OIdboy
(Show East R3/NTSC 2-Disc DVD)
(2003)
review by Suspiriorium

Director Chan-Wook Park is best known in Korea for his box-office slaying first feature JSA: Joint Security Area a superior & intelligent political/military thriller. His follow-up Sympathy for Mr Vengeance didn’t do so well locally despite good reviews, but has garnered a considerable following worldwide, it’s intense stomach-churning violence & fearsome intelligence securing it a place on many critics’ best of year lists – yes, including mine. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2004, Oldboy is his third full feature & confirms him as one of the most exiting & important directors to have emerged from Asia in recent years, a poster boy for Korean cinema’s current excellent health.

Like Ichi the Killer, Oldboy is based on a Japanese comic book & it has a broadly similar strong visual style, penchance for violence, & delicious blackly comic tone. But is it as good as Miike’s much-celebrated classic? Whilst Oldboy doesn’t plunge the same depths of ultra-violence as Ichi, for my money it’s the richer, more satisfying film of the two.

Oh Dae-su (Min-Sik Choi) is on his way home to give his young daughter a pair of angel wings for her birthday, when for no apparent reason he is abducted. He is locked in a cell made-up to look like a hotel room with only a TV for company, & when his take-away meals are thrust under the door he can get no reply as to why he’s there. The news reports that his wife has been murdered & he has been framed for the crime. 15 years later, he is released in a large trunk on a rooftop. With still no idea who imprisoned him or why, he sets forth to find those responsible & wreak his vengeance.
Oldboy really is one of those films where the less you know about the plot before you go in the better, although this does make reviewing the film rather tricky & I’m going to try my hardest to not give any spoilers. Whilst Sympathy for Mr Vengeance was lit in a realistic manner, Oldboy is more fantastical & stylised in its look, with Jeunet-esque greens & browns, rich deep reds making the film’s world both recognisable & slightly out-of key with reality. Carried over from Mr Vengeance are the directors’ flirtations with surrealism & strong eye for theatrical widescreen compositions - both slightly reminiscent of David Lynch, & controlled camera movements. The visual style is completed by the judicious addition of CG elements, in a manner reminiscent of Fincher or Jeunet. The result is a roaring visual powerhouse of a movie that is impossible to ignore.

Of course, there is also the violence. Perhaps the most contentious piece (which will likely give the film trouble in the UK) is the scene in which Oh Dae-su eats a live octopus, it’s tentacles wrapping around his throat. Cruelty to animals is one of those areas I’m always uncomfortable with in films; does it make it better that Choi didn’t swallow on the four takes required? I’m not going to try to guide your opinion on the issue, but will add that it’s not merely chasing after effect or controversy, but provides a startling & appropriate image, which does enhance the film. Other than that, as noted above this is not as extreme as Ichi, but does have some nastily unpleasant moments to please you if that’s your thing, including some vicious tooth violence, & tongue lopping. The best sequence for me was the breathtaking fight scene, where Oh Dae-su, armed only with a hammer, takes on a large gang of men with bats & pipes in a narrow corridor. Filmed side-on, the camera dollying along as the fight progresses along the corridor all in one lengthy take, this is a simply breathtaking scene, a dazzling piece of pure movie-making magic.
The performances throughout are stunning. Man-Sik Choi takes Oh Dae-su on a convincing journey, from the obnoxious drunk we first meet, no matter how outrageous the plot gets around him his reactions anchor him as a fundamentally human protagonist & a sympathetic character to root for. Able support comes from Ji-Tae Yu (Natural City) & Hye-Jeong Kang, although I won’t say much about their roles suffice to say they deliver with aplomb – indeed, there’s not a bum note in the whole cast.

As with Chan-Wook Park’s second film, Oldboy is concerned with the theme of Vengeance. Like in Mr Vengeance, we’re left under no doubt that the pursuit of vengeance is a naturally human one, but one that will ultimately destroy both parties. This leads to a “villain” who is ultimately quite sympathetic (something to be expected after the complex conflicting loyalties of Mr Vengeance), & a final act that is utterly shattering & even if you’ve figured it out in advance it retains a distressing power. In between all this is space for a surprisingly sweet & touching romantic sub-plot, leading to a coda both oddly perverse & affecting.

Oldboy is easily the least politically interested of this directors films, although a double-bill with JSA provided a possible subtext – noticeably in a central relationship which calls to mind that between the socially & politically taboo friendship between the soldiers on each side of the North/South Korean border in JSA – a thought lending the finale yet more sly spirit. Unlike say “Battle Royale 2” (which has similar points about those who get others to fight their wars for them), any subtexts remain just that, subservient to the needs of the characters & the increasingly outlandish plotting.
So there we have it. Oldboy. It’s visually stunning, fearsomely intelligent, emotionally powerful & brilliantly acted, contains shockingly intense scenes of violence, a daringly bold & unconventional narrative arc, commentary on human nature & political subtexts, all crowned off with a majestic layer of perfectly poised black comedy. It should be a pretentious over-baked mess, but under Chan-Wook Park’s sure control the blend is superlative. Ranking as one of the finest films of recent years, this is what cinema is all about – I can give Oldboy nothing but my very highest recommendation.

The Korean R3/NTSC 2-Disc DVD set from Show East comes in a gorgeous quality (& surprisingly durable & secure) card case. Disc 1 contains the film in a stunning anamorphic widescreen transfer, which I really can’t fault. Audio is dts Korean 5.1 & up to the quality of the picture. This is where non-dts owners get frustrated though – the only Dolby option is 2.0, so if you want surround it has to be the dts. Subtitles are in English or Korean.

All the extras are relegated to Disc 2, & typically for a Korean release these have no subtitles – although all the menus are in English. It is worth taking a look at this disc though, since it contains 10 tracks of the film’s excellent score via the “Music Channel”, a welcome addition indeed. The rest of the disc is under “Documentary” contains a 5-part “making of”, plus a selection of trailers & a music video. The set is a bit of an anomaly, because there’s not as much as some 2-disc sets from Korea (no commentary for example), but yet there’s actually more available here for those English speakers. Whether you choose to import, or wait for a domestic (possibly theatrical?) release - & I really look forward to seeing this film on the big screen - Oldboy is one of the must see films of the year.