Movie Review – Oldboy (Korean)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Director: Chan-wook Park
Starring: Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang
Release Year: 2003
OPINION
It is one of those movies where you can neither guess the reason for the revenge nor the actual end play (by midway). Definitely the emphasis is on style over substance, glorifying goriness than the emotional connect and acting is definitely not its strong suite. Despite its emotional and language barriers, it is a victory for movie making by having a stranglehold on audience attention up until 90% of the movie.
SYNOPSIS
Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi) is a careless drunk and has rubbed many people the wrong way. On his daughter’s birthday, he is abducted and put in a room without giving a reason for the cause. He is put in an independent room of an apartment without any scope for a conversation except for a television, mostly drugged, fed the same duck dumpling and occasionally visited by a hypnotist. As he prepares himself by learning boxing and other martial arts from what he can gather from television to extract revenge on the person who might have done this to him and also digging a tunnel in parallel for his escape, one fine day he is let off after 15 years. Can he do what he has been preparing for?
REVIEW
It is a captivating premise to be imprisoned without knowing the reason and source while also keeping the audience in the same state of ignorant mind as the protagonist. This establishes an empathy from the audience who will embark on a journey with the protagonist till the end of story (or the reveal). As the hype builds up over a period of time, it cannot be fizzled out with a run-of-the-mill reason and that’s where the story kicks into another least expected dimension. All the loopholes and misfires are temporarily forgotten and we change to the new ride and hop along with a renewed interest which again acts in the movie’s favor.
A special mention should go to Ji-tae Yu who plays the character Woo-jin Lee, he does it with such elan that makes you think that you are not just seeing a good vs. evil story. The story and screenplay is well thought out and executed that greatly influences how the editing eventually turns out. While the boldness of the content is surely to be appreciated in a mainstream cinema, the way it ends is what emphasizes the grayness of the human mind. A classic generally attributes to how the audience reacted to it rather than how well it is made, in that aspect Oldboy definitely is a cult classic that overcomes the goofy acting, uneven scenes and continuity issues to become something that is much more.
VERDICT
Less you know about it, more you can enjoy its forbidden, adventurous and a bumpy ride.
I remember the first time I had seen this movie. The story pretty much blew me away as it totally catches you off guard. The first watch is definitely the best as the more you re-watch it the less of an impact it has. Never-the-less a great movie!