OLDBOY (2003)

A.K.A.: Oldeuboi

Country: South Korea

Genre(s): Action / Crime / Drama

Director: Park Chan-wook

Cast: Choi Min-sik / Ji-tae Yu / Hye-jeong Kang

Plot

A disturbed man goes on a revenge quest to find out who kidnapped, imprisoned, and drugged him for fifteen years.

What I Liked

A wholly unique film experience, “Oldboy” grabs a hold of the viewer with its irresistible stylishness, unhinged performances, and bizarre mystery premise, remaining undeniably fascinating from start to finish.  A trippy blend of noir, revenge, psychological thriller, martial arts, dark comedy, and sci-fi genres, the movie is at once disorienting and familiar.  Just when it seems to be fitting into a particular convention, the film takes an unexpected turn in a direction toward new heights of lunacy.

When the sheer unconventionality of it all stars to wear off, the intrigue of solving the mystery behind it all takes over, maintaining viewer interest as the filmmakers lead us on a hallucinatory journey through damaged memories, and drugged dreams to an appropriately perverse set of twists, only to wrap everything up in a tidy, nihilist package by the film’s conclusion.

What I Disliked

After the hero escapes from his imprisonment early in the film, we no longer need the cheesy voice-over narration.  The half-assed Eastern philosophy and cheap attempts to bring poetic meaning to the film through these voiceovers only serve to weaken the experience.  They’re probably meant as homage to the noir films that clearly inspired “Oldboy,” but really do the film no justice.  The action and dialogue are strange enough and explain the plot as completely as possible.

I’m never a big fan of twists in films.  They're dreadfully cliché in the thriller genre in particular.  However, I have to admit that those who enjoy that sort of thing will find “Oldboy” ends with a series of twists that are as wicked as they are surprising.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

This time I’m picking a scene that was memorable primarily for negative reasons.  Without giving too much away, let me say that one of the aforementioned twists leaves main character Oh Dae-su even more insane than he already had been at the film’s start.  Basically driven mad he goes on a rant of self-loathing and self-mutilation that to me neither fit the moment nor made me feel any sort of emotion but bewilderment.  I get what the self-mutilation is supposed to represent, I just don’t think the intensity of Oh Dae-su’s reaction befits his character or the situation.   So I chose this scene both because its sheer weirdness stands out in a movie crawling with weird and because it is one of the most disappointing moments in an otherwise fascinating movie.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5