A detective falls for a beautiful murder suspect. But that's just the beginning of the experience of "Decision to Leave." In the hands of South Korean master Park Chan-wook ("Oldboy," "The Handmaiden"), that familiar noir premise is just the outermost layer of a cinematic onion — a sweet one nevertheless containing sulfur. Deploying the tools of filmmaking with a surgeon's precision and a sculptor's talent for discovery, Park reveals that the movie's most arresting enigma doesn't concern murder, but love.
In the second half of his bifurcated film, "the investigation no longer matters. The biggest mystery is, 'Why is she here in this town that has nothing to see but mist? Why did she come where [the detective] lives?' That is how it transforms into a romance film," the director says.
Indeed, the most prominent questions — still tied to a murder mystery — become not only whether she loves him, but whether he loves her.
