Add Tail Slate
to Your Site/RSS
| Blog: |
| Tail Slate |
Topics: |
| films, movies, television |
Choi Min-Sik stars in the vicious Oldboy.
Oldboy is one of those films that has gotten a lot of chatter over the Internet in recent weeks. I’ve seen mentions all over the place about how cool it is and so forth, so you can imagine how anxious I was to see it.
Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to catch it, and have to say it is probably one of the coolest films I’ve seen in quite some time. The story is told with more complexity than it needed at times, but ultimately it’s a rich tale of revenge and… well revenge. The most twisted kind of revenge I can recall ever seeing in a movie.
This is not your usual action thriller that we’ve come to expect from Asia — this one coming from Korea. It’s much more subtle, with only a few action scenes that don’t highlight the wire work that has been used to excess in recent years. The fight scenes are powerful and raw, and with one exception, short.
Oldboy is about a man named Oh Dae-su, a loud-mouthed drunk who is kidnapped at the outset and spends 15 years locked away in a room with a tv, bathroom and a bed. He has no idea why he is there, or who is responsible. When he is suddenly released, he quickly sets about trying to find out who imprisoned him and exact revenge.
Dae-su soon teams up with an innocent young woman, and an old friend, who help him track down those responsible. But as he struggles to learn the truth, he is forced to face the demons of his past.
I would probably have enjoyed the film more had it not tried so hard to confuse you. The story is a bit disjointed at first, jumping around through time and place, so you’re constantly pulled out of the film to keep track of what’s going on. The story and the characters keep you interested, however jarring the film may feel.
One scene in particular is an example of how the film gets overly complicated. Dae-su, played with absolute perfection by Min-sik Choi, is remembering something from his youth. In the flashback he runs around an old school following someone, and as he does, the film shifts between the older Dae-su and the younger. The editing moves so fast and the camera never stops. You become confused as to exactly who your looking at, be it the younger Dae-su, or the man he’s chasing after. It reminded me of the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the different Bowmans encounter each other, even though the scene is simply meant to show that he spends the rest of his life in the monolith.
The art overtakes the story, and you’re no longer in the film. These flights of fancy can be entertaining, but are often more distracting than anything else. However, they may be more appreciable during the second or third viewing.
Those moments aside, Oldboy really is an excellent film. The twists and turns never feel forced or gimmicky, and the performances on all levels are outstanding. My favorite scene is its most elaborate fight sequence, when Dae-su takes on more than a dozen guys as he makes his way down a hallway.
The shot simply pans along as he makes his way down the hall, taking on one, two, three guys as a time. There are no fancy fight moves or high flying acrobatics; no annoying MTV cuts that make your head spin, just raw punches and kicks. Dae-su becomes exhausted, yet struggles on, falling several times.
By the end of Oldboy, you’ll undoubtedly be floored by the depths the characters sink to. Chan-wook Park ultimately does a terrific job at the helm, even if the film gets overly stylized from time to time. It is an effective thriller with wonderfully developed characters, and a story you would never, ever see made by the Hollywood machine.
Share on Facebook
- 
-