A roaring rampage of revenge from South Korea
Oldboy assaults so many emotions that I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the film. Undeniably, it is powerful, but brutally raw. I saw the film, but I haven't decided if I'm glad I saw it. And how should I review it in light of the fact that what I saw as some of the film's weakness were also the things that made it fresh and intriguing?
Choi Min-sik plays Oh Dae-su, a man who goes on the search for revenge in Oldboy.
My ambivalence might be explained by the film's many contradictions. Oldboy is completely outlandish, except that it is starkly real (not realistic, but real; it feels real); its complicated plot could never happen in a million years, and yet it seems entirely plausible; it is a morality tale in a world that seemingly operates outside any moral code; the antagonist's motives at the end are endlessly sleazy, but Oldboy's official position is that that doesn't necessarily absolve the protagonist of his sins.
Come to think of it, the first two objections could be applied to many good movies, and the last two are just a matter of taste, so Oldboy is really not so unusual after all.
Oldboy, to quote Uma Thurman at the beginning of Kill Bill, Vol. 2, is a roaring rampage of revenge. It is the tale of a man, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), mysteriously imprisoned for 15 years, who is suddenly released with no hint as to why he was imprisoned. Setting out to find out who did it, it somehow never occurs to him that his imprisonment was only the first — and least important — part of a revenge plot against him.
When first we meet him, Oh is roaring drunk at the police station, a situation obviously not unfamiliar to him. If alcohol brings out a reflection of the inner person, then Oh is probably not a very good person; he's probably not a malicious person, but he would seem to be a selfish and inconsiderate one. This is evidenced by two things: it is his daughter's birthday, and though he has thought to buy her a present it still didn't prevent him from getting stinking drunk on his way home to the party; plus, when a friend shows up to bail him out, Oh embarrasses the friend by accosting the police after the friend has promised that Oh will cause no more trouble. Throughout the scene, Oh shows no remorse and accepts no responsibility for his actions.
On the way home, while his friend makes a phone call, Oh vanishes from the street without a trace. We see him next, equally manic, pleading for information from an unseen captor who is shoving food through a slot in the door of the small one-room apartment where Oh is being held. Oh's only link to the outside is a television set, from which he learns that his wife has been killed and he is wanted as the only suspect due to blood evidence found at the scene. Oh's pleas to his captors go unheard and he has no contact with them at all. Every so often gas enters the room, puts Oh to sleep, and when he wakes up his room has been cleaned and he has been cleaned up too.
Oh's isolation nearly destroys him; the only thing that keeps him "sane" is his need for revenge, which causes him to begin a rigorous training schedule.
Then, one day, after 15 years, the imprisonment ends as mysteriously as it began, with Oh waking up on a grass covered rooftop.
Wandering into a Sushi restaurant, he meets a young female chef, Mido (Gang Hye-Jung) who is attracted to his loneliness and aura of suffering. She takes him home as she might a stray dog, but after reading the journals he kept in the room (which were left with him upon his release), she joins him in his search to discover the secrets of his imprisonment.
To tell the truth, I did get lost at a few points on the trail; for 15 years, Oh was fed nothing by fried dumplings and the pair set out to track down the restaurant they might have come from. That part made sense, but some of their other discoveries were made by leaps of logic I couldn't exactly follow. Perhaps something got lost between the subtitles. In the end, the mystery is not that important anyway; the person Oh is looking for is very eager to be found. It's the ever deepening levels of WHY that makes Oldboy such a creepy puzzle.
Frankly, it is a puzzle many viewers will not want to have put into their heads. This film constantly plumbs new thematic levels, and depths of perversity; just when you think Dae-su's tormentor couldn't possibly have another trick up his sleeve... well, I'll be damned, he slips something else in, something really low; well, anyway, I thought, that's pretty disgusting, but at least it's done now, nothing more, no lower low he can plumb so — holy crap! there's still more? Oh, yuck! Well, surely, now... Oh my God!!!
If Oh Dae-su, the drunk, had trouble with remorse and responsibility before, he has no idea what his search for revenge will take him to.
The film contains many virtuoso moments orchestrated by director Park Chanwook. He pulls a remarkable performance from Min-sik who perhaps endures more humiliation for his role than an actor should be asked to endure. Hye-Jung is sympathetic as the good-hearted Mido, and Yu Ji-tae is icily brilliant as Oh's nemesis. As outlandishly complicated as the revenge plot is, Ji-tae projects the intelligence and, more importantly, the creepy obsessiveness he would need to see his mission through.
In terms of world cinema, there are moments in the film that should enter iconic status; I'm thinking mainly of a fight scene in which Oh, armed only with a claw hammer, goes up against a dozen or so assailants armed with knives. The fight takes place in one long unbroken tracking shot, and is one of the most brilliantly staged fights I have ever seen.
In the end, Oldboy is brilliant film making, but it is definitely not for everyone. If I had kids, I wouldn't let them anywhere near this film. I know a lot of adults — good, decent people — who I wouldn't recommend it to either. I don't like writing such things because it would seem to put me into the role of censor, and I hate censors, but really, this film will screw with your head. The adults I mentioned earlier already have their heads screwed on right where they need to be; they don't need this bit of nastiness messing with that perfect arrangement. If you think this description applies to you, you are probably correct.