Oldboy
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Movie Reviews of Oldboy
Movie Review: A brilliant and SICK movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a brilliant movie, but it's also a really sick one. It is VERY disturbing (a word that I will repeat many times...), and you should definitely leave it where you found it if you are after anything remotely uplifting.
The story is truly original, and very difficult to predict, even if an imaginative mind can guess the main point of where the story is leading. From this perspective, this is one of those movies that disseminates clues all the way, leaving you at the end to think back to all those times where you could have guessed, maybe, if you just had paid more attention.
But mostly this is a really sick movie, about sick people doing sick actions. I am not 100% certain I am happy I watched this film. Actually, I think it made me come closer to the conclusion that I should stop watching films who have the merit of being original, very well shot, and just plain and gratuitously truly disturbingly violent.
Overall, I am afraid I am growing tired of this new wave of American or Korean movies who tell stories of unbelievably grisly phisical and mental violence. Pulp fiction, reservoir dogs, Kill Bill I and II, Saw I and II, The Hostel, you name it. I am certain that in every man there is a monster ready to emerge under the right circumstances, but in almost all cases, luckily, those circumstances never emerge. I know these movies have no moral aspiration, and only aim at telling an interesting (if sick) story, but I think I don't want to buy any longer into this new wave of films where the main character seems to be the "beauty of violence and death". If one is insterested in the dark side of human beings, real history (especially war history) offers plenty of examples to study, and hopefully to learn lessons from.
This movies does deserves five stars in his own genre, but it's not a movie I would recommend.
Movie Review: I Live For Revenge
Summary: 5 Stars
I came across Old Boy at my video store when I was running out of movies to rent and decided to try a different genre. Right from the beginning this movie intrigued me (I watched the dubbed version first) by the voice of the narrated dialogue of this frustrated Dae-Sue who wakes up captive in an apartment after an obnoxious drunken night at the police station. He doesn't know why he has been kidnapped, but never gives up and only becomes angrier and set on revenge. He ended-up a total of 15 years in this apartment eating fried dumplings and fairly well taken care of.
The movie has surreal undertones and has striking cinematography as well as beautiful western classical music playing in the background. There are also some pretty decent action fights when Dae-sue becomes free and while seeking revenge takes on several men at a time with a hammer while he has a knife sticking from his back.
He meets a young girl named Mido, and eventually meets and finds the man responsible for his 15 year kidnapping (after tasting all the fried dumplings in town, since that's all he ate for 15 years, and that's how he makes the connection). Woo-Jin, who also performs excellently, gives Dae-su 5 days to figure out the puzzle or Mido will die, but I'm not going any further.
This movie is brilliant because it has humor, action, a love story (not too much unnecessary sex), great music, a brutal, and haunting twist at the very end. The plot is unusual since it begins in a way that is somewhat predictable, then goes a different way that is somewhat perplexing, but if you sit it out all comes together marvelously at the end. The second time I watched this movie with subtitles, and agree that it had a better effect.
When you watch this movie pay attention to when Woo-Jin says "When you live for revenge and once you get it, you still have to live with the pain".
Movie Review: Korean Brilliance.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've never got into the whole 'world cinema' thing, then you're missing out on what cinema's best and most unique filmakers have to offer, like South Korean director Park Chan-wook.
Oldboy is the director's second film in his revenge trilogy that started off with Sympathy For Mr Vengeance in 2002.
Oldboy starts off with the main character Dae Su Oh drunk and being held in a police station, but is soon bailed by his friend. The credits kick off when he is talking to his daughter in aphone booth telling her he got her a birthday preasent, his friend then talks to his wife on the phone, he calls Dae Su to the phone but is nowhere to be seen, the only thing that is left behind is the bag that he was carrying his daughter's birthday preasent in. This is when we find out he's been kidnapped, and he has no idea why he is being locked up, but while locked up he has a TV in his room that he says is your only friend, clock , and lover, on this TV he finds out that he is a wanted fugitive for killing his wife. He then builds a plan of getting out and get his revenge on the person who did this to him. 15 years later he is free and is given new clothes and a cell phone, the man who did this to him is giving him five days to find out why he was imprisoned for 15 years, so 15 years of being curious wouldn't go to waste.
That is what I can tell you about the plot but don't want to spoil a brilliant twist that will force you to watch it a second time. This film has the energetic directing and storyline of a Quentin Tarrentino film, and has one of the best and possibly the best fight scene of all time. This film might not appeal to everyone but it certainly is a film you must watch before you die. This film is followed by Lady Vengance and is the final film in this revenge trilogy.
A must-have.
Movie Review: Brutally Raw & Brilliantly Inspiring Revenge Film...
Summary: 5 Stars
Oldboy has a Shakespearian tone as it depicts the tale of Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi), whose name means "he who can get along with people". Oh Dae-su is on his way home after having been arrested for public drunkenness to celebrate his daughters birthday. However, Oh Dae-su never arrives to his home as he is kidnapped and imprisoned in a small room where his only contact with the human world is a television. During the time Oh Dae-su is caged someone murders his wife and he becomes the prime suspect for the murder. The questions that Oh Dae-su unsuccessfully attempts to answer while locked up is why revenge is being taken on him and who is seeking this cruel revenge. After 15 years Oh Dae-su is released from his torturous imprisonment, which leaves him confused and ragingly vengeful.
Chan-wook Park directs a brilliant cinematic experience that is full of well-written conspiring intrigues that will keep the audience in suspense. The suspense is initiated in the opening shot where a man is hanging over the edge of a roof top causing the audience to asks themselves--why is this happening? The suspense continues as new and mysterious clues appears, but apprehension does not leave the audience even after the end of the film as the final line echos in the minds of the audience. Park's vision of revenge in Oldboy often depicts exaggerated violence that is well balanced with story as it is related to the themes of the film. However, this should serve as a warning to squeamish folks as the film is occasionally brutal and bizarre. Furthermore, the cinematography used in Oldboy vividly projects the emotional tone of the cinematic themes and characters. The characters are also superbly performed by an excellent cast, which will help the audience to experience a first class cinematic event.
Movie Review: The best new movies are now on the foreign film shelf!
Summary: 5 Stars
For years I shied away from foreign films, Asian films in particular. I'm not a martial arts fan and I didn't want to bother with subtitles. Someone recommended a Korean film to me several months ago and I decided to give it a try. I've since rented several Korean and Japanese films and I'm hooked on Asian cinema. At a time when Hollywood is rehashing the same pointless drivel, finally I find films with heart!
A perfect example is Oldboy. Min-sik Choi plays a scoundrel, a man who gets drunk on his daughter's birthday and is arrested by the police for lewd conduct. The next thing he knows, he is locked into a hotel room where his only human contact is his television and the feet of his guard. He is periodically gassed into unconsciousness when his captors need to enter his room. He stays this way for fifteen years, unaware of who is holding him or why, until he is released one day unexpectedly. This all happens in the first ten minutes of the film. The rest of the film is his search for vengeance on the person or people who stole his life from him.
This is the kind of film you feel in your guts. It's like the first time you watch Charles Bronson in Death Wish. You can't approve of what he's doing but you can't help cheering him on while he does it. Far from the staged acrobatics of a martial arts film, the violence in this film is as gritty and brutal as the best of Scorsese or De Palma. But it makes sense for the film and serves to underscore the theme, as opposed to the gratuitous violence you find in many American films. Far from a mindless action movie, this film has a poignancy that will stay with you for a long time. This is the way movies are supposed to be.