Movie Review: Oldboy (2003) directed by Park Chan-wook
On his daughter’s birthday, Dae-su Oh (Choi Min-sik) got stinking drunk and taken to the police station. He was still pretty drunk when he was picked up by his friend No Joo-hwan (Dae-han Ji). So when Dae-su vanished while No’s back was turned in a phone booth, at first it’s assumed that he just wandered off. But then he just never showed up again, a mysterious missing person case. His wife’s murder some time later was attributed to Dae-su for lack of any other suspects, and his daughter was sent overseas. But now, fifteen years later, Dae-su has resurfaced.
As it happens, Dae-su has spent all that time locked up in a hotel-style room with bed, bathroom, and a television set. Every so often he was knocked out with gas so his unknown captors could perform maintenance…and certain other tasks. No one talked to him, there was no connection to the outside world except the television, and Dae-su couldn’t figure out why he was there. He kept fit and did a lot of shadow-boxing, and once he managed to get hold of an extra chopstick, started digging an escape tunnel. Just as he’d made a small hole in the outside wall, making his escape a possibility, he was gassed again, and found himself on the outside.
After wandering about a bit, Dae-su is given a cell phone and a mysterious voice challenges him to find out who is taking this revenge and why before July 5. If Dae-su can figure it out, the mystery man (Yoo Ji-tae) will die, if not, Dae-su will die. To get strength for the task ahead, Dae-su goes to a sushi restaurant he saw on television, and falls into a relationship with young chef Mi-Do (Kang Hye-jong). She begins to help him with his quest, but the mystery man is closer than they think, and orchestrating events towards tragedy.
This Korean movie was based on a Japanese manga thriller of the same name, and is part of the director’s “revenge trilogy” but you do not need to have seen the other movies to follow this one. It was a huge hit, and an American remake came out in 2013,
Some scenes are gritty and realistic, while others are surreal. It can sometimes be difficult to tell if a character is hallucinating, having a flight of fancy, or just an interactive flashback. Hypnosis is a plot point, introduced relatively early on, then seemingly forgotten for a long time. There’s a lot of visual symbolism and literary references to give texture to the film.
Unfortunately, what makes this movie particularly memorable are the twists as we learn the truth about the mystery man, his motivations and what his actual goal is. Without giving away too much, this movie takes a standard action film cliche and plays it for horror. And that’s all I can say about that.
It can be inferred that Dae-su was something of an asshole when younger, as he makes a list of everyone who might hate him enough to have him imprisoned, and it’s about three hundred names (and the mystery man may or may not be on that list.) Most people would probably top out at a dozen or so. Also, he never considers freeing other prisoners once he finds out where he was held.
Content note: Violence, often bloody, sometimes lethal. Torture. Suicide. Mutilation. Male and female nudity, on-screen extramarital sex (no genitals). SPOILER redacted, but horrific; I’d recommend for strong-stomached adults only.
This is a very well-shot movie with some terrific acting, but the content means it isn’t for everyone. Approach with caution.
Very loosely based on said manga, which is why the American remake’s director was laughable when he tried to claim that he was more influenced by it, as his version includes that last horrific twist — which was original to the Korean movie. (They both do still have a ‘will the nightmare ever end’ feel to their conclusions.)