Decision to Leave (2022)

Beautiful and intriguing

Park Chan Wook director is back in 2022 Cannes and won the Best Director award this time around. His signature touches are so precise that it looked like beautiful portrait shots with extremely fine details for each and every of the scenes and frames, even the editing and transition is extraordinarily stylized. He has the ability to find the beauty of the broken love in this wicked romance story which works wonders, where even a subtle affection comes in great effect on a person's mindfulness, and reaching it through extreme means might be of utmost importance. The broken ones will definitely understand the intention of this film where protecting that little love in this shattered world is what all we had left.

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"Killing is like smoking...only the first time is hard"

Decision to Leave was another provocative Park Chan Wook film combining murder and obsession. At times it felt like he was being provocative for provocative’s sake, but it was a hauntingly beautiful, if disturbing film to watch.

Detective Jang Hae Jun and his partner are investigating what appears to be an accidental death of a mountain climber. But they become immediately suspicious of his gorgeous Chinese wife because she’s not grief stricken enough. A chronic insomniac, Hae Jun stakes out the widow Song Seo Rae’s apartment and place of work. To his surprise, he sleeps on the stakeouts. And he also begins to question whether Seo Rae is guilty. As he falls deeper into her spell, she becomes not only the cure for his insomnia but its cause as well.

This never seemed like a murder mystery to me. It was not, “Did she?” or “Didn’t she?” More like, “Does she?” or “Doesn’t she”? Hae Jun appeared to be happily married to his weekend wife in Ipo, yet Seo Rae spoke to a deeper place inside. The song “Mist” was played often and Ipo’s fog was mentioned repeatedly. Just as the fog of war can obscure thinking and action so can the fog of lust. The mist of miscommunication (mistcommunication?) clouded conversations as Seo Rae’s Korean wasn’t strong. Translation apps and mistranslations of words hampered understanding in an already twisted and stressful environment.

If you have more problems with infidelity than bug covered dead bodies, this will be a film to skip. Aside from a scene with Hae Jun and his wife, the most intimate moments involved lip balm and hand lotion which were quite sensual. Much was made of the mountains and the sea, at times touching but never truly together. The film started on a mountain and ended at the sea, both beautiful and deadly. I had a few issues with the film, but like Hae Jun, I was willing to suffer to watch Tang Wei.

28 March 2026

Trigger warning: Bugs, dead bodies, creepy bugs. Mostly emotional infidelity. Suicide

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