A Perfect Tragedy

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2019)

At last I review Oldboy. My favorite movie of all time. The first South Korean film to become a worldwide phenomenon. And why is that? Why did this Revenge film make such an impact in the film industry?
Well, I'd say that has to do with the flawless retelling of a story that brilliantly utilized the fall-rise-fall structure. That story is Oedipus Rex. The tale of a man who killed his own father and married his mother before gouging his eyes out after he realized what had happened. Oldboy takes its liberties in changing many facets of the story to tie a classic down to the modern world. However, all the emotion this famous tragedy is supposed to evoke is still prevalent.
In the beginning, our main character, Oh Dae-Su is an obnoxious drunk who is imprisoned for an unknown reason. For 15 years he is forced to endure isolation all the time wondering who did this to him. Here we see him at his worse so far; one day he's free and eager to deliver his daughter her birthday present and the next day he's stuck in a cell with nothing to live for. After failing to commit suicide twice, he figured he may as well better himself. And so he teaches himself martial arts preparing himself for when he finally is able to see the outside world again. When our character is suddenly released for no apparent reason, he's now in the same world he once inhabited only with a different, more determined mindset. Not to mention a new set of physical abilities.
With all the determination to get revenge on his captor and the skills to do it, Oh Dae-Su is has climbed from a pit of despair to become a force to be reckoned with. We have now witnessed the fall to rise part of this story. When he fights 15 men simultaneously, he proves not only that he's someone with above average capabilities, but that he's willing to do anything to solve the mystery. Little does he know that it's exactly this desperate need to find answers that takes him to an even worse place then when he started.
When the film arrives at its climax, all is revealed to Oh Dae-Su. He has laid with his own daughter. A wave of fury hits him before that anger turns to sadness. That's an understatement however. After such an unbelievable turn of events that first led him to being imprisoned for 15 years, then coming out a better person than he was before, someone to be admired, our hero is now in a state of pure tragedy. Instead of admiration, we give him pity. But Oh Dae-Su cannot let his daughter discover the truth, and so he cuts out his tongue in an act of despair. Our antagonist accepts this and doesn't tell his daughter about who she really is. Then we see the villain's motivations for all this; we see his own tragic past and we can empathize with him. The audience recognizes that it was Oh Dae-Su's own fault for hurting Lee-Woo Jin, and that it was his own determination for finding answers that leads him down a path of self destruction making this tale all the more tragic.
At the film's conclusion, Oh Dae-Su undergoes hypnosis in an attempt to erase his dark memories. When he meets again with Mi-Do and embraces her, he holds a smile before it turns into a grimace. Has he forgotten who his daughter really is or is he forced to live forever in tragedy?