Joshua Hurtado, 07/04/2007
Already having wrenched the cinematic world's attention with his first two masterful films, JSA and Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, South Korean director Park Chan-Wook created his calling card in 2000 with Oldboy. Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Oldboy leaves everyone who sees it shaken, and ultimately changed, in its wake. Oh Dae-Su is just a man, ordinary, until one day, when after a bender he disappears from sight and wakes up imprisoned. He wakes up in what appears to be a hotel room, only he cannot leave. The only things he has to keep him company are a TV and a painting of Jesus Christ on the wall. Fifteen years pass in Dae-Su's imprisonment and during this time he learns of his wife's murder and that he is the prime suspect and spends his entire "sentence" toughening up for the day he is free and will completely and utterly destroy his captor. The camera work and cinematography during the montage showing his time in hell is astounding, taking advantage of CGI in very effective but understated ways, as well as showing the pain and confusion of 15 ytears of uncertainty in a very short span. One day he wakes up outside, with no explanation and no direction. Soon enough he is on his mission to find the truth about his captivity, the night he is released he goes to eat and in order to prove to himself that this freedom is real, he requests the waitress to bring him something "alive", setting the scene for one of the most talked about parts of the film, the octopus. After Dae-Su eats the octopus he passes out and the waitress takes pity on him and allows him to sleep in her apartment, the beginning of a bond that goes deeper than either of them know. She joins him on his quest and soon enough he is face to face with his captor who gives Dae-Su a challenge. He has five days to either figure out for himself why he was captured or everyone woman he cares for will die. What follows is an hour and a half of the most intense cinematic experience of my life. Dae-Su's passion, and for that matter Park Chan-Wook's, drips from every frame of this film. The characters in the film have the kind of passion for life that only comes from extreme adversity, and it doesn't get any more extreme than Oldboy. Oh Dae-Su puts his own life on the line over and over again through the film and without qualm. Not to mention the twist ending that everyone was talking about and yet no one mentioned because it was so perfect and so shocking that it could only be appreciated in the context of the film and to take it away from that context it would lose its power. These were of the most transforming 2 hours of my life as a cinephile. Tartan's 2 disc special edition of Oldboy is worthy of the film, with the second disc packing a number of featurettes on everything from the film's music, to its judicious use of CGI, to very entertaining and informative interviews with the cast and crew. This is a film which will be a reference point for film geeks from here to eternity, nothing like it is likely ever to be made again. That is fine with me, because this is an absolutely perfect film.
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