Ultimate Revenge Spoilers!
Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host, David, and we are about to spoil ALL of the movies we just talked about in our “Ultimate Revenge!” episode.
I will be giving you all of the details that I had to spare earlier in case you hadn’t seen the film or wanted to see it without knowing details.
I mentioned the scoresheet we created, and I’ll remind you of the categories:
Avenger
Who are we avenging?
Bad Guys
Helper
Revenge Kill Count
Here come the SPOILERS!
Nevada Smith (1966)
AP/128 m/IMDb: 6.9/directed by Henry Hathaway
IMDb: “A half-Native American/half-Caucasian young man evolves into a hardened killer as he tracks down the men who murdered his parents.”
I mentioned Nevada Smith being willing to play the long game, well he gets sent to a prison camp for two years of hard labor to get close to one of his targets and even befriends him and helps him escape…before KILLING HIM!
Susan Pleshette is in this as Pilar, a young woman who helps Smith, but is bitten by a poisonous snake and dies.
Max gets to hear, “Get it over with! Finish me!” which has to be satisfying for someone hell bent on revenge.
He ends up killing two of the three men who murdered his parents, and when he catches up to the third, Tom Fitch (played by an evil Karl Malden), Max shoots him in the hand and both knees and leaves him in the desert after mentioning that Fitch, “isn’t worth killin.”
Love that.
Final “Revenge Kill Count”: 2
Hang ‘Em High (1968)
AP/114 m/IMDb: 7.0/directed by Ted Post
IMDb: “When an innocent man barely survives being lynched by a mob of vigilantes seeking justice for a rancher who was murdered, he returns as a lawman determined to bring the errant vigilantes to justice.”
Interestingly enough, Eastwood’s Marshall Jed Cooper decides to take the justice route with most of the 9 people he’s hunting down for trying to murder him.
Duffy from “F-Troop” turns himself in, Cooper arrests the Skipper, Bruce Dern and two others are brought in and hanged after a trial, and Ed Begley hangs HIMSELF!
Side note about the trio hanged by the sheriff: this film earns the “Noose on the Side” BONUS!
Whenever you see a movie and the noose is behind, they didn’t do their homework.
The proper placement is on the side.
I know this because I read a book about the history of executions.
So, Cooper takes the justice route for his revenge as opposed to the murder route, but…
Revenge Kill Count: 3
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968: Italy)
PG-13/145 m/IMDb: 8.5/directed by Sergio Leone
IMDb: “A mysterious stranger with a harmonica teams up with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow and her land from a ruthless assassin in the employ of a railroad tycoon.”
The reveal as to why Harmonica is looking for the bad guys and why he’s known only as Harmonica comes with 18 minutes to go in the movie.
As a young boy, his older brother is propped up on his shoulders. There is a noose around his brother’s neck, so when the little brother collapses, the older brother is hanged.
The kicker is when Henry Fonda sticks the harmonica in the young boy’s mouth as he struggles to breathe.
Cold blooded.
”WHO ARE YOU?!?!” Bonus!: 6
Revenge Kill Count: 7 including Frank (in the final duel)
Point Blank (1967)
AP/92 m/IMDb: 7.2/directed by John Boorman
IMDb: “After being double-crossed and left for dead, a mysterious man named Walker single-mindedly tries to retrieve the money that was stolen from him.”
Walker’s helper is played by Angie Dickinson who later starred in “Police Woman” on NBC.
Walker’s Revenge Kill Count: 0 (amazing! The only 0 on the list!)
He’s around a bunch of guys who get killed, and he sets up or causes them to be killed, but he actually doesn’t kill anyone.
And he doesn’t get his 93k back either, which is a bummer.
He is offered the money by the head of “The Corporation” in a courtyard, but he refuses to be seen or come into the light.
Very smart, actually.
Death Wish (1974)
R/93 m/IMDb: 6.9/directed by Michael Winner
IMDb: “A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife and daughter are murdered by street punks. In self-defense, the vengeful man kills muggers on the mean streets after dark.”
After he kills his first mugger to avenge the attack on his family, Paul Kersey is sick, and feels awful, but then that goes away after a short while.
Kersey’s final Revenge Kill Count (in THIS Death Wish) is 11, and NONE of them are part of the gang that attacked his wife and daughter, so this revenge is on the “random” side.
Kersey’s wife dies in the attack, and his daughter ends up in a vegetative state.
At the end of the film, the police know it’s Kersey, but they don’t prosecute him because the crime rate has gone down.
He is “encouraged” to relocate, and he does just that.
Just in time for sequels!!
Ms. 45 (1981)
R/80 m/IMDb: 6.8/directed by Abel Ferrara
IMDb: “After being attacked and raped twice in one day, a timid, mute seamstress goes insane, takes to the streets of New York City after dark, and randomly shoots men with a .45 caliber pistol.”
Our protagonist, Thana, fights back and kills her second attacker, which is how she acquires the .45 caliber handgun.
Thana is in it from the start, since she dismembers that second attacker, freezes his parts, and then randomly scatters the bits in shopping bags all around the city.
Dressed as a nun for the climactic massacre scene, Thana ends up with a Revenge Kill Count of 20 (all men, all deserved).
The Limey (1999)
R/89 m/IMDb: 6.9/directed by Steven Soderbergh
IMDb: “An extremely volatile and dangerous Englishman goes to Los Angeles to find the man he considers responsible for his daughter’s death.”
I had Wilson with a Revenge Kill Count of 6, although the iconic sequence when he goes into a warehouse blasting and comes out splattered with blood yelling “Tell him I’m coming!” has us on the outside for all of that shooting, so it’s hard to tell how many he took out.
Wilson does throw one of Valentine’s goons off of a balcony, but he spares Valentine at the end.
Soderbergh likes the curve balls.
The final scene suggested a sequel may have been in the works, but that never materialized.
John Wick (2014)
R/101 m/IMDb: 7.5/directed by Chad Stahelski
IMDb: “John Wick is a former hitman grieving the loss of his true love. When his home is broken into, robbed, and his dog killed, he is forced to return to action to exact revenge.”
As I mentioned, not much to spoil with this one.
John definitely carries out his revenge on the grand scale. I had a Revenge Kill Count of 70, and the Interwebs said it was 77, so I was close.
It’s difficult to count when he’s killing people so fast.
Gotta love some of the dialogue written for the old Russian mobster;
“Well, John wasn’t exactly the boogeyman. He was the one you sent to kill the fucking boogeyman.”
“I once saw him kill three men in a bar…with a pencil…with a fucking pencil.”
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005: South Korea)
R/105 m/IMDb: 7.5/directed by Park Chan-wook
IMDb: “After being wrongfully imprisoned for 13 years and having her child taken away from her, a woman seeks revenge through increasingly brutal means.”
So I teased with a mention of Freddy Kreuger, and here’s the connection.
When Lee Geum-ja tracks down Mr. Baek, the man responsible for her situation along with the murders of several children, she imprisons him in an abandoned school.
She then gathers families of the children Mr. Baek killed and SHOWS THEM VIDEOS Baek took showing him murdering their children!
It is pretty clear what these parents intend on doing, but not all of them are on board, and there is some discussion regarding procedure.
There’s even a discussion of the “order” in which they’ll go in to “visit” Mr. Baek!
One man is shown putting together a pretty big ax when he is reminded that he isn’t going last.
Those taking part then don American Psycho type raincoats and arm themselves for their “turn” with Mr. Baek.
It goes pretty much the way you’d think it would go in this situation, and the grandmother of one of the murdered children stabs what’s left of Mr. Baek in the back of the neck with a pair of scissors.
Before they bury him, Lee Geum-ja shoots him in the head with her custom-made double-barreled pistol.
Lee Geum-ja is reunited with her now adult daughter, but, and this is important because everyone on this list is different, her vengeance did NOT bring her true peace or redemption.
So, this revenge thing doesn’t always work out the way you draw it up on the blackboard.
I Saw the Devil (2010: South Korea)
NR/144 m/IMDb: 7.8/directed by Kim Jee-woon
IMDb: “A secret agent exacts revenge on a serial killer through a series of captures and releases.”
Secret Agent Soo-hyeon is avenging his murdered pregnant girlfriend and catches the man who did it, Jang Kyung-chul.
Instead of bringing him to justice, he plays with him by capturing and releasing him on THREE separate occasions.
There are beatings, there is torture, there is the tracking device introduced without Jang’s knowledge, there is the cutting of an Achilles tendon as well.
These three South Korean entries on this list are NOT for the faint of heart.
The cherry on top of this one comes when Jang Kyung-chul is captured and restrained in his very own house.
Soo-hyeon rigs up a guillotine that will decapitate Jang Kyung-chul when a door is opened.
Jang Kyung-chul is keeping the blade out of harm’s way by a bit and wire clenched between his teeth.
When the door is opened, that bit comes out, and the blade comes down.
And that is exactly what happens when Jang Kyung-chul’s father and young son open the door, triggering the decapitation.
For them to witness, of course.
And that leaves us with Oldboy.
Oldboy (2003: South Korea)
R/120 m/IMDb: 8.3/directed by Park Chan-wook
IMDb: “After being kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, Dae-Su Oh is released, only to find that he must track down his captor in five days.”
Talk about the long game. Oldboy is a prime example of being patient in order to get even.
First of all, the man who was imprisoned for 15 years is NOT the person seeking revenge in this movie, the man who put him there is out for revenge!
Dae-su Oh is the man who was kidnapped.
Lee Woo-jin is the man who kidnapped him and imprisoned him for 15 years, and that’s really only the tip of the revenge iceberg.
As schoolmates, Dae-su Oh spread rumors at school about Lee Woo-jin and his sister having an incestuous relationship.
The rumor (which may not have been all rumor) spread like wildfire shaming the family and ruining the reputation of the sister who then kills herself.
So, for revenge, Lee Woo-jin kidnaps Dae-su Oh and imprisons him for 15 years.
BUT that is not all.
Not by a longshot.
While in captivity, Dae-su Oh is unknowingly hypnotized by Lee Woo-jin as is a young girl (not imprisoned).
When Dae-su Oh is released, he is given a wallet full of money by a stranger. This helps trigger what was suggested in the hypnosis sessions and it leads Dae-su Oh to a specific restaurant where he meets the young girl Lee Woo-jin also hypnotized.
Dae-su Oh is, of course, anxious for revenge of his own and he tells his story to the young girl whose name is Mi-Do.
The two become close and work together to solve the mystery of who imprisoned Dae-su Oh.
Mi-Do and Dae-su Oh then begin a torrid sexual relationship which was most likely part of the hypnosis sessions as well.
Here’s the rest.
The couple figure out who the captor was and track him down.
Lee Woo-jin is all like, you remember me, don’t you?! This is what you did, etc.
Lee Woo-jin leaves Dae-su Oh alone with a box and then goes into an elevator and shoots himself!
He knows he got his revenge, and he doesn’t need to hang around to see it.
When Dae-su Oh opens the box he finds a scrapbook full of pictures.
The first picture is of Dae-su Oh, his wife, and his baby daughter.
As he turns the pages, we see more family pictures as everyone is getting older.
Then there are just pictures of the little girl as she grows up and becomes a young woman.
Then there are pictures of Dae-su Oh and the girl.
Current pictures.
Of them together.
In bed.
Mi-Do is Dae-su Oh’s daughter.
Once you realize that, you kind of have this moment in which you say to yourself, “What am I supposed to do now?”
Now that this film has done this to me, where do I go from here? How do I move on with my life? How do I put this behind me?
Well, Dae-su Oh was thinking the same thing, and he goes back to the hypnotist for a kind of “Eternal Sunshine Cleaning” as it were.
At the very end we see him meeting up with Mi-Do again and embracing her.
You think the hypnosis worked until the director moves closer and we see in Dae-su Oh’s tearful eyes that he still remembers.
Told you that was going to be rough!
Well, that is a wrap from here at Cinema Wellman as we spoiled the 11 movies we just told you about.
We hope you’re with us again next time for our Cinema Wellman Goes Back to School episode where we’ll look at the best movies set in elementary, middle, and high school!
As Grandma Lou would say, “School tomorrow!”
Until then, take care.
