Welcome relief for some, complete disappointment for others?

Rating: 10/10 (9 October 2006)

If you like films that entertain and let you forget for two hours, then this is a film you will not enjoy, in fact probably hate. If you like films that ask you to really think, that categorically refuse to adhere to standardised modes of filmic production and consumption, then this is film you will love.
!Spoilers!
How many films can you think of have the same linear predictable plot structure that inevitably ends happily ever after? Almost as long as films have been made this has continually been the case. Hollywood productions which so completely dominate the western audience, simply dare not do otherwise. And why not? It is what makes money. Films follow this pattern because it is a tried, tested and proved method for mass consumption. I consider OldBoy to be an anti-Hollywood film. It is a journey that begins with a hero and ends with a monster. It addresses subjects that mainstream directors would never even consider. Having read a number of comments posted, what seems most abjectionable to people is the incest and the torture. The incest and torture is absolutely not pointless or unnecessarily gratuitous. The removal of Daesu's tongue (symbolic phallus) and the excessive dental work is a direct reference to the theory of castration anxiety, which is the basis of Sigmund Freuds work on the human psyche. As for the incest and the self mutilation, it is definitely a reference to the Greek Tragedy of Oedipus Rex, where Oedipus blinds himself after he discovers he has unknowingly slept with his mother and murdered his own father. The incest, the torture and the amputation of Daesu's tongue represent, among other things, a total rejection of the model of the Hollywood hero, who always wins.
You may like, love, loathe or Hate OldBoy, but don't think it sensationalist and pointless. It didn't win awards for nothing, there really is reason people like it so much.