Artsploitation  

"Such artsploitation films combine extremes of sex and violence with stylistic choices, slow pacing, and an openness to wide tonal shifts alien to ordinary genre films. Needless to say, this development hasn’t been greeted with cheers everywhere. Nor have any artsploitation films become major U.S. hits.

However, many have found an enthusiastic cult audience, especially on DVD. If artsploitation films have one thing in common, it’s restoring pain to screen violence. In a American context, that’s what’s most interesting and valuable about them. In Doug Liman’s popular Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie vehicle “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” murder has less moral, emotional, or even physical weight than a fender-bender; the privileges of stardom include the right to kill without consequences. Its violence is antiseptic."--Steve Erickson reviewing Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance[1]