Oldboy (2003)Cruelty is the act of punishing someone to a degree that exceeds reasonable thresholds, and even deriving pleasure from it. Oldboy (2003) is a visceral action movie about a boorish young father named Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), who is mysteriously abducted and imprisoned for fifteen years for undisclosed reasons. After his release, Dae-su cannot return to his former life, since he has been framed for the murder of his wife, leaving his daughter the ward of a foster family in another country. Dae-su searches for his jailer with the assistance of a young sushi chef named Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), with whom he has fallen in love. This brings him to Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), a cunning mastermind who challenges Dae-su to figure out why this was done to him; and if he doesn't, he will kill Mi-do.
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Directed by Park Chan-wook, Oldboy is a graphic film that often pushes into psychologically uncomfortable territory. Always running the risk of devolving into an exploitation flick with its brutal scenes of torture and mayhem, Oldboy deals foremost with relevant sociological issues, like the consequences our thoughtlessness can have on others. What little the audience knows about Dae-su prior to his incarceration comes from a protracted montage after he has been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct--on his young daughter's birthday no less. Dae-su is locked up in a cell made up to resemble a hotel room, and he tries to consider who would hold a grudge against him, cataloging an extensive list of names. (If Dae-su remembers this many people who he knows he's mistreated, how many has he forgot?) Dae-su's punishment is cruel and unusual--if he were really the kind of monster to warrant this abuse, he probably wouldn't be allowed to roam the streets. Dae-su struggles in his loneliness, attempting suicide on multiple occasions, and only finds solace in rote television programs. Even his escape efforts--which takes years--are meaningless; he is set free following a hypnotic encounter. After his release, Dae-su is dressed in a suit, and given a wallet full of money and a cell phone. It becomes clear that he is being treated like an ant in an ant farm by his mystery tormentor, who trickles out just enough clues to keep baiting Dae-su into playing his sadistic game. After being imprisoned for fifteen years, Dae-su's instinctive response is to seek revenge--understandable given what seems like act of random cruelty perpetrated against him. Revenge is at the core of Oldboy; but unlike other neo-noir classics from which it draws inspiration--notably Point Blank--revenge becomes a debit that incurs interest for the seeker. Woo-jin is responsible for Dae-su's suffering, but every step Dae-su takes in his quest to get even costs him everything from physical discomfort to the suffering of his loved ones. Woo-jin is always a step ahead of Dae-su, anticipating his every move and deflating any sense of pride he takes in getting closer to his vengeance. Woo-jin withholds the reason for his conspiracy of pain against Dae-su until late into Oldboy, leaving enough clues so that it is clear that he intends for Dae-su to eventually reach that conclusion on his own. He is not running from his "pet project", but perpetuating the game; he even inquires whether Dae-su prefers the "prison" he's been released into, or his former one.
Time has tempered Dae-su's behavior--as has a lack of alcohol--although beneath this superficially mellowed exterior beats the heart of an angry man whose bloodlust longs to be sated. (This is the rationale behind a shocking, unsimulated scene where Choi Min-sik--as Dae-su--eats a live octopus, an effect as grotesque as the one in Vampire's Kiss.) Armed with limited information, he discovers the location of the prison where he was kept, and takes it upon himself to brutalize the warden, Park Cheol-woong (Oh Dal-su), forcibly removing a tooth with his hammer for each year he spent inside, then fighting off a dozen guards in an impressively staged fight scene. But as thrilling as these scenes may be, they are stock-in-trade for a revenge picture, especially so in East Asian cinema. When Dae-su is later confronted by a recovered Park, his previous act of aggression proves to be a hollow victory, since there is nothing that Dae-su does that Woo-jin is not capable of undoing. Woo-jin is the antithesis to Dae-su--he is petty, filthy rich, scheming, and intelligent. Woo-jin is also "sickly"; he claims to have a heart condition that necessitates a pacemaker, one that is outfitted with a remote control which he flaunts to deny Dae-su the pleasure of torturing him and missing out on learning the "truth" behind his game. These details paint Woo-jin as a stereotypical bad guy, embodying "unmanly" characteristics that--in another action film--Dae-su would triumph over to maintain the testosterone-fueled power fantasy commonly associated with the genre. And while Woo-jin's scheme is wildly extreme and unwarranted, he counts on Dae-su living up to his expectations as the tough and relentless revenge seeker to ensure his plot unfolds the way he expects. Woo-jin weaves such a labyrinthine and inescapable web for Dae-su with ease, resembling Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects and begging the question as to whose revenge was really satisfied at the end of Oldboy.
Recommended for: Fans of a brutal and gritty revenge film that embraces as many tropes of the genre as it subverts. Oldboy is graphic and filled with intense scenes of violence and torture; but the film also has a few moments of dark comedy, like Dae-su's almost effective means of saving a suicide jumper and his unfortunate poodle, or his dejected narration in prison and then shortly after his release.
Time has tempered Dae-su's behavior--as has a lack of alcohol--although beneath this superficially mellowed exterior beats the heart of an angry man whose bloodlust longs to be sated. (This is the rationale behind a shocking, unsimulated scene where Choi Min-sik--as Dae-su--eats a live octopus, an effect as grotesque as the one in Vampire's Kiss.) Armed with limited information, he discovers the location of the prison where he was kept, and takes it upon himself to brutalize the warden, Park Cheol-woong (Oh Dal-su), forcibly removing a tooth with his hammer for each year he spent inside, then fighting off a dozen guards in an impressively staged fight scene. But as thrilling as these scenes may be, they are stock-in-trade for a revenge picture, especially so in East Asian cinema. When Dae-su is later confronted by a recovered Park, his previous act of aggression proves to be a hollow victory, since there is nothing that Dae-su does that Woo-jin is not capable of undoing. Woo-jin is the antithesis to Dae-su--he is petty, filthy rich, scheming, and intelligent. Woo-jin is also "sickly"; he claims to have a heart condition that necessitates a pacemaker, one that is outfitted with a remote control which he flaunts to deny Dae-su the pleasure of torturing him and missing out on learning the "truth" behind his game. These details paint Woo-jin as a stereotypical bad guy, embodying "unmanly" characteristics that--in another action film--Dae-su would triumph over to maintain the testosterone-fueled power fantasy commonly associated with the genre. And while Woo-jin's scheme is wildly extreme and unwarranted, he counts on Dae-su living up to his expectations as the tough and relentless revenge seeker to ensure his plot unfolds the way he expects. Woo-jin weaves such a labyrinthine and inescapable web for Dae-su with ease, resembling Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects and begging the question as to whose revenge was really satisfied at the end of Oldboy.
Recommended for: Fans of a brutal and gritty revenge film that embraces as many tropes of the genre as it subverts. Oldboy is graphic and filled with intense scenes of violence and torture; but the film also has a few moments of dark comedy, like Dae-su's almost effective means of saving a suicide jumper and his unfortunate poodle, or his dejected narration in prison and then shortly after his release.