Vengeance Trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vegeance / Oldboy / Lady Vengeance) Tin Case Set

I love Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and especially Oldboy with a great deal of respect for Lady Vengeance so it was a no-brainer for me to get this set, which came out in an exclusive Tin Box Set at a certain electronics store I won't mention here but of which most fans of the films should know. Unfortunately, I and many others who purchased this set fell victim to a case of false advertising on, not only the box, but from the Oldboy blu-ray case stored inside. First of all, the box set indicates that it contains 8 discs but upon opening it and then the individual cases for the films, there are actually 4 discs. Ok, that's not terrible although it would've been preferable to separate some of the extras on Oldboy in another disc to make the audio/video presentation the best possible. And that brings me to my biggest complaint. The Oldboy Blu-Ray case AND disc itself lists that it has DTS-MA lossless audio (oh yeah, the Tin Box set lists that, too) but it actually does NOT have it. It doesn't even have lossless audio. It seems like Palisades-Tartan (the makers of the Blu-Ray) decided to drop that audio, which IS available on the original single disc Blu-Ray release of Oldboy, to make room for a 3 hour documentary. The documentary is very good and wasn't available on the original BD but why drop the lossless audio? Along with high def video, high def audio is a MAJOR selling point for buying Blu-Rays. So, why mention that you have it and not follow through with it? Why be under-handed and fool with the consumer? If you want them to double or triple dip on films, then at least be honest with your advertising on what your releases actually contain inside them. There, I got that off my chest. I e-mailed Palisades-Tartan about this and just wanted to write this review to warn people. There are forums out there which also discuss this issue. Hopefully, they can rectify this somehow or at the very least, correctly list what's inside the Vengeance Trilogy when it's available most places on June 15th. The reason I gave this a three, by the way, is because I didn't want people to believe I didn't like the films, which is far from the truth. Also, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance were given proper treatments, admittedly.

The movies included on this set are great! I love each one dearly, this set, however, is a bit of a problem. First of all the packaging lists the set as an 8 disk set, this set only has 4 disks. I can live with that, it's a typo, or the same copy from the 8 disk standard def version, all the content is there in half the disks, fine. Here is where it gets worrisome, quite a few people have reported their sets are missing the 32-page booklet. There have also been reports that some sets include multiple copies of one movie but none of the other movies. Lets, say you receive a copy that has the book and a perfect copy of each movie. Here is the kicker, on Oldboy there is supposed to have DTS-HD lossless mix(it's listed on the box), this is no where to be found. This is a mastering error, Palisades/Tartan has not officially acknowledged this, they might fix it they might now. So no matter what you get, you get a set that is defective. I am quite surprised they allowed this set out the door with these glaring problems.

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There's way, way too much to talk about with these movies on blu-ray, especially considering the special features they have for each one. Simply put, even with that audio mistake on the Oldboy disc that everyone's whining about, there's no way this set deserves anything less than 5 stars. I'm assuming anyone looking at this page is already a fan of at least one of the movies here, so I won't bother with the plot summaries (again, there's too much to talk about!), and I'll just focus on the technical aspects.

As far as the picture quality goes, this is as good as the films are going to look. Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance looks incredible, and much better than it did on dvd. Lady Vengeance looks great too, and is the best looking of the three by far. The colors are vibrant and you can notice every tiny detail in things from the characters' outfits to the tears rolling down the cheeks of children in a certain hard to watch scene. Oldboy however, doesn't look much different from the original dvd release, and there's a reason why. On the special features, they talk about how Park wanted the same colors and tones as the movie Seven. So they used a bleach bypass process on the actual film to get the desired look, sacrificing crystal clear picture quality as a result. So because of this, I can't exactly knock on the picture quality since this is how everything's -supposedto look. Think back to a movie like 28 Days Later where the grain and grittiness helps the moviewould you want to see it looking as sharp and clear as something like, say the recent Alice in Wonderland? Oldboy doesn't look horrible by any means, but it's easily the ugly one of the three. Still, it looks good, and it's not the transfer's fault. The grain and fuzz in some scenes is noticeable, but it doesn't ruin the experience at all.

As far as the audio goes, both Lady and Sympathy sound great, and get the finest treatment possible, while fitting everything onto a single blu-ray disc. Oldboy though, is the reason some people have the nerve to get this set, as a whole, 1 star. Yes, the HD 7.1 audio track isn't on here, though it's advertised on the tin box (yet, it's not listed on the back of Oldboy's box). What you get here instead is a standard 5.1 EX track in Korean, and while it's not as good as the 7.1 [that was on the first blu-ray release of Oldboy], it gets the job done. The publishers are actually working on a way to fix this still, so at least they're getting to it. I suspect though that it was taken out because of just how much you get for extras on the disc.

Here's where this set shines. Special features galore. If you missed out on the Ultimate Edition of Oldboy, you now have a second chance. EVERYTHING from that dvd box set, save for the comic and film strip, is here. Yes, even the three and a half hour documentary where you watch the movie get made. You get 3 commentaries, tons of interviews, extra segments with the cast/crew at Cannes, and more. There's so much to talk about here, and I don't have enough room in this review. If you want to know more details about the extras, go to my profile and click on the link there. Sympathy and Lady both get an ungodly amount of bonuses as well, all just as interesting as those on Oldboy. But the real show stopper here is the Fade To Black and White version of Lady Vengeance. If you've seen the movie, you'll already know the importance of that phrase, more or less, and now's your chance to see the movie go along with the main character. It works beautifully, though Park apparently wasn't happy with it. It's definitely worth watching after you see the movie normally.

I know I gave Oldboy more time than the others here, but if I had more room, I'd even things out. As it stands though, Oldboy remains my favorite of this trilogy, and I was most impressed with them bringing back the Ultimate Edition's extras here. Think about it this waythe Ultimate Edition of that movie alone ran for about the same price as this blu-ray set, and you're getting that AND two other movies equally loaded, on blu-ray. 'sounds like nothing but a bargain to me. Get this if you liked the movies at allit's the best blu-ray deal out there.

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I won't bother reviewing the films themselves here; at this point, if you're looking into buying the set, you're probably already a fan. If not, I highly recommend you rent the films first as these are definitely not for everyone. That being said, all of them are fantastic films. Oldboy in particular will likely be viewed years from now as being a masterpiece and the other two are great as well in their own right.

Let's start off with the elephant in the room: Oldboy. It's definitely the most popular and acclaimed film in the collection and, unfortunately, has the most maligned high-def presentation. Mainly, there are complaints that the picture quality is mediocre and that it's missing the 7.1 lossless audio from the original Blu-ray.

1. The picture quality is true to the source and to the director's own intentions. Park discusses the look of the film on the features; a different chemical process was used and the bleached color, hazy photography, heavy grain, etc was all part of how he wanted his film to look. In this regard, I can't imagine the film looking that much better in high definition (although I'd loved to be proved wrong someday). It will always be an "ugly" film and will never look perfect.

2. The audio itself is more problematic as this was an error on Tartan's part. Still, boycotting the set and/or waiting for a future re-release from Tartan will likely be a fruitless endeavor. There's an easy solution that requires minimal effort. Here's the situation: at the time of this writing they will, with proof of purchase, supply you with a FREE copy of the original Blu-ray AND two free DVDs of your choice from their library. This is a great deal. After talking to them, I got the replacement Blu-ray and the two DVDs in a matter of days. (Note: you should still keep the Blu-ray from this set as it contains an additional three-hour documentary not found on the initial edition).

You should still contact them beforehand just to see if the deal is still in place before you buy it. If not, then simply go to Amazon.ca and import Alliance's edition which is exactly the same as Tartan's and includes the missing 7.1 audio. They do not, however, include Tartan's booklet (which includes a series of essays written about the films).

How does the rest of the set stack up? For starters, the other two films look and sound great in high def, so there should be no complaints there.

In terms of special features, this set is packed with over twenty-four hours of supplementary content. As of this writing I've only really poured into Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance's features. Out of the entire set, this film has the least amount of extra content but I still managed to spend the greater part of the night watching them; not including the commentary track, all the featurettes combined tally up into a little less than two hours. Oldboy has the most exhaustive set of features of the set, including a daunting three and a half hour documentary on the production of the film. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance has hours of features as well. Of special note is the "fade to white" director-preferred cut of the film which was not available in the US prior.

Overall, it's really hard to see how this set could be improved. The films are great, the presentation is fantastic and the features are plentiful. The one real issue, the missing lossless audio, can easily be remedied by contacting Tartan for a replacement or by importing the Canadian set. Definitely recommended if you're at all a fan of Park's films.

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This set now comes in a basic cardboard box and no longer states audio for Oldboy containing a DTS-HD track like the other two films, but rather a DD-Ex 5.1 surround mix for the Korean track and DD 5.1 for the English track. Also no longer included is the 32 page booklet, though if you remove the near duplicate sheet of paper they pasted over the back of the set and compare the text on it to the original print, the booklet originally came with this cardboard set but must have later been removed. When I pulled this pasted copy off the box-set, a common white residue you get from cheap glue used on things that aren't intended to be peeled off remained over the small area where they had applied glue. I haven't tried to remove it lest I tackle the loathsome sticky residue that will greet me from beneath.

Of course, the films are what make this an excellent set and the quality and presentation of each film's transfer seem to all be very well done. In Oldboy's case the video quality is not as "clean" but this is due to the directors intentions (gritty, grainy, etc) rather than a fault in the transfer. My only complaint is how the subtitles on Oldboy seemed smaller than the rest of the films. The impressive three hour making of Oldboy covers some aspects of almost every scene: during, between, after takes... plus some party and airport bits. The other films include many bonus features including half-hour documentaries. There is at the very least a director commentary track to each film, with him sometimes appearing on multiple tracks with others this can get busy with subtitles but they somehow keep a readable pace most the time though when there are three people talking you may occasionally wonder which one pairs with the subs.