OldBoy Movie Review:


I have often heard it said that there are no more original ideas for films anymore. It is believed that all that could be thought of has already been done, and now we can only expect copies. While Chan-wook Park’s new film, Oldboy borrows the mood and feeling from many great films of the past, the premise is one that seems shockingly unique.

After the film opens with a confusing scene in which it seems as though Dae-su Oh is holding a man from his tie over the edge of a building, it immediately jumps into a hilarious scene where a much more clean-cut Dae-su Oh, a seemingly ordinary man, albeit extremely intoxicated on his daughter’s birthday, goes through a whole spectrum of emotions waiting to be released in a police station. After being picked up by a friend, Dae-su Oh calls his daughter and wife, and then is kidnapped off the street. He is placed in a room with decent living conditions including a television, and is kept there for fifteen years.

As the fifteen years pass within the cell, the mystery builds as to why Dae-su Oh is held captive, and it seems as though the film can go nowhere from this point, but when he is released on a grass filled rooftop the film just gets better. Dae-su Oh receives a phone call telling him that he has five days to figure out why he was held captive, and with the help of a young woman he meets in a sushi bar, he sets out to solve the mystery. Little more can be said of the plot without spoiling the surprise, which met every expectation I had from the film as it had impressed me so far. The mystery is built until the very end in which all of the film comes crashing into a wrenching, disturbing, and Shakespearian climax on par with films like Seven and Titus.

Although Oldboy is not necessarily an action film there are a few fight sequences which are choreographed and shot in a way which will make you wish more of the film had action. One scene shot in a hallway is done in all one continuous shot, reminiscent of the famous scene in samurai film Sword of Doom. The brutality of the scene is only matched by the humor, which is just enough so that the violence is slightly more bearable.

The characters are so well developed in Oldboy that when they begin to go through the extremely graphic situations it is much more difficult to watch. Min-sik Choi plays Dae-su Oh with such precision, despite an extended amount of the film spent in isolation. The last fifteen minutes of the film were so stressful to watch that it actually gave me a headache. And it was worth it. This is perhaps one of the best films in its genre in years. There is simply no other way to stress the fact that despite the limited distribution, this film should be well known and talked about. I am certain that every audience member which sees this film will not walk out and forget it.



Ryan Izay

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