Oldboy (2003)

After fifteen years of imprisonment for starting a rumor at his old high school, Oldboy, directed by Chan-wook Park, is an action adventure that follows recently released Dae-su Oh (played by Min-sik Choi) as he hunts down his captor and why. After enduring psychological torture, hypnosis, and fifteen years of being kept in the same room with no human contact, except the guard who slips food through his door and his television, Dae-su trusts no one, and has honed his body and mind into a tool for revenge.

When he is let out, he meets sushi chef Mido (played by Hye-jeong Kang), who he falls in love with, his old friend Joo-hwan No (played by Dae-han Ji), and finally his captor Woo-jin Lee (played by Ji-Tae Yu). As Dae-su hunts his captor, he finds that he is a pawn in a much bigger game, but must play to try and save Mido's life.

The biggest themes I found in this movie are redemption and revenge. How does one gain either of those? How do they intertwine and differ? And what do you do when you get either or both? If these questions interest you, watch this movie. Or if you like some good and gory action, like teeth getting pulled out with a hammer, watch this movie. If neither of these interest you, don't waste your time.

The action scenes are well done, in particular a nice wide shot sequence of Dae-su taking on about a dozen guards in a narrow hallway with a hammer. It gives the viewer a chance to take in all of the action, and there's nothing snazzy, just down and dirty brawling that looks pretty realistic.

The script was adapted by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi from a manga by Minegishi. For further reference, give that a read. This film is also the second part of of the Vengeance Trilogy, the first being Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, and the third being Sympathy For Lady Vengeance.

The story that is set out in this is immediately engaging, because you want to know the who and why to Dae-su's imprisonment. Despite his shortcomings, you genuinely wonder why this guy would have been locked away from his wife and kid and the whole world for fifteen years. You can then follow him on his quest for vengeance. My problem with the story comes in much later, right at the climax.

Oldboy is all about extremes: how far will you go for revenge, how crazy can we make our action scenes, how much can we make the audience squirm? Some of this didn't sit well with me as a viewer. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth when the film had ended. I can totally jive with the question of what do you do after you've gotten your revenge, but this movie could have been grounded a little bit more from its heightened reality as this question got answered. Maybe then I could have empathized with the conclusion a bit more. Woo-jin Lee had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, so I felt nothing for him as his story wound down. Logically, the viewer can follow his story, but you don't care one iota for what happens to him.

Min-sik Choi is great to watch as Dae-su. He grounds him in this animalistic fury that is covered up by this passion that he feels for Mido, despite saying that he trusts no one. On the opposite end, the only genuine moment that I felt from Ji-tae Yu playing Woo-jin Lee was when he was laughing at Dae-su as he completely lost his shit. The film is wholly unbalanced in this respect.

All in all, this movie doesn't really have a lot to offer. The story was unique, the action scenes were pretty good, but overall, I couldn't completely buy into it. It tried to be grounded in reality, but lost a lot of that due to acting.