Superior exploration about sins in a surreal context.

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2009)

First off, the entire movie won't happen in reality, as it was invented in the Japanese manga form and adapted into this hyped movie, probably the most hyped Korean movie ever.
Those good qualities were already mentioned too many times by other reviews so I'd save mine in terms of technology, film-noir approach and creativity in action scenes. Those were all very much the sample of movie making. However, the real gem of this movie lies elsewhere.
The movie is seemingly the protagonist's revenge story, who was imprisoned for 15 years and was framed for murdering his own wife when he was in the prison. Experiencing illusions, desperation, suicides and many obstacles, Dae-su was finally released from the stinking private prison. Just like destiny, he came to a sushi shop where a mysterious girl developed an affection for him. Later, the girl took the fainted dae-su home and treated him.With the girl's help, Dae-su began his road of revenge in searching for the enemy. The problem was, Dae-su's early life was full of bloody debts, so where to start?
The story, executed in a way full of details and colors, which reflect the many characters' mind and memory, their desperation and loneliness. It doesn't deal with social problem directly. In fact, the social context in this movie is entirely emittable, which had very little to do with the story. Only in the beginning of the plot we see Dae-su in the police station pissing off every police officers. Later in the movie, no matter how many people Dae-su defeated, or how many died in the carnage, no law was forced on the responsibilities. Even Dae-su's imprisonment was not directly related to some social problem, but related to purely refined 'Sin' described in the movie. The movie is seemingly trying to rationalize or legalize Dae-su's bloody personal war against the one archenemies, but implying again and again that Dae-su was keep missing things that matter. In many places, Dae-su had the choice to escape with his newly-found lover, who's maybe 28 years his junior, but his mind was so obsessed with revenge. After he found out about the truth of his imprisonment and all the revenging plan, the morality came out only as an ultimate punishment which turned the situation upside down. Dae-su's exploration of sins didn't end with the fact that his new "lover" is actually his reconciled daughter after all the 15 years. Lately, without the archenemies, Dae-su asked the hypnotist to modify his memory so he wouldn't know about his daughter and his misdeeds. However, he couldn't forget anything yet he had to accept the daughter who already took him as a lover.
So we can summarize the flow chart of the sin in the movie.Sin 1 is Woo-jin's sex with his own sister. The 2nd sin committed that is significant is Dae-su's rumor about Woo-jin and his sister messing with each other. Later, this sin grew stronger when everyone talks about it. It finally triggered woo-jin's sister committing suicide because the rumors gave her a fake-pregnant symptom. Woo jin committed the 3rd sin by letting sister fall off the cliff. Revenge 1 is a direct reaction to sin 2, which imprisoned Dae-su and killed his wife; but when Dae-su came out of prison, he immediately revenge(revenge 2) and in which process, committed sin 4 which is having sex with his own daughter. But since he has to finish revenge 2, revenge 1 and 2 reconciled him and Woo-jin, giving him the truth about his daughter, which completed Revenge 1, which in return made Revenge 2 meaningless. Woo-jin finally committed suicide(sin 4) which is the direct effort of sin 3. Although Dae-su survived, he didn't have hope to be forgiven(or forgiving himself) and tried to forget the past(sin 4) but failed. Therefore, he had to live along with sin 4 and let the daughter bear sin 4 as well, surviving the cruel world......So, it's quite clear that the original sinner and the final sinner were both Dae-su, punished by his sins until his death.
Nowadays, very few movies have such concentration and explosion in each scene to awe the audiences, yet completely ignoring the social context and the legal system. The Old Boy did this and told a top-notch revenge story that is as dramatic and Sweeny Todd, yet stylish enough like Devil May Cry. It definitely gave me some lessons in making movies.