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OLDBOY (2005) (****)

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This film has been playing the festival circuit since last year and won the Grand Prix from the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Based on a Korean manga, the story begins with Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi, PAINTED FIRE) at a police station after getting into a drunken fight, which makes him miss his three-year-old’s birthday. Then suddenly, Oh finds himself in a one-room prison with no reason for being there. His only company is a television set, through which he learns that he has been accused of killing his wife. Over the years, he also falls in love with a TV chef named Mido (Hye-jeong Kang, THE BUTTERFLY).

After 15 years of imprisonment, Oh is days away from tunneling himself to freedom, when his captors let him go. He has a long list of more than 200 people he thinks could have done this to him and he sets out to find answers. The film serves as a revenge flick, as well as a mystery. He meets up with Mido who falls in love with him as well. She is the kind of innocent girl who takes in stray puppies no matter how haggard they look. The deeper he gets into the mystery the stranger things become and he's certain that the wealthy Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu, WONDERFUL DAYS) was involved.

The story deals with the “whys” of the situation rather than Dae-su Oh’s desire for blood. This is what sets the story apart greatly from a DEATH WISH-type of film. The movie deals compellingly with issues of identity and sin. The interesting thing is that when it deals with sin, it’s not the grand sins, but the minor ones that we often forget. When Oh confronts his captor finally, we find that he is seeking revenge as well.

Director Chan-wook Park (SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE) is emerging as a hot Asian filmmaker. OLDBOY has an original style. It’s violent, but in a realistic kind of way. This is a film that probably wouldn't get made in America, because of its troubling content. Park likes to provoke, but he does so with reason. Action scenes have a purpose. Watch the flatly shot fight sequence when Oh battles dozens of thugs with a hammer in his hand and a knife in his back. He is consumed by rage and revenge and the iconic sequence conveys that powerfully. Watch the subtext to the scene where Oh eats a live octopus. Consuming the living creature (which is common in Asia) tells a great deal about his mental state.

When the film gets to the end, which is grandly dramatic and shocking, you sympathize greatly with Dae-su Oh, who is brought to life boldly by the raw emotions of Min-sik Choi’s performance. But we also get to understand the bad guy. He’s a sick guy in every way possible, but we understand his emotions and motivations whether we agree with them or not. This film is solid action cinema that’s challenging and compelling. With productions like OLDBOY and BATTLE ROYALE, Asia is becoming the center of challenging and important action films.

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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
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