Decision to Leave
Composite Score: 82.6
Starring: Park Hae-il, Tang Wei, Lee Jung-hyun, Go Kyung-Pyo, Shin-Young Kim, Jung Young Sook, Seong-mok Yoo, Teo Yoo, Jeong Min Park, Seo Hyun-woo, Jeong Ha-dam, and Hak-joo Lee
Director: Park Chan-wook
Writers: Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung
Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Box Office: $22.77 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Decision to Leave is Park Chan-wook’s murder-mystery/romance film about a detective who falls for a suspect in a murder case. The film follows detective Jang Hae-joon’s investigation into the death of a mountain climber who fell from a high peak to his death and his growing obsession with the prime suspect (if the case truly is one of murder), Song Seo-rae, a beautiful Chinese immigrant who was married to the deceased older climber. As clues become clearer, the case becomes more muddled, leaving the audience and Hae-joon in suspense as to whether Seo-rae killed her husband and whether the two are actually going to end up together. The film’s writing and unique visual choices make it another success for writer/director Park Chan-wook, even if the Academy didn’t think so.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
As murder-mysteries and romances go, Decision to Leave is a fairly straightforward one, until it isn’t. On the one hand, you have a femme fatale/black widow character of sorts in the character of Seo-rae and you have a fairly talented but lovelorn detective in Hae-joon. The story that unfolds between them remains fairly by the numbers until the film’s third act, which takes the whole thing off the rails in many different directions. Ultimately, your enjoyment of the film will depend on how you perceive the tonal shift that takes place in that third act. If you can roll with the stretching of the story to the near melodramatic before bringing it home with an odd sense of catharsis, then you will love the film. If you prefer the more familiar murder-mystery and forbidden/doomed love tropes of the rest of the film, then you might find yourself a bit more put-off by the way Park decides to wrap things up. Either way, get ready for a ride.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Simple though the story may be, Decision to Leave is no less entertaining for that fact. The whodunnit nature of its first and second acts do a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat, dreading what new evidence might turn up. The procedural aspects draw the audience in with familiarity before pulling the rug out from under your expectations. Even the film’s more out there third act does a great job (in my opinion) of wrapping the whole thing up. Doing my best to avoid spoilers, the film does not offer answers to all of the audience’s questions by the time it’s all said and done, but the feelings that it does offer provide enough closure for the film’s convoluted plot.
Park Chan-wook’s enthralling murder-mystery/romance hybrid achieves greatness through its excellent storytelling that balances familiar with unfamiliar thanks to the director’s unique vision and the actors’ solid performances in making Decision to Leave as great as it is. Its “twist” in the third act might be off-putting for more conventional fans, but there’s no denying the impact of the film as a whole when you go to watch the whole thing. It is currently available to stream with a Mubi subscription or to rent on most streaming services if you’d like to watch it sometime soon.
