual acrobatic stunts as Campbell favors more on brutal hand-to-hand combats. The fight scenes are crisply edited with Campbell’s technical know-how in putting together propulsive action, resulting in one of the better Jackie Chan-starred in years.
The Nightingale (2018)
Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to 2014’s The Babadook sees the writer-director shifted from psychological horror to the grim territory of rape-revenge and brutally honest depiction of racial oppression and colonial violence. The first 30 minutes is a harrowing, matter-of-fact ordeal as we witness the titular married Irish woman, Clare (Aisling Franciosi in a sympathetic lead role) suffers from one assault after another. It all started with Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), and the situation gets worse from there when he and his two fellow soldiers, Ruse (Damon Herriman) and Jago (Harry Greenwood) show up in her home one night, gang-raped her and killed her husband (Michael Sheasby) and their baby daughter.
The Nightingale is graphic but never gratuitous. It’s more realistic in its overall portrayal while Clare’s subsequent journey of tracking down the three responsible soldiers with the help of an Aboriginal tracker, Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) is anything but straightforward. Revenge may have fuelled Clare’s anger and determination but like her treacherous journey throughout the movie, things get unpredictable. Kent isn’t interested in streamlining her movie and give us directly what we want the most. Sure, the vile soldiers who turn Clare’s life upside down do get their comeuppance. But, at the same time, the movie also delves deeper into Clare’s psychological trauma and the colonial horror against the Aboriginal Tasmanian community.
Unforgiven (1992)
The Oscar-winning Unforgiven finds actor-director Clint Eastwood, working from David Webb Peoples’ screenplay, deconstructs the Western genre as the story focuses on the morally gray area in the Old West. There’s nothing mythical in this movie as seen in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy as Eastwood depicts the harsh reality of living and surviving in the Old West, complete with matter-of-fact violence and death.
Revenge plays a huge part in Unforgiven not only from the sex workers who band together to exact vengeance against the men responsible for disfiguring one of them by offering a $1,000 bounty, but also William Munny’s (Clint Eastwood) subsequent personal vendetta against the tyrannical “Little Bill” played by Gene Hackman. The latter leads to a bleak and brutal third act with none of the glorification and romanticization of the eventual showdown between William Munny and “Little Bill”.
What are your favourite revenge-themed movies? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Casey Chong
