A detective finds himself caught in a web of “deception and desire” in the first trailer for acclaimed director Park Chan-wook’s latest film, Decision to Leave. Arthouse outfit Mubi debuted the trailer on Thursday, a month ahead of the romantic thriller’s stateside release.
Starring Park Hae-il as the detective and Tang Wei as the woman he suspects of murdering her husband, Decision to Leave combines the stylish thrills and psychological drama that director Park is synonymous with. The trailer opens with a man falling to his death off a cliff. But it isn’t clear if he tripped, or if he was pushed.
Detective Hae-jun arrives at the scene of the crime, and after a preliminary investigation, begins to suspect the deceased’s wife, Seo-rae. She has a “solid alibi,” but she also displays some rather strange behavior while interacting with the investigators. For instance, on one occasion, she appears to chuckle in the middle of an intense interrogation. Loyalties are tested and tensions boil to the surface when the detective and the murder suspect become romantically involved.
Park is perhaps best known for his landmark Vengeance trilogy, comprising Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance. He was nominated for a Palme d’Or for the cult hit Oldboy, which was remade in the U.S. by director Spike Lee. It arguably remains his most popular film. The filmmaker attempted his own American crossover with the 2013 English language thriller Stoker and the 2018 series The Little Drummer Girl. His last film was the psychosexual drama The Handmaiden, which was also nominated for a Palme d’Or. For Decision to Leave, Park won the prestigious Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, in addition to being nominated for yet another Palme d’Or.
He remains one of South Korea’s most admired filmmakers, and was a key contributor to a new wave of Korean cinema that swept the world in the early 2000s, a wave that arguably crescendoed in 2019, with director Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite winning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Parasite combined slick social satire with dark humor, and there’s a similar playfulness to the Decision to Leave trailer as well, alongside several hat-tips to the 1960 Korean classic, The Housemaid.
Decision to Leave was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in Korean theaters in June. Also starring Go Kyung-Pyo, Yong-woo Park, and Lee Jung-Hyun, the film will be released in North American theaters on October 14, and in the U.K. and Ireland on October 21. You can watch the trailer here, and read the film’s official synopsis down below:
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.
