Review of Oldboy (2003) by Kammi666 — 10 Dec 2010

This is the movie that prompted me to dive, head first into Korean drama. The second instalment of the Vengeance trilogy, and by far the best of the three. Oh Dae Su is a modern day Monte Cristo (as is the antagonist, the sociopath) But while the latter is imprisoned by demons of his mind, poor Oh Dae Su is imprisoned in the literal sense. When he is released, its vengeance VS freedom. Too many times, he could have simply walked away from it all, and lived a happy life, but instead chose the path to vengeance, which leads to one of the most hideous immoral and perverse endings ever. Im not gonna spil it, but the reasoning behind his imprisonment is a bit contrived- and it could have been something a bit more solid, but it is still believable, if you put yourself in the antagonist's mind. Now lets talk art- the cinematography is breathtaking. Obscure angles, too-wide shots, split screens...all this with BOLD bright colors and high contrast, make this movie incredibly pretty to look at. Theres some pretty epic gorey scenes with a hammer, and a sweet fighting scene set to a beautiful score (This is one of my favorite movie soundtracks, gogo Vivaldi!).

Its a tragic tale of two mens revenge. One man in the end, dosent get to kill his adversary(and the closure he gets is pretty crappy, once he finds out the why, but hey, when your dealing with a psycho, what can you expect?), while the other succeeds in completely ruining the others life.