Winning the 2004 Cannes Grand Prix prize — the second-highest honor at the international film festival in France — for his movie “Old Boy” has proven to have some added benefits for filmmaker Park Chan Wook. For one, fans of “Old Boy” are checking out his earlier films — most notably, “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” which was a big box-office disappointment in South Korea when it was released in 2002.

“Sympathy” was a departure from his previous movie, “Joint Security Area (JSA).” That was a monumental success when it came out in 2000, as it became the highest-grossing film in Korean history at the time. With its humanistic portrayal of a relationship among soldiers on opposite sides of the Demilitarized Zone, “JSA” was loved by the public because it tapped into Southerners’ sympathy for their brethren in the North. And critics praised the film for its sophisticated realism and for not to falling into a trap of sentimental nationalism.

Then Park followed that by reaching into his arsenal of self-penned scripts and directing “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” a violent, gut-wrenching — and very non-commercial — story about Ryu, a deaf-mute desperate to make enough money for his sister’s kidney transplant. It marked the first of three vengeance-themed movies, with “Old Boy” the second in the trilogy.

In “Sympathy,” sound, and not just image, is used to navigate through the story’s narrative, as Ryu’s footage is always accompanied by a noise track. His point of view is heard through the sounds of his beating heart, his sister’s pained moans, a little girl’s humming and ambient noise from surrounding life.

Park’s film also explores the contrast between the physical spaces occupied by the rich and poor. In Ryu’s world, digital information represents the new power and belongs to the rich. Digitally recorded sound encoded as zeros and ones doesn’t allow for any change in order, which points to a simple and modern style adopted by the rich (this is also indicative of their emotions: dry and boring). Analog, however, allows for the natural flow of information, and is closer to the natural order and flow of emotion of the poor.

On a deeper level, all of this can be jarring for audiences accustomed to blockbuster fare. The film’s Brechtian kind of “estrangement” may, as Park perhaps envisioned, condition us to detach from emotion or catharsis during the blood and violence of later scenes, but the effect may be plain irritating and hard to watch. Just ask the Korean ticket buyers who stayed away in droves. And suddenly moving the film’s narrative from Ryu to Dong Jin (whose daughter’s life rests at the mercy of her kidnappers) probably estranged audiences even more. Still, Park says that the dark and gloomy “Sympathy” is his favorite.

Scenes from Park Chan Wook’s “Old Boy,” which stars Choi Min Sik

Park continues some of these traits in “Old Boy,” a tale of a man who wants answers as to why he was imprisoned for 15 years. And he is out for revenge, with hammer in tow.