Review of Oldboy (2003) by Jesse B — 21 Apr 2012

Sometimes you've gotta wonder about people. You got to think to yourself, "what kind of sick bastard sits around all day, thinking of ways to disturb and disgust people so that he can get his get his rocks off?" Well, I'm pretty sure one of those people is a Korean fella named Chan-wook Park. And the way he gets his is by making movies like Old Boy.

Just so I could get some facts into the bucket, I looked up old reliable (wikipedia) and this is what I cared to come up with: Old Boy is based a Japanese manga of the same name. It chronicles the vengeance fueled struggle of a man mysteriously imprisoned by an unknown captor for reasons which are not immediately made aware to the main character.

Enter Oh-Dae Su (Shinichi GotÅ?, in the Japanese manga). We meet him, drunk and detained by police. If one can create an honest opinion about another while witnessing an intoxicated escapade, one might have to conclude that Mr. Oh is a bit of a belligerent bum-hole. However, as this would be an unfair assessment of any person, we'll just have to stick with what we know about the man.

The first thing which is made immediately clear is that someone doesn't much appreciate this man. One can only assume that there are very few friendly abductions/15 year imprisonments.

Come to think of it, that's quite a long time to be pent up in a quaint little room all to your lonesome without a soul in the world to talk to or connect with. The only thing which helps pass the time is the fuzzy TV set and a couple of empty notebooks -- presumably to help diary away Mr. Oh's numerous adventures within the confines of his 15X9 apartment.

At the end of his sentence, he's let out free to run amok around the city and wreak havoc where he may. And boy, let me tell you, he's learned a few things while having been stuffed away for fifteen years. For one, he's learned to punch walls; he's learned the finer points of utilizing his imagination when it comes to hammers (such as tooth extraction and hand to hand combat). He's learned the Latin names for fish, as well as the many uses for sodium based truth serums and sleep inducers. You might say the last fifteen years of this man's life were put to good use. But my guess is that he's got only one thing on his mind. Ah yes, now we get to the blood.

You see, Mr. Oh wasn't too keen on having all that time taken from him without any foreseeable reason. So he's a bit antsy about getting some answers.

Luckily he finds a nice young lady who's young enough to be his... No. I'm not going to say it. It's just... too creepy. Anyway, they seem to hit it off fairly well. In fact, he's really good at hitting people in general.

I could go into more detail about the plot, but really, I don't want to. Sure, I could tell you who did what to who and how a bunch of people's lives got screwed up in the midst of it all, but nah. I don't really care to. Because, you see. It's just a little sick and incestuous. And really, unlike some people, Mr. Park, I don't get my rocks off with father-daughter and brother-sister relations. Perhaps you do and... well... I'll just leave that to you and your therapist. But as for me I can do without.

Sure, you might say that the film employs a lot of good technique -- like how the whole creative structure of the film seems to be an homage to French cinema a la Jean-Pierre Juneau, and that's real cool and all. But again, I just can't really sink my bloody, toothless gums into a film which ends with a man cutting out his own tongue after learning that he has just unwittingly done something rather horrendous. It's a movie that just kind of leaves you feeling ucky inside. Plus you see a squid being eaten alive by the main character. An act of savagery which is simply uncalled for.

I don't know if I've made my feelings clear on this film, but really, I don't want to spend another moment of my time thinking about it.