OLDBOY review: “Gape at the Excitement…”

Korean director Chan-wook Park is a man on a mission, and with Oldboy, it is most assuredly a mission of revenge. Park has created a film with enough violence and visual know-how to make the viewer squirm in their chair and gape at the excitement that unfolds and he does so with punctuation to spare.The plot, taken from a Japanese Manga comic book, is rather absurd but wholly original. A man named Oh Dae-su, played by Min-sik Choi, is abducted and imprisoned for fifteen years by an unknown assailant, who claims that he was wronged by him and must pay severely. The fifteen years he spends alone are mind-numbing and the director expertly crafts his growing insanity. Life imprisoned is spent shadow-boxing, hallucinating, watching endless amounts of television, and writing down every person’s name that he felt he wronged earlier in life. He is routinely subdued, in which a melody is played that warns him of a green gas which enter through air ducts in his small “apartment.” He’s given a change of clothes, a haircut, his living quarters are vacuumed, his fridge is stocked with food, and anything that he breaks in fits of mania is replaced. Of course, his numerous suicide attempts are always thwarted by his mysterious abductors. Dae-su is eventually freed and he is thrust back into a world that he hardly remembers or understands, and the method to the film’s mayhem finally and painstakingly begins. Shortly after his release, in a notorious sushi bar scene, our lead character meets a young girl and is instantly smitten by her unique charm, but of course, he remains untrustworthy of her and anyone else within an arms length. Their relationship is an odd one, but one that nevertheless has great sentimentality and shows love can blossom in the strangest environments. Yet the new world that surrounds him seems to be filled with all types of misfortune and malevolent beings and with his vengeful nature on full throttle, the body count quickly rises. As his notoriety increases with each and every gruesome onslaught, most done with a hammer and his fists, he attracts the attention of a particular individual who spent the last fifteen years studying, watching, and laughing at his captivity. In one scene, a bruised and bloody Dae-su is picked up off the streets and put into a taxi by a kindly passer-by, but turns out to be his abductor who quite honestly and lovingly exclaims “Farewell Dae-su.” The villain behind the curtain has such a bizarre affinity for him, that he even claims to miss him, and is eagerly awaiting his return. His emotions and senses are in knots due to years of drugs and hypnotism, and when he eventually does find his abductor, how will Dae-su exact his revenge? His confrontations with henchmen and gangs are terrific. A certain fight scene in a corridor comes to mind where the camera never stops rolling and of course neither does Dae-su, and when it finally does cease, you’re left in an utter and satisfying awe. Oldboy is a mixture of violence, vengeance, torture, action, mystery, squid, love, and renewal. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and deservedly so, and features a great cast, music, and tremendous style. The film’s arch-villain is played with such charisma that he inevitably becomes the most endearing though insidious character in the movie, and has to have one of the more memorable roles in recent history. The film is set to be remade and released in 2006 with Nicolas Cage as the lead, but it would be in your best interest to view the original before Hollywood gets their claws into it.