Movie Review: Oldboy (Korean)

An idiomatic expression whose meaning is revealed in one of the final scenes of the film (so I won’t tell you here), “Oldboy” also causes me to compare the hero of this South Korean flick to old classic-epic heroes: Odysseus, for instance. Oh Dae-su goes through as many challenges before reaching the end of his quest as Odysseus did—with the difference that Oh Dae-su does not come out virtuous and unscathed.

In fact, the main reason this film seems so epic is Oh Dae-su’s driving sense of revenge, fueled by fifteen years of unexplained imprisonment. It isn’t Dae-su’s sense of wronged innocence so much as an outraged confusion that compels him, on his return to the world, to seek out his captor and exact revenge. (That, and a threat by the captor that Dae-su must seek him out.) His motives and his methods are messy. In fact, not much in this movie is “pretty”—but that’s what makes it epic.

In one scene, for instance, shot brilliantly (and digitally, if I’m not mistaken), Dae-su takes on the typical gang of martial artists you’d see in any Bruce Lee movie. Normally, the staging of this scene would have our hero in the center with a circle of bad guys surrounding him, waiting their turns to attack, and the hero would dispatch each with efficient ease, barely breaking a sweat (or, if so, breaking a sexy sweat that causes chest muscles to glisten and gleam, etc). Dae-su, however, is in a narrow hallway, and has enemies coming at him from both sides; he fights desperately, as though he has nothing to lose; he is stabbed, but barely acknowledges it. Sweat flies everywhere, and Dae-su has to take a second to breathe in between wild kicks and punches he likely invented himself. It is as difficult to turn away from this scene as the ones in which Daniel Day-Lewis wields a butcher’s knife in Gangs of New York, with the difference that you really don’t want to.

Oldboy is an almost unceasingly brutal movie, and in the end, it is revealed to be even more brutal than you had thought.

What saves this movie from being only sickening, blood-spattered Jerry Springer-type material are the efforts of the director and director of photography. The hallway scene, for instance, is shot as though a cross-section had been done of the hall; this allows us to see all the action, but keeps us out of it at the same time. We are voyeurs, not participants—and by this point (unlike on an episode of Jerry Springer), we sympathize with Dae-su. We can be drawn into the action without being overwhelmed or threatened by it. The movie also uses a framing device that allows us to enter and exit the story conclusively (though confusingly, in the first viewing).

Still, the end is sickening. After so many trials, Dae-su gets his answers, and they are likely not what we (or he) expected. The sense that he must now live with these answers is more stifling than the fight scenes; what stretches ahead of him now may be more challenging than what had come before. And yet, the acute initial trials after being set free have prepared him for this new challenge. There is hope that he can rebuild and live in peace, even with the answers he received.

Oldboy is not for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for Korean martial arts epic, this is your winner.

Now if only I could find some good cold noodles.