The final confrontation will have you at the edge of your seat and covering your mouth as you gasp in horror.
Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »
"Even though I'm no better than a beast, don't I have the right to live?"
Intense.
Gut-wrenching.
Horrifying.
Those words cannot even begin to describe, "Oldboy." I first saw this film when it was finally released in the U.S. at the end of March (it was originally released in South Korea in 2003). As the end credits rolled, I saw in my seat stunned at what I had just witnessed. It took me a while to digest the film. I can't remember the last time that happened to me.
Park Chan-wook is one of the finest, most talented directors from Asia today. Park made his name internationally with "J.S.A. (Joint Security Area)" then followed that up with "Sympathy with Mr. Vengeance" which has just recently been released into American theaters. "Mr. Vengeance" is the first of a trilogy of revenge films, connected only by theme. "Oldboy" is the second and is based on a Japanese manga by Minegishi
Nobuaki and Tsuchiya Garon. The final film in the trilogy, "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" has just been released in South Korea and will receive a limited run in the States next year. "Kill Bill", they are not. These films are about people making desperate choices and the terrible consequences that come from anger and revenge.
"Oldboy" opens up with a wild-haired man dangling another man over the edge of a roof by his tie. The wild-man is Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik). In a flashback, we see a more clean-cut Dae-su in a goofy, drunken stupor inside a police station. The absurdity of the scene is enhanced by Park's use of jump cuts. On his way to his daughter's birthday party, Dae-su is abducted and held captive inside a hotel room for fifteen years.
There is no way out and his captors provide him nothing but dumplings to eat. Dae-su's only window to the outside world is a television set. It is through TV that he discovers that his wife has been murdered and that he has been framed for the crime. Dae-su copes by training his body, pretending to battle invisible enemies. Until, he is suddenly released, dumped onto a rooftop inside a suitcase and given a cell phone. The mastermind of his kidnapping challenges Dae-su to discover, not who he is, but why this has happened.
That is the mystery that drives "Oldboy." The discovery of the main villain happens fairly quickly, but his connection to Dae-su won't come out until the film's shocking ending.
Dae-su is helped by a young and beautiful sushi chef named, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong). In one of the film's more memorable scenes, Dae-su asks to eat something alive and is given an octopus. Still moving on his plate, Dae-su devours it like a rabid carnivore. The octopus is just the first of Dae-su's victims.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]16384[/release]