Oldboy (2003)

 

Genre: Mystery/ Action

Time: 2 hours

Director: Park Chan-wook

Quick Summary: After being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must find his captor in five days.

This is a strange movie, but I do like it. It's completely unique as well.

It's pretty strong and consistent throughout as it manages to keep your attention all the way through. It's constantly throwing surprises and twists at you all the way until the end, where it throws one big twist that I found pretty impressive. It's not totally unbelievable either. It's a wild story yes, but I feel like it could potentially happen. 

This is incredibly violent and does not shy away from it, having up close shots of teeth pulling. There is this one long scene (in a good way) of our main guy fighting his way through a corridor of people and it is absolutely brutal. He manages to do it with one simple hammer too.

Visually it was really fun too, sometimes having really silly shots like a dotted line from a hammer directly to someone's head, or a deadpan shot of characters looking into the camera. The overlay is pretty grimy too, mainly having dark backgrounds or dull lighting, to then suddenly switch it up with bold bright patterns/colours which are all really vivid. This mainly has greens and reds which work really well together. There are no quick jumpy shots, it's all really steady so you can see everything that is happening.

The performances were really good as well. This plays out like a detective film for a film and none of it is rushed, Sometimes it felt a bit slow as you wanted to know what was going on, and the monologues were too lengthy every now and again. The second half of this plays out as a revenge film and really picks up. It's brutal and really extreme in some places, so I will say it's not for everyone. I found the sex scene to be a bit too long and slightly awkward, though it was realistic and it is very important to story due to it being a very intimate moment. 

The point of this film can be taken the wrong way, as to sum it up it can be taken as certain things are okay if people keep their mouth shut. I saw this, particularly at the very end, and I didn't really agree with it either. It felt very unfair and honestly a bit disgusting to me. 

Regardless, this is a good film, though it's not something you can watch with your parents probably due to how extreme it is and the subject matters. A good revenge film with good storytelling.

7/10

"Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same."

"Your gravest mistake wasn't failing to find the answer. You can't find the right answer if you ask the wrong questions."

" I thought I'd lived a simple life. But I've sinned too much"