Oldboy - film review

Upon picking it up, the first thing that I noticed on the cover of the Oldboy DVD was a quote from a film reviewer who mentioned a "Quentin Tarantino seal of approval." With this endorsement in mind, I assumed that the movie would be 1) very violent, 2) filled with strange plot twists, and 3) fairly disturbing. On these points, I was definitely not disappointed - Oldboy is quite possibly the most disturbing movie I have ever seen. The plot begins when Oh Dae-Su, a businessman (and apparently quite the belligerent drunk) is abducted from a phone booth after being bailed out from a police station. 15 years pass in confinement, during which we see Oh's mental state descend into insanity - during this time, there is one scene in which he hallucinates about ants, and Oh's writhing, combined with the flickering lights and the camera panning around his anguished face, highlight Oh Dae-su's mental instability. Suddenly, after 15 years Oh is released, and runs into a sushi chef named Mi-do, and the quest to find Dae-su's captor and the reason for his imprisonment begins. The finale is the big plot twist - what started as a simple tale of revenge suddenly becomes much less so, and for a few moments, the viewer wonders who the hero really is, and whose quest for revenge is worthy of viewer sympathy.

Oldboy carries quite a few Tarantino-esque touches - it is quite obvious that director Park Chan-wook is a Tarantino fan, and has taken his techniques to heart. In order to set up the 15 years of captivity, Park has Oh Dae-su tell his story to a man about to commit suicide, and uses a voiceover to complete the initial exposition. This technique reminds me very much of the beginning of Kill Bill part 1, when the Bride is telling her story of the massacre at the chapel, followed by her first steps to revenge. The production of Oldboy was very well done, and the finished product looks as if it could have come from a Hollywood studio.

Overall, the story of Oldboy is very well told - the characters develop to be much less simple than the typical black-and-white of the revenge tale. The retrospective with voiceover helps to move the 15 years of captivity along, preventing the plot from dragging along. I found the violent and sexual scenes to be a bit over the top, however - on some occasions, I found myself asking, "Did the director really need to show that to advance the plot?" Ironically, even though the amount of blood shown on-screen was much less than that of the Kill Bill series, I found myself more disturbed by Oldboy, possibly because of the darker plotline.

In sum, a good movie - if Park Chan-Wook's intent was to make a thriller in the style of Quentin Tarantino, he has succeeded.


--Sze Hui