Cinemas Fields Are Now Evergreen For Park Chan Wook

Rating: 9/10 (29 May 2007)

NOTE TO REVIEWERS:
Oldboy is a quandary for public opinion as for some strange reason or another it seemingly splits the IMDb reviewers straight down the centre, and I ask for those that sift through the Oldboy reviews just pressing "no" because they didn't like, understand or get the film to please take the time to read this, and if on the 'reviews' merits you find it unhelpful, unformed or at the very least not expressing my own thoughts of this film then please feel free to press that little button.
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In my personal opinion, undeserving of an unnecessary wave of criticism of this film which stemmed around three years after the creation of this film, Oldboy can be an unsettling cinematic experience as it forces the viewer to face up to some unsavoury aspects of humanity, namely the more taboo topic of revenge.
The second instalment of Park Chan Wooks vengeance trilogy, Oldboy takes a different, and slightly slicker, approach from its predecessor (Sympathy For My Vengeance) and a less philosophical one than its successor (Lady Vengeance). Whereby the former dealt with the escalation and the utter futility of revenge, and the latter tackled not only the notion of "what justice is" but also being the only film of the three to deal with redemption, Oldboy is a stylised tale of truth searching and revenge, which throws up perhaps one of the most devious twists in film history but also successfully manages to lead the audience down a completely different path as we ask why? But not the correct why.
Many find its sequences to be gory and unnecessary, and as a fellow critic I accept that those are their views on the matter, but in my mind they lack the courage to look this film head on. There are many reviews which rate this film poorly, while all the positive ones have a negative useful to non-useful ratio, but by reading the derogatory ones you wonder if some of the posters were jumping on the "anti-Oldboy" bandwagon for the ride, as few seemed capable of producing a coherent synopsis. That is not to say 'all' negative reviews were unfounded but that, in my mind, certain issues are misinterpreted. As for Oldboy being a gore-fest, that is overblown hype created by the same people that then went and saw Hostel and thought it was brilliant. The violence is stylised and perhaps the scenes en mass can desensitise, but the scenes are no more gruesome than those from any other thriller, and are few and far between. What is troubling for most people to deal with is that notion of revenge. What Park Chan Wook succeeds at is having us believe in a story and then being able to flip it entirely on its head. All the work we invest as an audience is completely undone, as our protagonist makes a startling change. It's hard watching because it is such a negative ending, yet that in itself is the point. Oldboys message is not "don't open your mouth because you'll get punished later in life", that's the analysis of someone who totally missed the point. The point is we as humans lack of compassion and sensitivity and understanding. That we are more focused on ourselves than helping and leaving others be, we do not take the time to take into consideration other peoples feelings, and do we have control of our feelings? While certainly not glorifying incest (and certainly not a practitioner) ; is not the notion of love the same whomever it be applied to? Are not the feelings the same? The ultimate punishment for Oh-Dae-Su, and ultimate revenge for our antagonist is not that Oh Dae Su unwittingly fell in love with his daughter, but that Woo-jin Lee had full knowledge when he possessed feelings for his sister, he knew the choices he was making yet could not control himself and his sister, and perhaps more importantly, they did not want to. Oh-Dae- Su's punishment is that he fell in love before the realisation of the 'real' relationship between he and Mi-do. His feelings for her were real throughout the course of the film, so the ultimate punishment is that he must stave his misconceptions and prejudices because he has now found himself in the same position as Woo-jin Lee was, when he began spreading the rumours when he was a teenager.Oldboy isn't about keeping your mouth shut, it's about staving off preconceived ideas and unthoughtful concepts, why are some things more bad than others? No one really has an explanation for this, merely that society has decreed it to be so.
Those hoping to find within this film an intense thriller which is high in entertainment value will not be disappointed as Oldboy works on all levels and most importantly and its most basic as a thriller. Park Chan Wook has created a deeply terrifying but highly engrossing movie which above all else is smart while the twist affects all of us as it makes us all feel violated and almost as if revenge had been committed upon us, as well as Oh-Dae-Su.
Perhaps i'm misinterpreting the pleas of those that disagree with me, but then again this synopsis is only the interpretation of myself, the Academy of Science Fiction/Fantasy & Horror Films USA, The Asia-Pacific Film Festival, Austin Film Critics Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Bergen International Film Festival, The British Independent Film Awards, The Broadcast Critics Film Awards, The Cannes Film Festival, European Film Awards, Golden Trailer Awards, Grand Bell Awards, Hong Kong Film Awards, Online Film Critics Society Awards, Satelitte Awards, Sitges Catalonian International Film Festival and The Stockholm Film Festival...yes, I think we all got it wrong here.