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Where to start? I don't think my mind is developed enough yet, as a film lover, to wrap itself around everything it just took in. My mind just doesn't have enough surface area for that movie to attach itself to.
I got the movie from a place I normally get horror movies from, so seeing as they had it I thought it was going to be a horror movie, far from it. Yes this movie penetrates the deepest and darkest regions of the human psyche at times, but to call it a horror movie would not be doing it justice whatsoever so I can only assume the reason they had the movie was because they can appreciate unbridled brilliance when they see it.
I've never seen a Chan-wook Park film, though I've read alot about him (I'm really getting into Asian cinema), but I feel like I need to now. I've read in passing that Oldboy is by far his greatest triumph, but if this is any judge of his work then I have got to see what else he has made. The clip I've seen of Three... Monster gave me the impression he was an incredibly intense filmmaker, not too distant from Takeshi Miike and while I am not familiar with both director's entire bodies of work, I'd say Park is far greater than Miike. Maybe it is just because Miike lays on the violence like it is as normal and casual as breathing, and Park handles it in a much more delicate manner or maybe it is because Oldboy had an absolutely ingenious screenplay, which Park did write. Either way, Asian cinema fascinates me.
Back to Oldboy. I'll open by just saying that it is the best revenge movie ever made. Kill Bill was an opus of violence, whereas Oldboy is a portrait of the extremes that a grudge can bring one to. How absolutely and utterly consumed someone can become by just the hope of one day getting revenge. One lives to have their questions answered. Not the normal life questions as to why am I alive or why do we exist, but who has made my existence as such, why is my life the way it is. When watching a movie, one can normally expect those normal life questions to be at least hinted at. The higher purpose of life will almost always be reflected in the film, such is not the case with Oldboy. Park places you right in that barless prison cell with Oh Daesu. Life doesn't have a higher objective anymore. There is no need for selfexploration, being all you can be - you exist, just like Oh Daesu, to escape your cell and exact your revenge. You don't care about God. God, along with all higher purpose, died a slow 15 year death , trapped inside Oh Daesu's prison cell. Park destroy's God, he destroys divinity and replaces it with cold logic. Oh Daesu doesn't need to search his soul or read a bible to find meaning in his life, he needs a simple hammer to pry the answers out of his prison warden's mouth.
Watching Kill Bill, you rooted Uma on. You knew she had been wronged, and you wanted to see her **** up alot of people. But with Oldboy, you have no clue as to why Oh Daesu has been wronged, you don't know why he passes out and wakes up in a room with only a bed, a tv and a tiled bathroom - but just like Oh Daesu you sure as **** want to find out. One roots for Uma much differently than they root for Oh Daesu. We know Uma's story and are thus watching the movie, waiting for how she is going to get from point A to point B. Oldboy is much the same, except you don't know where point B is at all. Oh Daesu is thrown into the world without any clues as to where he is or where he needs to be going. He wanders towards his goal, instead of heading headstrong into it. This makes his journey so much more powerful. When you, along with Oh Daesu, find what point B is you just can't wait for him to get there. Then when you get there...the answers become so clear, so preordained.
Park destroy's divinity in the first half of his masterpiece and allows it to be valiantly reborn in the second half. Cold logic is replaced by a fate that has an incredibly dark sense of humor. Everything becomes crystal clear as Oh Daesu is allowed his chance to talk with God, to talk to the one who created his life's vengeful path - an onscreen conversation with God that one could only expect to be identical to what a real conversation with God would be like. All your questions are answered, entirely destroying the world you were walking on, replacing it with this alien world that you weren't expecting at all. A conversation with God could do no less than blow one's mind and Oldboy does just that. Hell it not only blows your mind, it ****ing obliterates it.
Bravo Chan-wook Park. Your film is what all truth seekers seek, a conversation with God.
I got the movie from a place I normally get horror movies from, so seeing as they had it I thought it was going to be a horror movie, far from it. Yes this movie penetrates the deepest and darkest regions of the human psyche at times, but to call it a horror movie would not be doing it justice whatsoever so I can only assume the reason they had the movie was because they can appreciate unbridled brilliance when they see it.
I've never seen a Chan-wook Park film, though I've read alot about him (I'm really getting into Asian cinema), but I feel like I need to now. I've read in passing that Oldboy is by far his greatest triumph, but if this is any judge of his work then I have got to see what else he has made. The clip I've seen of Three... Monster gave me the impression he was an incredibly intense filmmaker, not too distant from Takeshi Miike and while I am not familiar with both director's entire bodies of work, I'd say Park is far greater than Miike. Maybe it is just because Miike lays on the violence like it is as normal and casual as breathing, and Park handles it in a much more delicate manner or maybe it is because Oldboy had an absolutely ingenious screenplay, which Park did write. Either way, Asian cinema fascinates me.
Back to Oldboy. I'll open by just saying that it is the best revenge movie ever made. Kill Bill was an opus of violence, whereas Oldboy is a portrait of the extremes that a grudge can bring one to. How absolutely and utterly consumed someone can become by just the hope of one day getting revenge. One lives to have their questions answered. Not the normal life questions as to why am I alive or why do we exist, but who has made my existence as such, why is my life the way it is. When watching a movie, one can normally expect those normal life questions to be at least hinted at. The higher purpose of life will almost always be reflected in the film, such is not the case with Oldboy. Park places you right in that barless prison cell with Oh Daesu. Life doesn't have a higher objective anymore. There is no need for selfexploration, being all you can be - you exist, just like Oh Daesu, to escape your cell and exact your revenge. You don't care about God. God, along with all higher purpose, died a slow 15 year death , trapped inside Oh Daesu's prison cell. Park destroy's God, he destroys divinity and replaces it with cold logic. Oh Daesu doesn't need to search his soul or read a bible to find meaning in his life, he needs a simple hammer to pry the answers out of his prison warden's mouth.
Watching Kill Bill, you rooted Uma on. You knew she had been wronged, and you wanted to see her **** up alot of people. But with Oldboy, you have no clue as to why Oh Daesu has been wronged, you don't know why he passes out and wakes up in a room with only a bed, a tv and a tiled bathroom - but just like Oh Daesu you sure as **** want to find out. One roots for Uma much differently than they root for Oh Daesu. We know Uma's story and are thus watching the movie, waiting for how she is going to get from point A to point B. Oldboy is much the same, except you don't know where point B is at all. Oh Daesu is thrown into the world without any clues as to where he is or where he needs to be going. He wanders towards his goal, instead of heading headstrong into it. This makes his journey so much more powerful. When you, along with Oh Daesu, find what point B is you just can't wait for him to get there. Then when you get there...the answers become so clear, so preordained.
Park destroy's divinity in the first half of his masterpiece and allows it to be valiantly reborn in the second half. Cold logic is replaced by a fate that has an incredibly dark sense of humor. Everything becomes crystal clear as Oh Daesu is allowed his chance to talk with God, to talk to the one who created his life's vengeful path - an onscreen conversation with God that one could only expect to be identical to what a real conversation with God would be like. All your questions are answered, entirely destroying the world you were walking on, replacing it with this alien world that you weren't expecting at all. A conversation with God could do no less than blow one's mind and Oldboy does just that. Hell it not only blows your mind, it ****ing obliterates it.
Bravo Chan-wook Park. Your film is what all truth seekers seek, a conversation with God.