Oldboy
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Movie Reviews of Oldboy
Movie Review: Best film of 2005
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, that title is perhaps a cheat, as I believe it was actually released in most of the world in 2004 and South Korea in 2003, but I've noticed that some real critics like to go by the year the film came out in their country, so I'll let it slide.
Though 'Oldboy' certainly isn't popular, it has gotten quite a lot of underground buzz, and it seems like it always gets compared to the work of some better known director, either Fincher or Nolan or Tarantino or Miike or whoever. Comparisons can be useful, but they tend to suggest that the film or director is clone or knockoff, and thinking this would be a grave disservice to Chan-wook Park and 'Oldboy'. This is a strikingly modern film, slick and beautiful in its hyper-technological, urban setting, with an occasionally fractured narrative filled with both dark humor and gruesome violence . So the comparisons are fairly accurate, actually, but Park has a knack for putting it all together that it's clear that he isn't imitating anyone else. It all holds together underneath, with strong storytelling and genuine human interest beneath the attractive surface.
You've probably already heard to premise: A drunken and surly, but still seemingly good-natured man named Dae-su spends a night at the police station just before he is abducted by a mysterious stranger. He's placed in a small apartment devoid of any human contact for 15 years, until he is suddenly released one day. Dae-su wants revenge, but he perhaps even more than that, he wants to know why this happened to him. During this he meets a young lady, Mi-do and quickly finds the man responsible for his imprisonment, Woo-jin. Woo-jin makes a sort of deal with him: If, in the next 5 days, Dae-su can find out why all this happened, Woo-jin will kill himself. If not, he will kill Mi-do, along with every other woman that Dae-su ever loves. This may make the film sound rather plot-intensive, but it actually isn't. Dae-su actually solves the bulk of the mystery fairly easily, the plot generally moves quickly in leaps and bounds between the moody, surreal scenes and various setpieces.
`Oldboy' is perhaps the best looking film of last year. Park composes his shots with great care and it's all sleek, fashionable and modern. And though it isn't an action movie is still has some cool fighting. There is one very rough, extended single-shot fight that is becoming quite famous, and rightfully so. The use of music is also fantastic, with various repeating themes manipulating the mood nicely. You need great music in order to build up a sorta operatic grandiosity and intensity which this film has in its best scenes.
The performances are all great, particularly Min-sik Choi and Ji-tae Yu as Dae-su and Woo-jin, respectively. Most notably, though they are hero and villain, both of these characters prove to be exceedingly likable and sympathetic once you find out all there is to know. Dae-su is definitely one of the best protagonists in recent film history, combining an undeniable bada**ness with inner turmoil and self-doubt. Woo-jin is interesting in that he is rather non-threatening looking and has a fairly playful demeanor that he rarely drops.
There are plenty of movies out there that I really like simply because they have so many neat ideas and look so good. `Oldboy' works on this level, but it also has some real human interest and emotional impact that most films are lacking. You can really feel the pain of being locked away for so long with no contact, and the scene where Dae-su and Mi-do say goodbye before he heads of to confront Woo-jin is really quite powerful, as are a number of things which happen during the climax of the film, though I can't go into specifics.
I've heard some complain that the ending is slightly drawn-out, and while this is something of a problem it's pretty much the only real concern I have with the film, and it barely matters. I must note that the denouement will likely put some people off, and not without good reason, as it is rather strange and perverse. I was sufficiently into the film that I went with it despite the disturbing implications, but others doubtless will not. (Judging by the critical response, however, I believe that most people will go along with it.) Also, the film does have a significant twist in it, but it's not totally the heart of the film. Well, I should say, it's crucial to the plot, but the whole point of the movie isn't simply to have the rug pulled out from underneath you at the end. I'm interested to see how they'll deal with this twist in the American remake, as I'm sure execs will assume that such a twist will be upsetting to many viewers, but if you change it you pretty much have to come up with a whole new plot.
I guess I'm tired of writing. Check it out, and whatever you do, DON'T WATCH THE DUBBED VERSION!!!!!! I repeat, DON'T WATCH THE DUBBED VERSION!!!!!!!
Grade: A
Movie Review: A Meticulously Crafted Masterpiece, Both a Modern Tragedy and a Contemporary Classic...
Summary: 5 Stars
OLDBOY is the 2nd installment of Park Chan-Wook's vengeance trilogy that is loosely based on the Japanese comic by Tsuchiya Garon and Minegishi Nobuaki. I use the term "loosely" because the plot, characters and almost everything else is completely re-worked for the big screen. I've read that Park saw his film; "Sympathy with Mr. Vengeance" a sort of commercial failure, so he comes back with an effective counter-attack. Oldboy made me re-think the old adage: revenge is best served cold, because this film emits SCORCHING FIRE.
Oh Daesu (Choi Min-Sik) is a man with a wife and child. He is kidnapped and kept in captivity in a small room, fed with dumplings mostly as his main dish, with only a television to keep him company for 15 years. Someone paid an obscene amount of money to incarcerate him indefinitely. Mentally tortured and overcome with a desire for revenge, he plots for escape. One day, he is set free and dumped in the streets, with a suit to wear and left with some money. Daesu meets and hooks up with a young sushi chef; Mido (Hye-Jeong Kang) to look for the man responsible for his incarceration.
"Oldboy" has a lot of visual wallop and visceral punch. Park's stylish direction and the VERY intriguing premise are truly awesome. There are quite a few films that really stayed with me; this film is one of them. I can still clearly remember the great soundtrack, the visually original hallway fight, the tooth-pulling, the live octopus devouring and others. The ingenious style of its direction and the balanced intensity of its execution keep the proceedings grounded. The plot is a bit over-the-top but to the director's credit, it remains balanced and believable.
This film may be considered an ultra-violent dark film by most people but it is actually very tame when it comes to blood and gore. The proceedings are so well executed that the atmosphere emulates violence and darkness. The very set up and sequences of what happens in each shot creates a lot of tension that people will remember it as a very dark and violent film, that it is in fact gorier and bloodier than it actually is. Park has the hand of an artist and is a true visionary to be able to pull off this sensory manipulation. "Oldboy" has a lot of uncompromising twists and turns. You will have to keep in mind that Park's films are usually a character study of its main characters.
Aside from Park's stellar direction and premise, the film draws its strength from its excellent cast. Choi Min-Sik gives a near-stellar performance as the main character. I remember his haircut that looks almost like a mangled lion with a chopped black mane. His portrayal of a BROKEN everyday man is one of the reasons why "Oldboy" has been elevated to "cult status". The film's final image; Choi's joyful but at the same time, infinitely sorrowful SMILE will forever be remembered by its audiences. Ji-Tae Yu plays the villain; Woo-Jin, suave and handsome; with his Bond-like physical attributes and a very elegant charisma. Despite his good looks, Ji-Tae Yu has a very menacing presence and does command attention like a deity, with a "mere" mortal as his plaything.
One VERY minor (so minor) fault the film may have is that the method of which the actual revenge is executed. The hint of hypnotism may require a tiny suspension of disbelief. Everything plays out so well for the antagonist; we are all expected to believe that he is a genius, with an intellect dedicated to the torture and punishment of one man. He has dedicated 2 decades of his life to his vengeance which may be one of the coldest, if not, certainly the most perverse. However, this very minor flaw is forgivable, because the film is so focused and succeeds in immersing us in its sequences that all we consider are the things that it has done PERFECT.
Oldboy explores a moral issue about vengeance; what happens next after you do exact your revenge? If revenge becomes a main focus of your life, what else is there to live for? With Daesu and Lee Woo-Jin, the answer is very different.
OLDBOY is PURE contrasting cinematic genius; it is repulsively ugly but at the same time, it is breathtakingly beautiful. It is gut-wrenching but at the same time it is very delicate. It is cold but indeed emotional. It is mind-bending at times and certainly artistic in its execution. With its flair and style, it is a bunch of contradictions that adheres to coherency.
Park will not only entertain but make you uncomfortable. It does no other film has done: to entertain at the same time analyzes pure emotional pain. It is TERRIFIC!
Highest Possible Recommendation! [ 5- Stars]
Recent News: Hollywood will be re-making this film with the director of "Better Luck Tomorrow" at the helm. I was watching MTV when I heard this news; Good or bad? Let's wait and see...
Movie Review: Better to remain silent and be thought a Fool...
Summary: 5 Stars
Than to run your mouth, remove all doubt, *and* be locked up in a seedy back-alley dungeon, imprisoned for no reason, with no explanation, by an implacable, mysterious, shadowy foe, entirely bent on your destruction and insanity.
Such is the fate of our hero Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi, in the role of a lifetime): a buffoon, a drunken Korean businessman loaded up on too much booze and a night of excess, busted by the police, booked into jail, urinating in a corner of the police station, barely bailed to freedom by his old friend Joo-hwan---and who, seconds later, on a busy Seoul thoroughfare, outside a phone booth, minutes away from his wife and infant daughter---disappears.
Without a trace.
Without a trace to his family and friends, perhaps---but certainly not to his tormentors. For Oh Dae-Su awakes in confinement, in what appears to be a seedy flat in a seedier tenement, confined, imprisoned, given no answers, provided food and water, and gassed each night for the Cleaners to make---ahem---'adjustments'.
It's enough to drive a sober man stark-raving mad, don't you think?
It's even worse that Dae-su, entombed as he is in the guts of the City, cut off from any explanation---why is he here? when can he get out? who has done this? My God, jailer, won't you talk to me?---panicked, hopeless, desolate---is nonetheless in contact with the outside world: through television.
Call it his book of days. He sees the days stretch into months, the months stretch into years. He hears the news report of the atrocious, brutal murder of his wife, her throat slashed at the hands of a shadowy brute, his infant daughter whisked away into the protective clutches of anonymous Officialdom.
A happy man, one instant: a Prisoner, the next.
Years pass, and then the greatest trick of all: Dae-Su is released. Sprung. Baptized atop an office tower, sprung from the womb of an oversized suitcase, left to find his own way, bereft of family, life, place: suspected as the murderer of his wife, years ago. A Man without a face, without a name, without a country. With one thing, and one thing only: Revenge.
Oh, and a cell phone, and a wallet full of money, passed to him by a nameless beggar who claims to know nothing: hungry, tired, dispirited, Dae-Su tears through a pack of thugs---all that karate +-practice in his lounge-lizard-prison having paid off handsomely, evidently---checks into a juke-jive, bites the head off a squirming, hapless octopus, and meets a sweet young thing---Mi-Do---who is instantly horrified, and compelled.
And then the real fun begins.
Now: it would be unfair to say much more about "Oldboy". It is a stark, searing little testament to the power of guerilla filmmaking, a laurel wrapped about the head of its creator, Chun-Wook Park, who has managed to graft high style with a weird kind of cinematic poetry, an elegiac cinematographic high style, married to a sere, haunting, neo-classical soundtrack (with snippets of Vivaldi): all of it builds up to a crescendo that is nothing short of catharsis. It's an exhausting film: it makes demands.
The cinematography is its own character here, as is the direction: there is a kind of wild elegance, in the rain-swept streets of Seoul, of the spare interiors, of the weary, craggy, hell-beaten topography of its hero's face, seamed with bewilderment and agony. The battle sequences---there are a number---are kinetic, yes, but for all the high style, feel real: you can feel the skin buckling, the bruises forming up purple-yellow, the sullen exhaustion of the combatants.
And beyond and above it all is the central question: what is Vengeance? Who is the Avenger, and what is avenged? The acting---from Choi to Hye-Jeon Kang (Mi-Do), and all the supports---is supple, and completely compelling, adding to the grandeur of this shivery little tale of grue and moral kurare: ultimately the big reveal is more devastating for its precision---its preciseness, its measured planning---than anything you might have expected.
Brace yourself.
JSG
Movie Review: One of the most gripping movies I have ever seen.
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, what can I say about Oldboy. It's definetely one of the best films I've ever seen, it takes the formula of a revenge plot driven storyline and turns it around and makes it different than anything you've ever seen before. I've also noticed that some reviewers have compared it to some of Tarantino's work which is about half right, even though some parts were similar to Tarantino's and Takashi Miike's stuff it was still a highly original and entertaining crime thriller with some gruesome scenes of violence. The screenplay was brilliant and the characters were developed very well and it was extremely complex not to mention the plot which was ingenious and has the most amazing plot twist I've seen so far with a great payoff and the acting from all of the cast was superb, I actually thought it was quite disturbing while watching it the first time last year but I must admit that it didn't have the same impact the second time around oh well. The story focuses on Dae-Su (Min-Sik Choi) who is drunk and disorderly in a police station on his young daughter's birthday gets posted bail by his best friend and then gets kidnapped and thrown in what looks like a cheap motel room only to be held captive there for fifteen years with only his rage, anger and confusion to keep him company. He has a small t.v. and he obviously has no idea who kidnapped him, as he passes time lifting weights and trying to break out by digging a hole on the wall. His imprisonment is both horrifying and absurd and anyone in that situation would obviously feel the same as Dae-Su would, things actually go from bad to worse as it is found out that he is the chief suspect in his own wife's murder and just as he's about finished digging a tunnel out through the wall Dae su is released under mysterious circumstances and filled with rage he vows revenge on his captors...he also has a cool and crazy haircut. He then meets a female companion in a sushi bar and they develop a quick relationship but this female companion has a dark secret which is about to be revealed later on and Dae-Su seems to be losing his sanity trying to find the identity of his tormentors.
While the majority of the film follows the lead character's attempt to find his tormentors and exact revenge the true conflict transpires behind the scenes, the plot was very intricate and clever and it seems like Dae-Su was the type of person who was indeed guilty of causing much suffering to himself and to others. If you like Korean or Asian cinema then your going to love this, Choonwok Park has done a great job with this stylishly made and slick looking drama or Crime/Thriller which is such a fantastic film , the best scene had to be the one in the hallway where Dae su proceeds to beat the crap out of a bunch of thugs with only a hammer and his fists, this scene was excellently choreographed and beautifully shot using a tracking shot camera moving across the hall as Dae-su punches and kicks his way out, such a fantastic moment. The film also has plenty more memorable scenes as well like the shocking ending which I'm not going to reveal and Dae su eating that tasty looking live squid YUM ;-). The film was also quite violent so if you're squeamish about that stuff then forget it, theres some teeth pulling scenes that made me cringe abit. If you liked Oldboy then make sure you check out Chanwook Park's other films in the vengeance trilogy like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance those two films were just as good, oh yeah and the film also used some stunning cinematography and great music which was very effective. The extras include a bunch of informative interviews with the director and some deleted and extended scenes and some trailers along with a commentary track. I hope you enjoy this beautiful ode to suffering and revenge, Asian cinema at its Review: Best Count of Monte Cristo Ever!
Summary: 5 Stars This is the best and most accurate remake of "The Count of Monte Cristo" ever made, bar none. The 1998 French miniseries starring G?rard Depardieu came the closest, especially in terms of strictly following the full plot, but is ruined by the inaccurate ending in the very last few minutes. If you read the full 1300+ version of the Dumas classic, it does not have a happy ending. Dantes does not end up with Mercedes, and even though he learns some redemption and can forgive, he is still torn by what revenge has done to him. In the real version he goes off with his young mistress and is never heard from again, which is actually similar to Oldboy's ending.
Oldboy captures the psychological despair of revenge in a unique and startling way. Two characters play Dumas' protagonist, both Dae-su as Dantes, and Woo-jin as the Count, and the revenge they seek on each other is the war within Dantes/The Count himself.
In the original the Count gets revenge on several of his enemies. This is only implied in the movie. We see other jails maintained by Woo-jin Lee's cohorts, but we never see who is in them. Instead we see only Dae-su, who instead of having the Abbe Faria to teach him, learns from an all-knowing TV, and instead of escaping on his own he is released by...himself of course, Woo-jin Lee.
Park now blends Dae-su's search for those who imprisoned him with a horrific look at the cost of revenge both on himself, and his more elegant version, the Count, the billionare, Woo-jin.
There are several clues throughout the movie that both characters are indeed the Count. In the most overt scene,the girl Mi-do is chatting with Woo-jin, who asks her, "Is the Count of Monte Cristo there?," even though it's clear the Woo-jin is the Count, since he is controlling the whole revenge plot and he is the megarich tycoon. Dae-su immediately recognizes that Woo-jin is the one he is looking for.
Later, Dae-su almost kills Woo-jin, who is protected by a character similar to the Count's mute Nubian slave, Ali. Woo-jin tells Dae-su, "You are the monster I have created." Dae-su is the pure rage of revenge, the wounded and unrefined soul of Edmund Dantes, the evil angel on the Count's shoulder who has consumed his entire being, shown through the extreme violence he inflicts on others, including the ability to kick ass on hordes of attackers and torture them if need be.
In one telling scene Woo-jin explains how he has hypnotized Dae-su and controlled his life. Park splits the screen and blends Dae-su's and Woo-jin's faces together to show they are one and the same person.
In the end Woo-jin comes to terms with Dae-su and having nothing to live for, having spent his revenge, almost kills both himself and Dae-su with a single bullet. Instead he lets Dae-su/Dantes live and the Count is killed off, in the same way that the Count disappears from Europe in the original story.
There is an Oedipal modification to the story with the dual incests of both Dae-su and Woo-jin, which again shows both characters are the same person. Both have lost someone they love. This is Park's wonderful updating of the near killing of Mercedes son, Albert, who could have been Dantes' son if his life had been different. Park's modern update keeps the psychosis of the revenge deep with the characters, as opposed to Dumas' revenge secret, the transferred letter that starts Dantes' imprisonment in motion.
Park's realization of this classic novel is one of the greatest movies ever made. It is a stunning post-modern realization of the novel, and is more tightly bound to the original story than you might think. Read the story and watch the movie twice or as many times as you can. The links will become apparent each time you view it.
From a psychological point of view, this is unquestionably the best remake of the novel both as a story and a movie.