This is the one and only film that kept me quiet for a whole 5 mins after seeing it. I literally couldn’t close my mouth, and yet there wasn’t any sound coming out of it. Oldboy had such an impact on me that words are too little to describe that impact. It has a massive ingredient that a lot of films seem to miss out on; a divine plot. Even though the acting and screenplay are world-class, the plot is really the cherry on the cake.
OLDBOY (2003)
Directed by Park Chan-wook; screenplay by Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Chun-hyeong, Lim Joon-hyung, and Park Chan-wook; starring Choi Min-sik, Yu Ji-tae, and Kang Hye-jeong.
It has proved that Koreans are one of the most creative when it comes to cinema. But mind you, this film is not for everyone. Especially for the weak at heart. Aside from revenge, it touches subject on incest as well. Nevertheless, it is a MASTERPIECE.
The acting is world-class in this film. Choi Min-sik and Yu Ji-tae were simply amazing as Oh Daesu and Lee Woo-jin respectively. Credit should also be given to Gang Hye-jung as Mido. The characters are given the emotional depth that one could sympathize for. They were not simply categorized as either good or evil but they were allowed to feel raw emotion. The direction was also spectacular from Park Chan-wook. And the soundtrack was mesmerizing.
The man, named Oh Dae-su, is a wretch when we first meet him, a drunk who has missed his little daughter’s birthday and now sits forlornly in the police station, ridiculously wearing the angel’s wings he bought her as a present. He is not a bad man, but alcohol has rendered him useless.
When he suddenly finds himself freed from his bizarre captivity 15 years later, he is a different person, focused on revenge, ridiculously responsive to kindness. Wandering into a restaurant, he meets a young woman who, he knows from the TV, is Korea’s “Chef of the Year.” This is Mido. Sensing that he has suffered, feeling an instinctive sympathy, she takes him home with her, hears his story, cares for him, comes to love him. Meanwhile, he sets out on a methodical search to find the secret of his captivity. He was fed pot stickers, day after day, until their taste is burned into his memory, and he travels the city’s restaurants until he finds the one that supplied his meals. That is the key to tracking down his captors.
When I watched it for the second time, however, I really started to notice how well it’s made, in addition to liking it more. Every shot is bursting with background detail, a great amount of attention on the production design (the theme of a certain colour in a scene was restrained, yet perfectly balanced). The actors really gave it all, especially the 2 male leads who really blew me away. The music is a varied mix of beautiful classical music and some pretty cool techno. The screenplay is unique & brilliant; the characters are developed very well, extremely complex, and the plot is not only ingenious, but the payoff and twists are 1000x better.
The storyline seems simple enough, but the movie blows up in the faces of the audience with all kinds of unexpected plot twists. Not only that, but the story involves the audience with the characters in the movie by including very good character development and acting.
This film is most definitely not for everyone. Make no mistake: this is a very heavy, very dark movie, so go into it aware of that. Admirably, though, Oldboy is never gratuitously disturbing. The dark subject matter has a purpose.
-Bitchingfilms
Oh Dae-Su: Be it a stone or a grain of sand, in water they both sink
- Well if you are on Netflix then make sure you don’t miss this film. Link below
https://bitchingfilms.blogspot.com/2020/05/best-thriller-movie-on-netflix.html
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