Decision to Leave (2022)

It’s already been about two weeks, I think, since I watched "Decision to Leave", so it’s not that fresh in my mind anymore + I don't have much inspiration either, but considering how rare blog posts have become, I think it deserves one. So let's get it over with quickly, I say.

It's not the easiest movie to fit into a genre, it has several. Enough of them, such that IMDb's list loses "romance" somewhere near the end, possibly unnoticed depending on your screen resolution. At least I didn't look that far, nor on the poster. Which somehow turned out to be a positive thing, since I usually tend to avoid them. I started from what I noticed = psychological thriller, but in the end, it's a romance — one that's quite different from the Western standard. The story starts with the discovery of the body of an amateur mountain climber at the foot of a peak. Between an accident and suicide, the police officer assigned to the case decides to investigate the hypothesis of a murder. And so we enter a cat-and-mouse game between him and the deceased's wife, between whom... there's something starting.

The movie is directed by Park Chan-wook—"Oldboy", The Vengeance Trilogy, "Thirst", and other R-rated titles—and this one is, in my opinion, the mildest among almost all his productions (what I left out is just another romance + his debut film, which has a fairly low rating). The two lead actors, Park Hae-il and Tang Wei, deliver two exceptional performances. Initially, I thought I was seeing them for the first time, but it seems he had a supporting role in Bong Joon Ho's "Memories of Murder", while I had seen her in Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution". But either my memory is failing me lately... or they weren't anywhere near the level we find here. Anyway, that was in some other times... But besides the acting, where there's always a degree of subjectivism, what is remarkable here is the editing. We have some very original transitions, which are presumably meant to emphasize some meaning even further, but I'd need another viewing to be more convinced of that. Last but not least, the screenplay and obviously the direction bring a well dosed comic relief, especially in the first part, followed by alternating contrasts from a cold feeling to something much warmer that make the final stretch very intense. Speaking of which...

We have two halves of the film (naturally, it's not like there were going to be three...) where the ending of the first part is predictable, I'd say. Even so, I'll refrain from spoilers. The final ending might not be as predictable, but in a way, it was perhaps a bit too much. I can understand it, but I think I would have preferred something else. There are ways and ways to leave... and that's not a spoiler, since it's in the title ;)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5