Park Chan-wook’s newest work, “Decision to Leave,” is a love story out and out, introduced in a gorgeous bundle of thriller and drama. The plot of the movie offers with a police detective, Jang Hae-joon’s struggles with insomnia, his utter boredom at any time when there isn’t any robust case, after which his rising romantic curiosity in one of many lead suspects in a homicide case. “Decision to Leave” calls for the endurance of viewers and doesn’t present any simple linear answer even on the finish, however it’s notably this type that the movie makes a speciality of, and it’s the emotional weight that in the end pays off.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Decision to Leave’ Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?
The greatest drive-in police detective Jang Hae-joon’s life is to unravel homicide circumstances and put the perpetrators in jail, even when which means basically spending his days alone. His spouse Jeong-ahn lives in an outskirt metropolis as a part of her job at a nuclear energy plant, and she or he needs Hae-joon to stick with her too, however the detective prefers to remain in the principle metropolis solely as a result of the crime charge is greater there. An fascinating case of demise quickly occurs when a middle-aged man is discovered useless on the foot of a small hill that’s well-liked as a climbing spot. Although at first look, the person does appear to have fallen by chance from the cliff above, the truth that he was an everyday climber who would even make YouTube movies of his passion makes authorities suspicious. After all, the person might have very nicely been pushed from the cliff to his demise, and that’s the place Hae-joon and his companion Soo-wan start their investigation. The deceased man’s solely dwelling relative occurs to be his comparatively youthful spouse, Song Seo-rae, and there appears one thing odd about her from the second she involves the police station after being referred to as. Seo-rae explains, quite a lot of occasions, in reality, that she doesn’t converse or perceive Korean a lot as she is of Chinese origin, however her expertise with the native language appear higher than she proclaims. Her husband labored as an immigration officer of types and had helped Seo-rae quiet down within the nation when she had come over from China. Gradually extra essential particulars begin to emerge when Seo-rae admits to Hae-joon that her husband used to bodily assault her each time they’d an argument, and so they had not too long ago had such an argument when she requested him to not go climbing. Scratch marks on the spouse’s arms are additionally discovered to match her husband’s DNA, and the spouse says that these had been from her effort to cease him from hitting her. But there nonetheless appears to be a shroud of thriller about Seo-rae’s account, and maybe it’s this thriller that attracts Hae-joon nearer to her personally. As Seo-rae appears to be the suspect increasingly, Hae-joon grows extra hooked up to the girl.
What Does Hae-Joon Gradually Discover About Seo-Rae Through His Investigation?
Hae-joon begins his investigation, which quickly turns into solely a method for him to observe Seo-rae round and discover out extra about her. The lady retains herself busy by volunteering as a caregiver for the aged, going to totally different aged sufferers’ homes on totally different days of the week, and spending high quality time with them. This job of hers gives an preliminary alibi for her, as she is recorded within the safety digicam footage of the home of an outdated girl that she visits each Monday, each coming into and leaving the place after the top of her shift. The climber had died in some unspecified time in the future between this and now, and Seo-rae needs to be dominated out as a suspect. However, Hae-joon doesn’t surrender on his pursuit of the girl, though this pursuit is just not actually one wherein he straight approaches her. Instead, he watches her from the shadows, fairly actually, as he makes it his behavior to keep watch over Seo-rae’s condo each evening. This quickly develops into the bizarre however extraordinarily sensual and palpable love story that “Decision to Leave” is all about, and Seo-rae, too, falls for the detective who suspects her of being a assassin. The two regularly attain out to one another as they exit across the metropolis collectively, and Seo-rae even needs to assist Hae-joon together with his unexplainable insomnia. The detective brings Seo-rae to his metropolis condo in the future and reveals her a wall filled with particulars and images from circumstances he has been unable to unravel but, and the girl believes this to be the rationale why Hae-joon can not sleep at evening. She fastidiously takes down all the pictures of the case of her husband’s mysterious demise and burns them. Although this might have been perceived as a suspicious act, Hae-joon was probably previous these sensibilities on the time, and he additionally wholeheartedly believes no matter his lover tells him. It is certainly this illegal, virtually sinful high quality of the relation—the thought behind the thoughts that no police detective ought to fall in love together with his lead homicide suspect—that makes this movie all of the extra intense and worthwhile. Their love can be uncommon due to the shortage of any physicality in any respect; they don’t even kiss till simply as soon as, a lot in a while, and but there’s sexual rigidity felt each time that the 2 share the display. It is sort of like Hae-joon can not maintain himself in test as Seo-rae tries to place him to sleep, and their rhythmic respiration enhances the silence of the room. But such feelings are sure to let one down, and Hae-joon’s realization comes when he gives to go to one of many aged instead of Seo-rae when she will get busy with one other one admitted to a hospital.
Hae-joon by the way visits the identical outdated lady who Seo-rae visits on Mondays and in addition coincidentally comes throughout a health app on the girl’s telephone, which reveals a transparent report of an distinctive variety of 138 steps on a selected day. This element stands proud like a sore thumb, each as a result of the outdated lady is unable to stroll in any respect and in addition on account of the truth that she makes use of the very same smartphone as Seo-rae. A suspicion grows within the detective’s thoughts, and he appears into your entire matter, trying out all the chances and situations, and by the top of it, he’s left extraordinarily disillusioned by the outcome. Seo-rae had certainly slipped out of the girl’s home utilizing the backdoor, which was not coated by any safety cameras, traveled the brief distance in direction of the hill by bus, and had then climbed the height too, virtually across the identical time that her husband was doing so. After having reached the highest from the opposite facet than her husband, she had been the one to push the person right down to his demise. His last-minute makes an attempt to understand on to one thing had brought on the scratches on Seo-rae’s arms, proper earlier than his fall, and the rationale her arms had been robust and hardened (which she had earlier claimed to be on account of family and aged care chores) is that she had used ropes and cables to climb the hill. Hae-joon quickly confronts Seo-rae about all of this, however it’s not anger or frustration that he expresses; he’s quite disillusioned by the girl. He needs that she had trusted the police some extra and had referred to as within the police quite than killing her husband, which she had performed due to his possessive and poisonous nature and since he had additionally threatened to deport her again to China if she didn’t act on his needs. The husband was a corrupt official in any case, as he used to take bribes from frequent individuals to grant them entry into the nation, and all this was revealed in a blackmail letter and suicide be aware present in his room, each of which had been solid by Seo-rae. The lady had additionally recognized that her telephone can be intensely checked by the police, and this was the rationale she had used the outdated lady’s telephone for the act earlier than once more returning to her home and exchanging it. At current, Hae-joon asks Seo-rae to destroy this telephone because it incorporates all of the proof to incriminate her, and this marks an act of actual love from his facet. Seo-rae data the phrases on her private telephone as a scene of heightened feelings play out, however the two disintegrate after this, and Hae-joon takes a switch from town.
Thirteen months move and Hae-joon now lives in Lipo together with his spouse, and he serves as a police detective on this comparatively innocent small city. The man has a tricky time dwelling with the drab and boring lack of crimes within the place, as the one crimes that happen listed below are petty thefts. One day, whereas out on the native fish market together with his spouse, Hae-joon instantly sees Seo-rae, alongside along with her new husband, Ho-sin, and the 2 {couples} make introductions to one another. Jeong-ahn is fast to note her husband misplaced in thought when Seo-rae and rightly suspects some previous between the 2, whereas Ho-sin, a inventory market analyst by career, himself offers Jeong-ahn his contact particulars. There is certainly one thing off with this new husband of Seo-rae’s, and shortly sufficient, the person is discovered useless within the swimming pool of his personal luxurious home. Hae-joon is bound that it’s undoubtedly his lover’s act this time too, and on their very first assembly after the incident, he asks her why she had killed her husband this time. There are additionally numerous occasions when Hae-joon asks her why she married this man or why she moved to Lipo, however no passable reply is ever given. There is a way of rashness with regard to the love of those two characters, and a chance like Seo-rae shifting to Lipo along with her new husband solely to offer her lover a tricky case to work on can be not as absurd because it sounds. A scene reveals Seo-rae cleansing the swimming pool of her home, which was filled with her husband’s blood, proper earlier than calling the police to the scene. While this is perhaps to take away proof of some type, that is additionally most likely as a result of Hae-joon had earlier informed her about how he was repulsed by crime scenes with quite a lot of blood due to the stench. It is sort of like Seo-rae is getting ready a much less disagreeable crime scene for her lover, who’s about to reach. At this time, she additionally sees Ho-sin as being alive, however whether or not she herself finishes him off or waits for him to die is unclear. As it seems, Ho-sin was additionally a corrupt particular person who had taken cash from many individuals and was not in a state to repay them. One of those collectors, Sa Cheol-seong, occurred to be the chief of a legal gang, and he had not too long ago threatened motion towards the couple, too, because the man’s mom was affected by a severe sickness, and he wanted the cash to get her remedy performed.
In the meantime, Seo-rae is put underneath emergency arrest for a while, and a polygraph take a look at is completed on her too, however she appears to be let off when nothing incriminating is discovered within the take a look at. As quickly as Cheol-seong is picked up, he confesses to the homicide and is put behind bars. But as soon as once more, Hae-joon refuses to surrender his seek for Seo-rae, and audio logs recorded on her smartwatch are checked for any new info. Around the identical time, Seo-rae asks the detective to fulfill her at a distant location, and right here she now professes her love for him, though the precise phrases usually used to take action usually are not used. She now offers Hae-joon the outdated smartphone from the earlier case and asks him to re-open the investigation, and the 2 share an intense kiss for the one time within the movie. Their longing to be collectively and unite lastly appears to be fulfilled, however this additionally maybe makes approach for an imminent fallout too. A name positioned from Ho-sin’s quantity to Jeong-ahn’s telephone has confused individuals for a while now, and when Ho-sin’s telephone is recovered from the ocean (Seo-rae had thrown it there), it’s seen that he had certainly made this name. Text messages now reveal that he was threatening Seo-rae, saying that he would reveal her secret affair with police detective Hae-joon to his spouse, and this was the rationale why Ho-sin had referred to as Jeong-ahn, however she had missed the decision. As proof of their affair, Ho-sin says he would current a voice clip of the time when Hae-joon professed his love for Seo-rae. By this time, Jeong-ahn additionally leaves Hae-joon, as she suspects that he may need killed the person, as she already suspected him to have had an affair with Seo-rae. Pieces lastly begin to fall into place, and the detective finds out that Seo-rae had certainly not killed her second husband, no less than straight, however had as a substitute killed the ailing mom of Cheol-seong. She was certain this demise would make the gangster kill Ho-sin, and that is what adopted, and the key about their love affair basically died with Ho-sin.
‘Decision To Leave’ Ending Explained: What Happens To Seo-Rae And Hae-Joon At The End?
Hae-joon goes on the lookout for Seo-rae and makes use of an app utilized by Cheol-seong to trace her location and observe her. Seo-rae drives to the seaside and leaves her automotive to succeed in the place on foot, whereas Hae-joon goes on the lookout for her with a selected query in his thoughts. He speaks to Seo-rae over the telephone, and the girl confirms that her second husband supposed to make use of their voice clip towards them, the identical voice clip wherein Hae-joon had professed his love for her. The man confusedly asks whether or not he had ever performed so, for he doesn’t keep in mind any such alternate of phrases, and neither have we been proven such a scene. Ultimately, Hae-joon reaches Seo-rae’s automotive and finds the voice recording in it, and his questions are lastly answered. The clip that Seo-rae and Ho-sin had been speaking about was the one wherein Hae-joon informed Seo-rae to throw away the telephone, which might incriminate her for pushing her husband down from the cliff. It is just not essential to say particular phrases of expression or make particular guarantees to profess one’s love, and Hae-joon had clearly proven his love for Seo-rae by being keen to maintain all the things he had discovered concerning the case a secret and by serving to her escape the legislation. He was able to let her go, even when that meant hampering his personal psychological peace for greater than a 12 months since then.
“Decision to Leave” stresses on the query of how a lot one is able to go for the sake of affection, and Hae-joon had proven the acute extent of his like to be able to forgetting his duties of career and keenness for his lover. In a monologue in direction of the very finish of the movie, Seo-rae admits that now it was her flip to show her love and to point out the extent to which she would go to guard Hae-joon. She is aware of that if she goes lacking from the scene rapidly and leaves the outdated telephone just for Hae-joon to seek out, then the police detective would come underneath no scrutiny or hurt. This was probably the rationale why she had gotten Ho-sin killed, though she says that she had performed so as a result of the person had spent away all the cash, he owed to Cheol-seong, and so she needed to alleviate the gangster’s mom of her ache. She had additionally thrown away her husband’s telephone into the ocean as a way to shield Hae-joon from any slander and had probably returned to Lipo to be sure that her lover might lastly remedy the case that had been haunting him for over a 12 months. She leaves the telephone with the voice recording again at her automotive, realizing that her lover will discover it, after which walks to the seaside and digs a gap on the seaside. With the excessive tide approaching, Seo-rae sits inside this gap and waits for the seawater to drown her. By the time Hae-joon reaches the spot, your entire gap and a part of the seaside are coated by water, and Seo-rae has basically died by now. He desperately tries to search for her, informs his group that their lead suspect has gone lacking, after which continues to seek for her even amidst the rising water. “Decision to Leave” ends right here, with the unhappy conclusion of its uncommon love story, one which was to be about forgiveness and sacrifice from the very starting.
“Decision to Leave” is a 2022 Drama Thriller directed by Park Chan-wook.
