Oldeuboi

Plot synopsis:
The film begins in medias res, with the silhouette of a man holding onto a rope-like object -- a neck-tie, by which one man is dangling another off the edge of a building. The man holding the neck-tie is Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), who commands the other man to hear his story.The movie then cuts backward to the year 1988. Dae-su is a Korean businessman with a wife and daughter. On his daughter's fourth birthday, he is picked up by police for being drunk and disorderly. He harrasses several other people at the police station, showing them the angel's wings he bought for his daughter. Finally, he has to be bailed out by his old friend, Joo-Hwan. While Joo-Hwan is in a phone booth talking with Dae-su's daughter, Yeun-Hee, and his wife, Kim Ja-Hyun, Dae-su is kidnapped by unidentified people.Dae-su next appears in a private prison resembling a shabby hotel room. He has been kept there for two months with no word of who is holding him there or why. He receives food through a small hatch at the bottom of the door, and is gassed into unconsciousness whenever he becomes suicidal, or when his holders need access to the room (e.g. to maintain it; cut his hair). His only contact with the outside world is through the television, from which he learns one day that his wife has been murdered, his daughter has been sent to foster parents and that he is himself the prime suspect; his captors took blood and other items from him, and have presumably left enough evidence at the crime scene to implicate him as the perpetrator. This, together with his continued captivity, causes Dae-su to slide into near-madness and violent hallucinations.Attempting to get a grip on his sanity and determine his captor, Dae-su fills several notebooks with an autobiography-prison diary, listing everybody whom he could have possibly wronged in the past, but is unable to figure out who would hate him so profoundly as to imprison him like this. From year 5 on, he starts to tattoo lines in his arm for every year he is imprisoned, and forces himself to train by shadowboxing, punching at the walls of his prison until thick calluses form on his knuckles. When one of his deliveries of fried dumplings turns out to have an extra metal chopstick, he conceals it and uses it to slowly dig a hole into one of the walls. Over the next ten years, he works out, follows current events on TV, and loosens enough bricks to glimpse the outside world. He calculates that he will need another month to make the hole large enough to escape.That night, he is gassed again and a lady hypnotizes him. He wakes up to unfamiliar surroundings. Just as abruptly as he was captured, Dae-su is set free on the rooftop of a building that has been constructed over the place where he went missing. He has a new suit of clothes and his prison diaries. Adjusting to the bright afternoon light, he sees another man sitting on the edge of the building with his small dog. The first human being he has interacted with in fifteen years, Oh Dae-su is taken aback, unable to have a proper conversation with him. We learn that the man is suicidal and says to Dae-su, "Even though I'm no better than a beast, don't I have the right to live?". He then attempts to jump off the edge, but Oh Dae-su grabs his neck tie, saving him from death. Dae-su tells the man to delay his death, because he wants to tell him his story, to which he utters "What?". The scene ends at the point in which the movie began.After relating his story, Oh Dae-su walks off and out of the building, ignoring the despondent man's plea to listen to his story in turn. As he is leaving the front entrance, the suicidal man lands on a car behind Dae-su, killing himself and his pet. Dae-su pauses, followed by a wide smile. "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone", he thinks to himself; a direct quotation from the first line of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's famous poem, Solitude. Throughout the movie, Oh Dae-su uses this quote as a mantra for himself whenever he faces horrible situations.Wandering the streets of the city, Dae-su does not know what to do with his new-found freedom due to his enemies framing him as the murderer of his wife. When a gang of thugs attack him, he finds that his ten out of fifteen years of solitary training have paid off; he fends them off with only his fists. Next Dae-su stands on the street looking at fish swimming in an aquarium, when a homeless man walks up and gives him a wallet full of cash and a cellphone. He then meets Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong), a girl who works in a sushi bar; he recognizes her from a cooking show he often watched while imprisoned, and she says he looks familiar too. An unknown man contacts Dae-su via his cellphone, and claims to be the one who imprisoned him. He mentions it was an experiment, and taunts Dae-su to come and find him and learn the reason for the imprisonment. He gives a mysterious clue: "a grain of sand and a rock both sink in water with the same speed". Dae-su asks Mi-do for something alive to eat, and gulps down an entire living squid, much to Mi-do's shock. Dae-su collapses with a high fever; Mi-do takes pity on him and takes him in.At her apartment, Dae-su experiences a moment of weakness and tries to sexually assault Mi-do. She fends him off, but understands he did it out of desperation. She tells him that she will make love to him soon, and she will indicate when she is ready for it. Over the next few days, Mi-do does some inquiries and finds out that Dae-su's daughter has been adopted by a couple in Sweden. Dae-su decides not to contact her yet and goes home with Mi-do, only to find out that she has been chatting on her computer for some time with a person who reveals to be Dae-su's captor. Dae-su feels he cannot trust Mi-do and leaves.Based on the taste of the dumplings that he ate for 15 years while imprisoned, and having seen the name "Blue Dragon" on a receipt fragment once, Dae-su goes to various Chinese restaurants with "Blue Dragon" in the name in order to determine exactly which restaurant it was. When he finally finds the right one, called "Magic Blue Dragon", he follows the delivery boy on one of his calls, and finds the prison. Once there, he finds and ties up the prison's manager, Mr Park, and tortures him by pulling out his teeth with a claw hammer (15, one for each year he was imprisoned). Mr Park points him to tape recordings, one bearing his name. From the recording, Dae-su learns that it is a private prison for people who want someone locked away. His captor had him booked for 15 years and even suggested what drugs to give him if he'd go insane. The only reason the captor would give is: "Oh Dae-su talks too much." The prison guards then gang up on Dae-su, but he fights them all off with nothing more than his clawhammer and his bare fists (although he does get stabbed in the back). Gravely injured, Dae-su is put into a taxi by a man passing by. The man sends the taxi off to Mi-do's exact address, revealing he is Dae-su's captor, but Dae-su is unable to do anything about it in his current state.Back at home, Mi-do nurses him back to health. Dae-su goes to see his old friend Joo-Hwan in his internet shop, and plays the tape recording for him. Joo-Hwan doesn't recognize the voice, but succeeds in identifying Mi-do's on-line chat friend, a person calling himself "Evergreen". They initiate a chat and Evergreen congratulates Dae-su because his wife's murder case has been dismissed, and taunts him some more. Dae-su returns home and tries to violently force more information from Mi-do, still thinking she is working with Evergreen. Suddenly, Joo-Hwan calls, saying that he tracked down Evergreen's user ID and found the owner's details. The owner's name is 'Su Dae-oh' and there is also an address. Dae-su realizes it is an appartment in the building accross the street from Mi-do's appartment. He rushes off, investigates the appartment and finally meets his captor, a man called Woo-jin (Yu Ji-tae), and his bodyguard, Mr Han, in one of the rooms. Dae-su tries to attack, but is stopped by Han. Woo-jin tells Dae-su he cannot kill him, because if he does, he will never learn why he was imprisoned, and if he tries to use torture, Woo-jin will remote-deactivate the pacemaker he had surgically placed in his own chest. But Woo-jin offers to play a game with Dae-su: he must find out why all this happened to him in the next five days. If he fails, Mi-do will die on July 5. If he succeeds, Woo-jin promises to kill himself. While leaving, Woo-jin casually remarks that Dae-su left his front door open.Dae-su races home and finds that Mr Park and his gang of thugs have captured and sexually abused Mi-do. Mr Park is about to use the same teeth-pulling torture trick on Dae-su, when Mr Han shows up at the door and offers Mr Park a suitcase full of money, if he leaves. Park takes it and while leaving, Dae-su threatens to cut off Park's hand.Dae-su and Mi-do leave the appartment. On the road, they grow closer together, and Mi-do indicates she is ready to make love. After the love-making, they are gassed and Woo-jin leaves a package in their room. It contains Mr Park's severed hand. Dae-su realizes that Woo-jin can hear every word he says, so he must have bugged him. They go to a shop and have a wire removed from his shoe. The next day, with Mi-do's help, Dae-su finds out that 'Evergreen' refers to his old high school, where he discovers Woo-jin was a fellow student. He calls his friend Joo-Hwan, who confirms the finding, and mentions that Woo-jin's sister, who attended the school at the same time and had a promiscuous reputation, killed herself later. However, due to the not being able to spy on Dae-su anymore, Woo-jin has gone to Joo-Hwan's internet shop, and enraged over the comments made about his sister, he beats Joo-Hwan to death while having Dae-su listen over the phone.Strongly suspecting the reason for his imprisonment has something to do with the sister's death, Dae-su tracks down Mr Park. Due to losing a hand to Woo-jin, he is cooperative now and agrees to hold Mi-do in Dae-su's old prison facility to keep her safe from Woo-jin. He also confirms that Dae-su was drugged and hypnotized several times while imprisoned. Dae-su finds another classmate and discusses Woo-jin and his sister with her. Apparently, there were growing rumors about the sister's sex life and her possibly being pregnant. The rumors were spread by Joo-Hwan but it seems Dae-su himself started them. Then he has a sudden recall of memory. One day at school, as it turned out, he had spied on Woo-jin and his sister, Soo-ah, and witnessed a sexual encounter. Not knowing at the time that the two were related and the scene he was witnessing was an instance of incest, Dae-su mentioned what he had seen to one of his own friends, just before transferring to a school in Seoul. Eventually, the rumor started a life of its own and Soo-ah threw herself over a dam on July 5, killing herself. Dae-su finally realizes the solution to the first clue: "a grain of sand and a rock both sink in water with the same speed", means that a casual remark or an outright accusation may both have the same devastating consequences to a person, so Woo-jin holds Dae-su responsible for his sister's death.Dae-su finally founds out where Woo-jin lives, and confronts him with all of this information. He accuses Woo-jin of letting him look for a memory that was erased using hypnosis; but Woo-jin claims not to have messed with Dae-su's memory, Dae-su had simply forgotten it himself because he thought it was insignificant. However, his litlle slip of the tongue grew out of proportion until it involved Soo-ah becoming pregnant. It was never clear whether this did in fact occur, but believing it and fearing public humiliation, she killed herself. Dae-su, however, implies that Woo-jin killed his own sister, afraid of fathering her child, and tried to shift the blame to Dae-su to cope with the guilt. Woo-jin does indeed possess a photo of Soo-ah on the dam, dated the day of her death, July 5. He took the picture, so he was present at her suicide. But Woo-jin then side-steps these allegations with an even more devastating revelation. He gives Dae-su a photo album, the first picture of which is a family portrait of himself, his wife, and his daughter. The remaining photos in the album are of his daughter growing older, until in horror Dae-su discovers that his daughter is none other than Mi-do (at the same time, Mi-do finds angel's wings in a bag, the same Dae-su had bought for her 4th birthday). By carefully manipulating both of their lives - secretly taking care of Mi-do from the age of 3 (probably the reason for 15 years, 3+15=18) - Dae-su's since his incarceration and Mi-do's since her father vanished - and hypnotizing each of them independently, Woo-jin was able to cause Dae-su and Mi-do to commit incest as well. Dae-su goes into a rage and fights with Mr Han. Despite being mortally wounded, Mr Han keeps him subdued, until Woo-jin shoots and kills him.Dae-su then learns that Mr Park is still working for Woo-jin, having been granted the ownership of the prison in exchange for severing his hand. Mr Park is with Mi-do, and is ordered to give a similar album to her at Woo-jin's command. Dae-su is horrified, and begs Woo-jin not to let this happen. He then gets on his hands and knees and starts to bark like a dog, eventually going so far as to cut off his own tongue so that he will never talk too much again. During this scene Woo-jin holds a handkerchief to his mouth, and it looks as if he is crying, but then it shows clearly he is laughing with smugness and struggling to hide it so he can continue to watch Dae-su torture himself. With his thirst for vengeance that was his sole reason for living finally spent, Woo-jin spares Mi-do from knowing and readies to kill himself and Dae-Su with the same bullet. He changes his mind, however, and gives Dae-su the remote switch to his own pacemaker. Dae-su immediately grabs it and uses it, only to find that it doesn't kill Woo-jin, but activates a tape recorder. Woo-jin exits the penthouse in an elevator, leaving Dae-Su alone to be tormented by the tape recording of his incestuous love-making with his own daughter.As Woo-jin leaves, we are taken back into his guilt-ridden memory of his sister's death. He is holding Soo-ah over the dam, trying to save her from killing herself, and she says that she has always known that Woo-jin was afraid, that she regrets nothing and asks him to let go of her. She seems at peace, and eventually he releases his grip. Back in the elevator, Woo-jin realizes that even after getting his revenge against Dae-Su, that nothing will take his pain away. The camera is focused on his open hand, which slowly closes as if around a gun, cocks an imaginary hammer -- and fires the real gun into his head in the elevator.In an epilogue set in a wintry landscape, Dae-su goes to a hypnotist (the same one whom Woo-jin hired to hypnotize both Dae-su and Mi-do) and asks for her help to forget the secret. He writes her a letter, since he can no longer talk. The hypnotist said that she originally did not want to help him, but she was touched by his last sentence: "Even though I'm no more than a beast, don't I, too, have the right to live?". It is the same sentence Oh Dae-su heard from the suicidal man who appeared at the beginning of the movie.The hypnotist tells Oh Dae-su to imagine himself back at Woo-jin's penthouse. She uses hypnosis to split Dae-su into two personalities: the "Beast", who remembers the secret, and the "ignorant" Dae-su, who doesn't know.When the hypnotist asks Dae-su to split into the two people, a reflection of himself appears in the window. The hypnotist tells him that the monster will walk away and for every step he takes, he will age a year and die when he reaches 70. The reflection is the "Beast" - he holds a grim expression and remains unmoved, unwilling to leave his place in Dae-su's mind. The "ignorant" Dae-su, reflected in the glass, mourns the loss of a major part of his life. The camera cuts to the cassette player which then finishes playing the music that has set the scene. Oh Dae-su is wished the best of luck, and the screen turns black.Dae-su wakes up. The hypnotist has already gone, and he is left lying on the cold ground with a delirious feeling. He stumbles about, and finally with some hesitation he meets up with Mi-do and they embrace. The soft spoken Mi-do tells Dae-su that she loves him, and a large smile appears on his face, which slowly disintegrates into a tortured grimace.

Tags: boring, neo noir, murder, depressing, suspenseful, cult, violence, flashback, insanity, absurd, psychedelic, romantic, claustrophobic, revenge

Review:
Even though the acting and screenplay are world class, the plot is really the cherry on the cake.When it comes to screenplay Park Chan-Wook is unique (at least for western standards) in his way of filming.
Don't, however, expect a story like Oldboy's, because you would be very disappointed.When it comes to acting and the music, this film is also one of the better films ever made.
The music sticks in your head and every time I put in my Oldboy-DVD and the theme-song comes up, I'm just flooded with good memories (even though the plot doesn't have a single reason to be happy about).
The story is gripping, the characters believable and well rounded, the emotion human and the feeling I was left with at the end of the film is one of awe.
The screenplay is brilliant; the characters are developed very well, extremely complex, and the plot is not only ingenious, but the payoff and twists are 1000x better than any Shamaylan movie.Simply put, from a technical point of view, it's one of the best movies ever.
(just browse Chan Wook Park) If you think "The Fast and the Furious" is the best movie ever made, please do not even bother to watch Oldboy, and spare others your "brilliant" reviews..
I wont divulge the plot or end this comment with a Latin quote to reinforce my self importance i'll just say go and watch it, preferably if you're not too squeamish and don't mind subtitles.This film left me thinking about it the following day which is normally a good thing (atleast it shows my memory is working!).
There is a lot of gore and violence that can turn you off, but I was simply amazed by the depth and width of some of the scenes.Without giving anything away, once the main character is released he meets a man with a dog.
2 films we watched were "Natural Born Killers" and "Old-boy", and, especially the 2nd 1 was a revelation.Knowing the plot, it was easy for me to concentrate on the visual side, and my friend always consumes the movies this way.
Oldboy is an original movie that shows what happens when a man's freedom is taken away and he doesn't know why, or by whom.
It's graphically violent, but not gratuitously so, the acting is first rate and the plot is intricate, intelligent, filled to the brim with many philosophical and human ideas.It's perfect for multiple viewings, it's a good laugh to watch with your mates, it was desired for the really big screen and the experience of watching OldBoy is unforgettable, right up until the very end.
My father being the eternal sceptic that he is turned out to be an extremely worthy person to watch the film with, and his response to it opened my eyes a little as to why I love it that much.The plot itself is as follows.
However, Tarantino is himself a huge fan of Old Boy, being its main advocate to win the 2003 Palme d'Or (where it eventually lost out to Fahrenheit 9/11) and has stated Park Chan-Wook as an influence for his directing style on the Kill Bill series, as well as on his later grindhouse works Death Proof and Planet Terror.
Chan-Wook takes on a policy of "trust the director", and leaves many questions throughout the film which gives it a somewhat disorientating feel at times.
After reading praise after praise about this film on the internet from mostly western viewers (such as the completely clueless Tarantino) and seeing as how it won a major prize at the most recent Cannes Film Festival, my expectations were naturally high when I finally got around to viewing it.I'm sorry to say that I do not share in their optimistic appraisal of this movie.After being imprisoned for 15 years for unknown reasons by an unknown person/persons, Daesu (Min-sik Choi) is naturally a bit upset and is dying to figure out who imprisoned him and why.
Night Shyamalan's guide to movie surprises, writer/director Chan-wook Park (along with 3 other writers) attempts to craft a whodunnit that will keep you guessing and interested until the very end.
Finally the relationship between Daesu and the mysterious Mido (Hye-jeong Kang) is really quite touching, allowing for some nice dramatic moments.That being said, it's ashame that the film's story couldn't match its style.Chan-wook Park has directed some of Korea's best and most memorable films in recent memory, such as JSA and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but Old Boy is simply a semi-interesting film.
In the realm of revenge flicks, this is perhaps one of the more ambitious (which is definitely a good quality) films out there, but ambition can only get you so far, and Chan-wook Park just can't pull it off.
The few messages could've been brought to the viewer in a much more entertaining way.Like in David Lynch movies, Oldboy forces you to think about it, and think about it, try to find a deeper sense, and while you are watching you realize that there is none - and that's just poor..
I was apparently misled by the great praise this movie has been given here in Sweden by reviewers that I normally trust, not to mention the award in Cannes.The film does not work at any level, with a possible exception for the settings and the suggestive coloring.
Well I have to say that I'm glad I was wrong, and even gladder still that I actually watched this film.The basic story is that a man named Oh Dae-Su is kidnapped and held captive for 18 years and then released.
I suppose the set up made us want to go on this quest with Oh Dae-Su which sounds like Odysseus, and just as Odysseus went on one incredible quest so did Oh Dae-Su.It's when he finds the man who had him held captive that the movie truly departs from being an average revenge film to something that is extra ordinary and extraordinarily disturbing.
I think it was because of the reputation of Park Chan's much better "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance".Most likely, nothing I'm going to write here is going to prevent the curious from seeing this film.
I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a film as much as this one.The key premise is original, which is rare enough by itself, and when you add to that some good writing you get a great film.There are some deliberately hammed up comic moments to lighten the mostly very dark mood of the film and these are genuinely very funny.The action is often over the top, but not in a gory way, and it is interesting to watch the story unfold with the viewer having no more idea of what is happening and why than the protagonist.The pace is quick enough that you never get bored and the ending is dark and nasty and twisted and surprising.There is nothing bad I can say about the film..
When one of my friends recommended this to me, raving about how well it was filmed, the underlying themes and the general greatness of the film, I obviously expected an amazing, at least entertaining film.The two hours I spent watching this turned out to be a huge disappointing waste of my time.I understand that this movie is meant to be surreal, but even in surreal movies, there is something which anchors it down, even if it is only in the slightest.
A lot of the shots were unnecessary and watching it made me think the director was trying to hard to be artistic.The acting was poor, and the relationships between characters were not nearly developed enough.
Maybe that's just me missing something that others could see but I hadn't even realised there was any sort of attraction between Dae su and Migo before they started getting at it like rabbits randomly half way through the film.
I've seen many other great Korean films and it depresses me that people have hailed Oldboy as the best..
There is one principle in politics which roughly says that the bigger a lie is,the easier it can be swallowed by a great number of people: I think that this can also be extended to films, that is to say that sometimes a film is so bad that it appears like a masterpiece to a great number of viewers: Oldboy, (and, in my opinion, 'The Shining' as well)illustrates this to a degree I have never seen before: what do we have in this film?
1)the movie is filmed like an below-average MTV-clip all along, something that, I do not doubt it, might be viewed as 'great cinema art' by some people, but, in my opinion, only denotes bad direction.
There is, however, one thing that I noticed which greatly reassured me: the fact that the comments of the users who disliked the movie were found useful by a far greater number of people than the comments of the people who liked it: taking this into account, we get a far more accurate perception of the general feeling of the audience, a fact which is, unfortunately not reflected in the overall user rating, a user rating which would have been significantly different and maybe have sent 'Oldboy' out of the IMDb top 250, a better deserved place.So, If I have a wish , this can be summarized in four words:NEXT TIME, PLEASE VOTE!!!.
I just saw this at the Philly film festival and I was amazed at how so many people were conned into thinking this was such a great movie.
While sitting on the steps before the movie started (all seats were sold out at that point) I heard such a buzz: "...best Korean film of all time...
I'm not quite sure) but lets just say this: the ridiculous ending to Park's OLDBOY is on par with the likes of Shamalan's SIGNS and whoever the moron was who directed last year's abysmal SAW.
Now if you were amazed by the ludicrous 11th hour revelations in those movies (although SIGNS at least was pretty good up to that point) then you probably won't feel utterly cheated and let down by OLDBOY.
I cried of wasting time and money on this crapI feel extremely sorry for people who enjoy this kind of movie.
But by the time the final credits roll, you want to borrow one of the hammers used in the movie and beat yourself over the head with it to stop the pain that the film inflicts on your senses from trying to make any kind of sense of it.I have since gone back and watched this film again without the dubbed soundtrack and though I still feel it is way over hyped, I do not feel it is as bad as my initial review of it above.
Quentin Tarantino (maker of one, perhaps two great movies and a couple of good entertainments) is the most obvious salesman for the view that pulp junk, polished up and translated by cinematic trickery and fascinated with its own pop cultural hipness, is valuable (and Tarantino was on the committee at Cannes that gave this film the Grand Jury Prize).
Park steals here from some of the greats (film noir specialists like Hitchcock, absurdists like Bunuel, masters of cinema cool like Kubrick), but lacks any feeling for what made *their* movies worth seeing.
I liked it and agree w/ everyone who says that it is a beautiful film to look at and yes, it does dig its hooks into you at the beginning and yes, it's superbly executed and yes, the acting is very good but when the movie tries to pay itself back in the end, I couldn't help but feel completely uninterested.
There were some wonderful individual scenes and great camera-work, but that didn't make up for a lot of things in the film that appeared for lack of a better word "lame".
Of course the twists, turns and revelations are all pretty original, yet it ends with the dreaded deus ex machina.In conclusion, this isn't a movie I'd necessarily recommend to anyone unless you're interested in foreign films, Korean camp, or if you like movies that take you one way to throw you another when it all fits together..
There are literally hundreds of 7 to 8 rated movies which are undoubtedly better than this one.If you enjoy this type of "B" (from bloody but not only (-:) revenge movie _anyway_ (the "country relative" of the "film noir" genre), Oldboy will probably not disappoint you.
Here in oldboy, we witness a situation like this..I heard many people saying about Korean pictures, watched sm of it, and i can honestly say, dis korean stuff, is truly amazing, we could be thrown into shadows of sadness for many hours even after watchn d film.
Do watch the film and do not be offended by it,look at the greater aspect of the movie and enjoy it.Oldboy deserves to be watched and appreciated..
One of the most incredible performances ever by Choi (the acting all around is spectacular, but he stands out above the rest), great directing, the corridor scene is just pure glee, one of the most ingenious plots and story line twists of all time, and believe it or not, the movie is extremely funny in some parts (the whole, "now let me tell you my story" part is hilarious, just to name one example).
I did not like it because I thought it took away from the continuity of the movie and its straightforwardness.When I said the plot is too complicated I meant not only that but also that its a very unrealistic plot in which characters do not act the way, I think, people would act in real life.
Its just dumb sometimes.There is also a pretty tasteless sex scene that is just painful to look at.I feel like this movie is intentionally glamorized by the director and does not reflect real human emotions.
Actually, some of the best scenes in "Oldboy" (e.g. the penthouse one) reuse elements from "Ichi", which is a better movie that came out 2 years earlier (2001).The story has an original twist I didn't see coming.
When the movie finally got near it's ending time I found the film too long and it got boring and I felt like it could have ended a lot sooner.
I thought I would like this film quite a bit because of very good reviews it has received and some recommendations I have gotten for the film but other than it's visual style the movie did nothing for me.
a great movie, worth watching several times.
Even people who really didn't like the movie, loved the fight scene in the middle, it has comedy, extreme violence and some good old fighting.This movie is in my top 5 favorites of all time and the only reason I didn't give it a 10 is because after watching it as many times as I have some scenes get a bit boring.This movie has it all, plot twists that would make M.
A classic Korean revenge film developed by the mastermind Chan-wook Park couldn't be any better then what it has become.
If you aren't very open to stories that are nontraditional or something you're not used to seeing in the West, you might take issue with this movie, to which I'd say you need to open up some more, because you're missing out on a great experience.As I said earlier, Min-sik Choi is an incredible actor, and after watching Oldeuboi I watched two of his other films, "I Saw the Devil" and "Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time", both of which are incredible films that I suggest you go watch if you liked Oldeuboi or are interested in Korean cinema but want something other than Oldeuboi.
I wish I'd have read this review first from another IMDb user, it sums it up pretty well: "A good plot twist should leave the viewer going "wow, why didn't I think of that?" not "OMG what kind of sick %#@$% would even begin to think that?" It's a really F#$%ed up story, I didn't see it coming, I wish I hadn't seen it at all..
Rated R for strong violence including scenes of torture, sexuality and pervasive language.After a year of pestering from a friend, I finally watched Oldboy.Oldboy is the second film in the Chan Woo Park Vengeance trilogy.The first film in the series is Sympathy For Mr Vengeance and the third film is Sympathy For Lady Vengeance.The films are all in one trilogy but have nothing to really do with each other, besides the fact that the films are all about revenge.I did not see lady vengeance but I didn't really care for mr vengeance that much.I found it to be a bit boring.It was an alright film though.Oldboy is much much better.The film is much more interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining than the first film.A man mysteriously gets locked up for 15 years.When he is released, he seeks vengeance on the man who locked him up.There are many plot twists in the film and you will find yourself on the edge of your seat when you watch it.Even if you didn't like Mr.Vengeance, Oldboy is worth a look!.
I think the best word to sum up how I felt after watching Oldboy was "frustrated." The premise underlying the film is an interesting take-off of The Count of Monte Cristo and it certainly promises a lot of potential.
Unlike films like Sixth Sense, where you can re-watch and see connections that lead to the surprise twist, you can't do that with Oldboy.
The plot starts off like a fairly standard revenge drama but he slowly makes the movie darker through a series of beautifully shot flashbacks and a huge scene involving nothing but a family photo album.If you can't handle extremely strong violence, torture, sex and language and can't stand subtitles it's best you stay far away from Oldboy....if you can, though, then watch it!