"Les Princes," made the same year, was a bleak tale about a family of Roma living in low-income housing outside Paris.

Hollywood has traditionally been uncomfortable with bleak, nihilistic tales about complex, unlovable characters.

The first installment in Park's trilogy was the 2002 film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a bleak and violent tale of revenge gone wrong.

It is a bleak tale of ritualized desensitization through sports, running with the pack, torturing insects, beating up weaklings and learning not to cry.

The unrelentingly bleak tales invariably take place in a contemporary setting, usually featuring everyday people who become embroiled in terrifying or mysterious events.

A few seconds later Winston Smith, the hero of Orwell's bleak tale of the future, pulls his hands away and the cries resume.

"An Apocalyptic Horse" - a bleak post-endtimes tale.

But she ignored it, wanting Ryan to finish the bleak tale, to finish it and to exorcise it from his mind.

Mr. Thomas reveled in bleak tales of political corruption, string-pulling and behind-the-scenes scheming.

But 33 pages of handwritten logs tell a far bleaker tale.