The primary thing to know about Oldboy is that it's one of those movies to mentally file away as unsuitable for watching with your parents....or children...or siblings....and (no matter what) it's definitely not appropriate first date viewing. Listen up cinephile completists! It doesn't matter how famous the film has become or how many awards it's won, the only impression Oldboy will leave on a friend, new or old, is sheer terror and a creeping suspicion of madness.
Oldboy – A Film to Avoid?
Watching Oldboy alone is the only answer, but even that is not to be recommended. Such folly will undoubtedly cause a vague air of despair and a great deal of disgust to linger around for weeks to come. Bear in mind that the most talked about and famous scene in Oldboy – where leading man Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) greedily eats a live octopus - is by no means the most harrowing. Not by a long stretch. It takes some torturous dentistry that's about a billion times harder than the stuff in Marathon Man, and a little bit of incestuous fornication to get things really going.
Oldboy Plot Synopsis
The story of Oldboy has echoes of Alexandre Dumas' classic tale The Count of Monte Cristo, albeit with a modern twist. The protagonist, Dae-su, is an ordinary man, although rather dislikeable at first. He is making his way home for his daughter's birthday, but gets arrested by the police because he's blind drunk. His best friend comes to bail him out, but before he can get Oh Dae-su home he suddenly disappears. It turns out he was snatched by an unknown assailant and imprisoned in a room, where he is kept for the next 15 years. When he is finally released, Oh Dae-su has revenge on his mind. He hooks up with a young waitress, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong), who has a bizarre attraction to him for reasons which are not immediately obvious, and together they try to work out why he was snatched, and who he should wreak his revenge upon.
Gripping stuff, huh? Yep, so far so good. The first half of Oldboy is deeply visceral and exciting. It seems vitally important to find out the answers, but it soon transpires that some things are better left unspoken. Poor Oh Dae-su's fate is carefully plotted by his tormentor, leaving him little more than a puppet on a string. Every move he makes seems to be anticipated, although he still ploughs on with his thoughts intent on revenge. But revenge remains elusive, and the secrets Oh Dae-su discovers will make him wish he had never started down that path in the first place.
Symbolism in Oldboy
Much has been written about Oldboy as a serious subject for contextual analysis. It's true that Park Chan-wook's films are laden with complexities and symbolism that reflect certain states of mind. The confined space of Oh Dae-su's cell is noticeably similar to the confined space of the room he moves into with Mi-do, inviting the speculation that he has only escaped to a bigger prison. But despite the intellectual leanings, the film is still full of gaping plot holes which are barely papered over by mumbo-jumbo explanations. Honestly, hypnosis hasn't been used to any serious effect in cinema sinceThe Cabinet of Dr Caligari back in the 1920s.
The acting, particularly from leading man and PCW regular Choi Min-sik is top class, and the cinematography is splendid, but the story is revolting and much of the action terrifyingly brutal. On balance, despite undeniable elements of competence, there is little to recommend Oldboy. It should really come with a warning: Watch this film at your peril – once seen it cannot be unseen, no matter how much you wish it so.
Further reading: Check out other great Asian films here, and also read horror feature writer Michael Pantazi's review of PCW's I'm a Cyborg But That's Okay.
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