Have you ever done anything to provoke anyone?
In 2002, South Korean director Chan-wook Park kicked off what became known as "The Vengeance Trilogy" with the aptly titled Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which goes out of its way to establish why not just one, but two gentlemen would have cause to seek revenge against those who have wronged them. On one side there's deaf-mute factory worker Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin), who works double shifts so he can earn enough money to pay for the kidney transplant his sister (Ji-Eun Lim) desperately needs. After Ryu gets duped by black market organ dealers -- who not only take his savings, but also one of his kidneys -- and a legitimate organ suddenly becomes available, his activist friend Cha (Doona Bae) convinces him that a kidnapping is only way to replace the astronomical sum he needs. Their target? The daughter of his boss, company president Park (Kang-ho Song), who is understandably aggrieved when the kidnapping goes wrong (as kidnappings are wont to do).
With nothing left to lose, Ryu decides to track down the black marketeers who ripped him off while Park doggedly pursues him and Cha, setting in motion the chain of events that will eventually undo all of them. Of course, he has no way of knowing that, but it's hard to know what the consequences of your actions will be in the heat of the moment. If Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance has a message, it is that no matter how righteous your cause may seem (or how satisfying it may be in the short term), revenge-seeking always has a way of biting you in the ass.