When a beloved family member is murdered in cold blood overnight, there is devastatingly little the surviving family can proactively do in reality. From the cold investigation process to the lengthy trial, their only permitted right is to watch the entire process from the position of a helpless observer. What is even more despairing is that even when it finally reaches the stage of standing in court and receiving punishment, the absurd situation frequently occurs where the appropriate sentence is significantly reduced simply because the perpetrator shows a reflective attitude before the judge.
This so-called "sincere reflection" as a reason for sentence reduction is one of the biggest causes that makes the blood of the bereaved families boil backward. Despite the fact that no one can truly know if they are sincerely repenting, the bitter reality of our judicial system is that a few pages of written apologies submitted to the court, combined with the mechanical condition of being a first-time offender, make them subject to extenuating circumstances. If the perpetrator receives a slap on the wrist even when the crime was a completely unprovoked, random murder, the anger and resentment the victim's family must endure are so massive and deep that no words can describe them.
No matter how much they scream, plead their unfairness, and cause a commotion in the courtroom, very little changes through the voices of the victim's family within the already solidified judgment of the court and the boundaries of the law. The law sometimes seems to operate much more flexibly and elastically in the face of the perpetrator's human rights than the victim's tears. Ultimately, the surviving blood relatives of the unfairly lost victim have no other choice but to swallow their pent-up rage alone and struggle through the rest of their lives. Because this social indignation and distrust in the system are so deeply rooted, narratives offering vicarious satisfaction are explosively increasing in recent literature, dramas, and movies.
Private vigilantism is, in itself, strictly an illegal act and merely another crime in a modern nation governed by the rule of law. Nevertheless, the reason why so many people enthusiastically support private sanctions on screen and passionately cheer for the protagonists of revenge dramas is a painful counter-proof that the real-life judicial system is failing to properly implement justice. The movie A Trip to Gyeongju brings this absurdity of reality and the boiling thirst for revenge of the bereaved family to the forefront, densely depicting a desperate and chilling story of a family taking up the blade of private vigilantism against a perpetrator the law failed to condemn.
The movie's title, A Trip to Gyeongju, outwardly evokes a very peaceful and lyrical family vacation, but hidden beneath it is the exact opposite, terrifying purpose of a gruesome blood revenge. To avenge their unfairly murdered youngest daughter, they devise a horrifying plan to personally kidnap and eliminate the perpetrator. Generally, if an untoward incident happens to the perpetrator of a murder case after their release from prison, the victim's family, holding a grudge, is inevitably placed first on the police's suspect list. To avoid the police investigation network and build a perfect alibi, this family thoroughly disguises their actions as an ordinary "Gyeongju trip" and meticulously begins to put their cruel execution into practice.
The background behind this family making such an extreme choice lies in the desperate tragedy left by the incompetence of the judicial system. When the father, despairing over the unfair death of his youngest daughter and the slap-on-the-wrist verdict, ends his own life by suicide, the surviving mother, Lee Ok-sil (played by Lee Jung-eun), meticulously plans a fierce revenge that no one could have imagined. To drag the target of her revenge out into the world, she demonstrates bone-crushing patience, even writing a fake petition pleading to reduce the perpetrator's sentence. Finally, on the day the criminal is released, the mother and her three daughters—eldest daughter Yoon Jang-joo (Gong Hyo-jin), second daughter Yoon Young-joo (Park So-dam), and youngest daughter Yoon Dong-joo (Lee Yeon)—knock the perpetrator unconscious, toss him into an old van like luggage, and head to their destination of revenge, Gyeongju.
Grabbing a secluded pension in Gyeongju completely cut off from people as their hideout, the four women intend to quietly carry out the deed there. However, instead of the fast-paced development typical of action thrillers, the narrative undergoes an emotional delay as they try to force meaning onto the perpetrator and extract repentance for the pain they suffered. Their hesitation, attempting emotional resolution instead of quickly cutting off his breath, ultimately buys fatal time for the murderer Baek Sang-hyun (Byun Yo-han) to wake up from the anesthesia and counterattack. No matter how much four healthy women band together to attack, physically subduing a grown man who wakes up fighting with survival instincts foreshadows a struggle that is realistically never easy.
To cinematically overcome this physical gap in strength and grant plausibility to the narrative, the film cleverly inserts an interesting character setup: the third daughter, Yoon Dong-joo, is a sturdy "pro wrestler." Even amidst the solemnity of a revenge drama that could easily flow endlessly dark and heavy, the play appropriately scatters somewhat bright and comedic elements through the characters' eccentric charms and unexpected syncopations, flexibly releasing the audience's tension. However, from the middle half onwards, as the murderer breaks free from his bindings and the tide turns, it transitions into a full-scale, desperate game of cat-and-mouse survival between the perpetrator and the victim's family, excellently delivering breathtaking tension and genre thrills.
The deepest question penetrating the work is a fundamental skepticism: "Will completing the revenge truly and fully save the hellish hearts of those left behind?" Just like Lee Ok-sil's scream in the play that an uncontrollable fire is breaking out and blood is boiling inside, the victims blindly believe that they can only regain the peace of their daily lives if they end this pain, even by tearing the perpetrator apart with their own hands. However, there is no guarantee anywhere in the world that true peace of mind awaits at the end of a blood-stained revenge. Nevertheless, to those trapped in a swamp of despair that cannot be healed no matter how hard they try, the edge-of-the-cliff psychology that they have no choice but to make a decision, even if it means destroying their own souls, approaches with a painful resonance.
What multi-dimensionally elevates these heavy and complex emotional lines is undeniably the overwhelming acting skills of the renowned actors who breathed life into the characters without a single flaw. Byun Yo-han, who willingly joined the project with zero guarantee, completely sheds his previous gentle image and terrifyingly portrays the bare face of a chilling murderer, while the ensemble of the daughters also demonstrates excellent synergy. Above all, Lee Jung-eun's deep gaze acting, heavily holding the center of the play while simultaneously spewing explosive maternal love and inner hell, thoroughly pierces the audience's heart and leaves a deep lingering resonance. After all the bloody deeds are done, the poignant question of whether Lee Ok-sil's empty heart achieved the peace she so desperately desired, or whether she remains trapped in a heavy abyss due to the weight of revenge, hovers long after the movie ends.
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