CIFF 2022 | ‘Decision to Leave’ review: Masterful Hitchcockian neo-noir from Korea’s finest
With far less violence and far more sentimentality than usual, “Decision to Leave” finds Park Chan-wook in a reflective mood.
Park Hae-il and Tang Wei in “Decision to Leave.” Photo courtesy of MUBI.
“It’s not that I can’t sleep because of stakeouts. It’s because I don’t sleep that I do stakeouts.”
With that snappy, hard-boiled line, audiences are introduced to the protagonist of “Decision to Leave,” the Mubi-affiliated new outing from acclaimed auteur Park Chan-wook. Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) is a Korean Will Graham; a chronically insomniac gumshoe detective dedicated to the thorough reconstruction of criminal acts to crack some of his precinct’s toughest cases. His wife, sassy sharp-tongued nuclear power plant operator Jeong-ahn (Lee Jung-hyun), is the perfect counterpart for Hae-joon’s brooding, no-nonsense mannerisms. To the outside observer, he is a man who should want for nothing.
In classic neo-noir fashion, Hae-joon is soon confronted with a case that may make or break him. Seo-rae (Tang Wei), a young, attractive widow, is called into the station one day; the lead suspect in the death of her wealthy husband. Formerly an illegal Chinese immigrant, Seo-rae has only managed to stay in Korea under extraordinary circumstances — her grandfather was a general in the Korean Liberation Army of Manchuria — and is very much still a stranger in a strange land, being unable to have full conversations in Korean without the aid of a translation app. As he begins to investigate her possible involvement in her husband’s death, Hae-joon finds himself wrestling against his attraction to her, and ends up making some critical choices that will ripple through his life for years to come.
What is clear from the outset is that “Decision to Leave” is very much unlike any of Park Chan-wook’s other films, having none of the edge that “Oldboy” or “The Handmaiden” had, and not nearly as much of the tension that “Stoker” built. Instead, “Decision to Leave” is a far more sentimental offering, swapping out blood, guts and revenge for date montages and a dedicated comic relief character in the form of a young cop wielding a portable massage machine. Hae-joon is far closer to being Mr. Darcy than Mr. Vengeance, opening up his heart (and his case files) to Seo-rae and smiling goofily at his phone whenever she so much as texts him.
But then, like a rubber band snapping back to its original position, a shocking revelation pulls Hae-joon — and viewers, who will undoubtedly be riveted by now — back into mystery and intrigue. As those familiar with Park’s work would expect, the tension ratchets up (in moments reminiscent of both Andrew Lau’s “Infernal Affairs” and Lee Chang-dong’s “Burning”) masterfully. What is less familiar is the way the lovers are finally torn apart — not with a bang, but a uselessly melodramatic whimper, in defiance against a plot twist that anyone could see coming a mile away.
And then it all happens again, thirteen months later.
The second half of “Decision to Leave” is far superior to the first, given that the film takes an unnecessarily long time to set its characters up. But when we return to Hae-joon and Seo-rae, we find that the tables have turned for both of them. Seo-rae, once a seasoned predator of men, finds that she is now prey as her new husband finds himself entangled in business with some very dangerous people. Meanwhile, Hae-joon, once a hotshot detective with years of experience behind him in Seoul, is now a new recruit in the sleepy seaside town of Ipo, where he has moved to be with his wife. His relative newness to the area means that his colleagues doubt his every decision, logical or not, and he is often left starving for any action anyway. In Ipo, the theft of soft-shell turtles from the town community centre might as well be the heist of the century. That is, until Seo-rae moves to Ipo, and her husband turns up dead… again.
This time, Hae-joon is cynical, and armed with a new take-no-prisoners approach to his police work. As Seo-rae remains inscrutable, he begins to sink into anguish, and this time, the consequences of their passion for each other are devastating. While the transition between the film’s distinct halves is barely tied together by a strange and not entirely sensical sequence of events, it is Park Hae-il and Tang Wei’s onscreen gravitas that continues to draw audiences in, even when the film makes the least sense. Tang Wei, in particular, is well-versed in the art of playing the femme fatale in Asian neo-noirs — having previously starred in Bi Gan’s critically acclaimed “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and Ang Lee’s seminal “Lust, Caution” — and her skills do “Decision to Leave” a world of good in its worst moments.
The most consistent factor about “Decision to Leave” is that every frame is marvellous to behold. A crime scene reconstruction sequence blesses us with some tight, claustrophobic camera pans, illuminated set-pieces meticulously assembled as if for a stage play, and, without saying too much, a scene whose dizzying cinematography could give “Free Solo” a run for its money. Unlike most other directors out there, Park also knows exactly when to utilise shaky-cam techniques; deploying them to great effect as Hae-joon spies on Seo-rae with barely concealed lust; all roving hands and panting breaths within the safety of his car. And of course, I would be remiss not to applaud Park’s unique commitment to the art of the mise-en-scène, returning to his trademark of framing visual double entendres against landscapes or patterned wallpaper that evoke classical Korean tapestries. The latter’s motifs of mountains and sea also slyly hints at the narrative path that Park and his fellow screenwriter Chung Seo-kyung decide on for the film — just like in the creation myths of old, the mountains and the sea yearn for each other, but can never truly be together.
“You’re wasting away! You need murder and violence to be happy!” cries Jeong-ahn around the film’s halfway mark, as she notices that her husband has grown lifeless and sallow despite their move to one of the most picturesque villages in all of Korea. Viewers who have enjoyed other entries in Park’s filmography might be immediately struck by the question, as I was. I had spent the entire first half of “Decision to Leave” waiting for the film to snap; to unleash a torrent of violence as in his “Vengeance” trilogy, or to at least involve a lot more visceral psychosexual interludes, as with “The Handmaiden.” But Jeong-ahn’s exclamation makes it very clear that “Decision to Leave” is not standard Park Chan-wook fare. Rather, it is the product of Park’s own reflections on his career; on his status as the director whose neon-tinged hyperviolence spawned filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn and Chad Stahelski; on the way that his use of violence as a lens through which to see the world somehow became inseparable from the modern audience’s need for glory and gore on the silver screen.
“Decision to Leave” is a welcome reminder that Park’s modus operandi was never violence for violence’s sake. It was always, and probably will always be, merely a device through which to tell tales about the visceral nature of love and humanity. And thus “Decision to Leave” cements itself as the big, beating heart of Park’s filmography; the very reason he makes films at all.
