Figures 3 and 4 show Dae-su in the opening scene of the film, in what we later learn is a flashforward, preventing a man from committing suicide. The striking composition of these shots and the questions they generate (who are these men? Why is he trying to kill that man?) make them easy to recall when they are mirrored at the end of the film, through a flashback (keeping with the theme of reflections and mirrored images) that reveals Woo-jin’s sister commit-ting suicide under strikingly similar circumstances (figures 5 and 6). The repetition of compositions and circumstances shown here suggests a fateful connection exists between Dae-su and Woo-jin, implying perhaps that in their effort to exact revenge on each other, their obsessive behaviors have made them very much alike. This similarity of behavior is made clear several times throughout the film; Woo-jin goes through an unbelievably convoluted scheme to make Dae-su pay for this transgression, waiting fifteen years until Dae-su’s daughter had become a woman to exact his revenge. Dae-su, on the other hand, spends the last ten years of his imprisonment transforming himself into a killing machine, letting go of much of his humanity in the process as he also prepares for revenge. By the time of their final confrontation, their similarity is so pronounced that even the simple act of putting on a shirt is visually connected by the use of almost identical shot compositions and narrative emphasis, with an extreme close up of Dae-su buttoning a cuff (figure 7), that is recreated a few minutes later when Woo-jin is shown doing the same thing (figure 8).