← Back to Reviews
in
A man named Oh Dae Su (played by Choi Min Sik) is captured in the middle of the night without no reason. He is locked in a small room and is only given a ration of fried dumplings. After a whopping 15 years of forced imprisonment he is set free, and plans to seek his revenge and hopefully regain old life.
Above is the premise for Oldboy. It's as crazy as the rest of the film, and it provides a striking interest. Why would a man imprison someone for 15 years? And how will our main character find revenge and will he be at peace and a happy ending afterwards? These questions we make to ourselves serve as a great hook, and naturally let us fall into the film.
The appearance of Oh Dae Su after 15 years of living without society and the effects it gave are shown greatly. The man he meets on the roof of the apartment and the conversation they have is a good example. Dark and melancholy and very human emotions come out when feeling the man's skin and pleading for some kind of help, but right at the next moment he turns around, ignores the man's story and lets him die, without any remorse. This shows the two sides of our main character- desperately in need of human touch but at the same time lonely, emotionless, and quiet, his only desire being a violent revenge. Trademark Park Chan Wook framing and the bleak but deep colors work really well in such situations and throughout the entire film.
But then he meets Mi-Do (played by Kang Hye Jung) and starts to gain a warmer side. The relationship of the two are strange, unlikely and even a bit awkward- because the start of it is the eating of a live octopus and attempted rape. However they soon realize the similarities between each other, and soon begin to open up. Oh Dae Su gains the strength to search for the reason of his imprisonment, and the story continues.
He finally meets with Lee Woo Jin (played by Yoo Ji Te), who is revealed as the person behind all the madness. Lee is another version of Dae Su- an even more colder and un-humanlike version who will do anything to accomplish goals. Lee's ultimate goal, of course, is to get rid of Oh Dae Su. It actually gets really creepy as tracking devices, stalking, murder, torture and all sorts of atrocity is used. But the way is executed is powerful and make a damn good experience- made up with brilliant music, pacing, and cinematography which can be restricted and free-flowing at the same time, making it very flexible.
Now, I will not reveal much more because of spoilers, but I will say that the end part where all the reasons and secrets are finally shown, is the climax and best part of the movie. The atmosphere is a killer, the gore and actions so brutal and painfully and definitely not stylish is disturbing but genius. The way the characters move in a dreaded state and some others in a victorious but equally doomed state is just genius. In one scene the characters just laugh and cry mercilessly with minimal sound in the background and its just as powerful as any other scene with plenty of music and action scenes happening around. A great aspect of the film is that you can scenes such as the long-take hallway fight scene one and the scene with the ants crawling out of the body of Oh Dae Su.
Some say the film doesn't make sense at all and sometimes is totally bullsh*t, and I do agree, but for different reasons. Many of the scenes are meant to maximize the emotion of the characters. For example, the giant ant in the subway or the live octopus eating scene, and a lot of others. Both took a lot of time, effort, and money but it is totally worth it. If you take the surrealistic scenes out the movie would probably shrink about 15 to 20 minutes maybe at least, but if you did you would end up with the crappy 2013 remake. Out of all the films I've ever seen, the emotions, the feelings, the atmosphere, all that kind of stuff felt the strongest to me in Oldboy, because obviously it does a great job of telling the audience how a certain character feels, and sometimes also let the scene do the work for itself and just let it flow without any explanation at all.
Overall, Oldboy is the most perfect work of cinema I have ever seen. Whenever I see it it shakes every single sense and nerve in my body, and at least 2 scenes always make me cry. What a film, what a masterpiece. Nothing ever comes close to what this film did in making simply a shuddering experience, at least for me.
++
1. Oldboy
A man named Oh Dae Su (played by Choi Min Sik) is captured in the middle of the night without no reason. He is locked in a small room and is only given a ration of fried dumplings. After a whopping 15 years of forced imprisonment he is set free, and plans to seek his revenge and hopefully regain old life.
Above is the premise for Oldboy. It's as crazy as the rest of the film, and it provides a striking interest. Why would a man imprison someone for 15 years? And how will our main character find revenge and will he be at peace and a happy ending afterwards? These questions we make to ourselves serve as a great hook, and naturally let us fall into the film.
The appearance of Oh Dae Su after 15 years of living without society and the effects it gave are shown greatly. The man he meets on the roof of the apartment and the conversation they have is a good example. Dark and melancholy and very human emotions come out when feeling the man's skin and pleading for some kind of help, but right at the next moment he turns around, ignores the man's story and lets him die, without any remorse. This shows the two sides of our main character- desperately in need of human touch but at the same time lonely, emotionless, and quiet, his only desire being a violent revenge. Trademark Park Chan Wook framing and the bleak but deep colors work really well in such situations and throughout the entire film.
But then he meets Mi-Do (played by Kang Hye Jung) and starts to gain a warmer side. The relationship of the two are strange, unlikely and even a bit awkward- because the start of it is the eating of a live octopus and attempted rape. However they soon realize the similarities between each other, and soon begin to open up. Oh Dae Su gains the strength to search for the reason of his imprisonment, and the story continues.
He finally meets with Lee Woo Jin (played by Yoo Ji Te), who is revealed as the person behind all the madness. Lee is another version of Dae Su- an even more colder and un-humanlike version who will do anything to accomplish goals. Lee's ultimate goal, of course, is to get rid of Oh Dae Su. It actually gets really creepy as tracking devices, stalking, murder, torture and all sorts of atrocity is used. But the way is executed is powerful and make a damn good experience- made up with brilliant music, pacing, and cinematography which can be restricted and free-flowing at the same time, making it very flexible.
Now, I will not reveal much more because of spoilers, but I will say that the end part where all the reasons and secrets are finally shown, is the climax and best part of the movie. The atmosphere is a killer, the gore and actions so brutal and painfully and definitely not stylish is disturbing but genius. The way the characters move in a dreaded state and some others in a victorious but equally doomed state is just genius. In one scene the characters just laugh and cry mercilessly with minimal sound in the background and its just as powerful as any other scene with plenty of music and action scenes happening around. A great aspect of the film is that you can scenes such as the long-take hallway fight scene one and the scene with the ants crawling out of the body of Oh Dae Su.
Some say the film doesn't make sense at all and sometimes is totally bullsh*t, and I do agree, but for different reasons. Many of the scenes are meant to maximize the emotion of the characters. For example, the giant ant in the subway or the live octopus eating scene, and a lot of others. Both took a lot of time, effort, and money but it is totally worth it. If you take the surrealistic scenes out the movie would probably shrink about 15 to 20 minutes maybe at least, but if you did you would end up with the crappy 2013 remake. Out of all the films I've ever seen, the emotions, the feelings, the atmosphere, all that kind of stuff felt the strongest to me in Oldboy, because obviously it does a great job of telling the audience how a certain character feels, and sometimes also let the scene do the work for itself and just let it flow without any explanation at all.
Overall, Oldboy is the most perfect work of cinema I have ever seen. Whenever I see it it shakes every single sense and nerve in my body, and at least 2 scenes always make me cry. What a film, what a masterpiece. Nothing ever comes close to what this film did in making simply a shuddering experience, at least for me.
++