Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.

Oldboy

Day 24

Film 22

Before I get started I think I should say something about my particular viewing of Oldboy. I watched this film on netflix without the ability to get the undubbed version, so I will be avoiding some of the issues of pacing and acting for this little review.

Oldboy is my favorite kind of movie. It takes risks. It plays with the medium. It is far from a perfect film. Park Chan-wook' twists every thing that you take for granted with film and throws it out the window forming a narrative that is as twisted as it is remarkable.

Oldboy is a look at the revenge story. The protagonist, a likable businessman Oh Dae-su (Min-sik,) is imprisoned against his will by what we can only assume to be mobsters. Fifteen years pass. In this time Oh Dae-su is driven insane and emerges a changed man. Trained by fifteen years of television kung fu and driven by the death of his wife and wrongful imprisonment Oh Dae-su goes after the man responsible. As the story unfolds Chan-wook throws enough curve balls to keep you going and the conclusion leaves you amazed and appalled at the same time.

**From this point on there will be spoilers. You have been warned.**

What makes Oldboy so amazing is how Chan-wook plays with the revenge archetype. Oh Dae-su's imprisonment is an obvious parallel to the Count of Monte Cristo. It could almost be a complete retelling if Oh Dae-su's driving force was just revenge, instead there is a very Hamlet like drive in him that keeps him going until it leads to his tragic end. Oh Dae-su is given every chance to kill the man who has set out to ruin his life and fails to do so, leading up to the a final revelation that is too much like Oedipus Rex to just ignore.

Each of these pieces is taken and warped in Chan-wook's hand. Every familiar story is turned on its end and changed into something until now unseen. The Count of Monte Cristo suddenly is changed from the story of a man who lusts for revenge to the story of a man who cannot avoid another man's revenge. Hamlet gives up every opportunity to not kill Claudius and is forced to see the ruins his actions have caused, instead of conveniently dieing before it all comes into view. Oedipus chooses to forget everything that is told to him, and remain in happy ignorance till the end of his days. Each of these stories is warped just enough to give them a new angle and to leave the audience asking new questions about it.

Beyond these twists on classic stories Chan-wook plays with more subtle cliches. The most obvious of these is of the roll of Mi-do, who serves as Oh Dae-su's love interest and daughter. For the majority of the film Mi-do swoons over Oh Dae-su. It is almost pathetic as Oh Dae-su attempts to rape her, and leaves her again and again sometimes tied up and other times locked inside a cell. Mi-do would not leave this stranger, whom she did not know a week before, and it just does not fit until the final scenes. Everything is tied together with the use of hypnosis (which is a thin strand to hang the story on but it clings on just enough) and every scene where Mi-do was in it and I was asking 'why on earth is she still a character?' suddenly makes sense. Chan-wook shifts this story ruining, too flat character to what drives the final twist.

It is everything that makes you want to have faith in the medium, because for every Spiderman 3, which is the epitome of boring and poorly executed, there is a film like Oldboy that makes you take a new look at film.

My final verdict:

Oldboy changes how you watch film. It is not perfect but it makes you think. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to be challenged by a movie. To the rest of you: Just go back to re watching Avatar.