Message from judilee

[Anonymous]

Wow.

I came into this movie with absolutely no expectations. All I knew was that is was a story about revenge and was hugely popular in Korea and loved by American critics. To call it a revenge movie is too simplistic and doesn't give the filmmakers enough credit. It is based on a Japanese manga of the same name.

Personally, I was surprised to see this type of movie come out of Korea. I've always thought of Korea as a bit more repressed and conservative than America. I've seen quite a few Korean dramas, and the raciest those get are when the leads kiss. To see a movie with simulated sex scenes, torture, and knives in people's backs was shocking.

Oldboy is a story about Oh Daesu, a man who has been locked up in a prison-like hotel room for 15 years. He is suddenly released by his captor, Lee Woojin, and given the assignment of finding out why he was locked in there. This gives Daesu a chance get revenge on the man who kept him in a prison for those 15 years. Without giving too much away, Woojin is exacting his own revenge on Daesu for something that Daesu did to him years ago.

This is definitely not a movie to show to students! It is very violent, has coarse language, and female frontal nudity and sex scenes. That being said, I would recommend this movie to adults. It is a modern noir movie, with ambiguous heroes and villains, complete with a femme fatale (sorta). The director, Park Chan-wook, did a wonderful job of telling a story with so many twists and turns (especially the final cringeworthy twist) and leaving it up to the audience to decide who is the hero and who is the villain. However, I think the real star of the movie is Jeong Jeong-hun, the cinematographer. The whole movie is exquisitely shot, and is really one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Even at its most violent scenes, I couldn't get over how beautiful the movie was. Watching this movie has made me want to see all of Park's and Jeong's movies.

There was talk of an American remake, but it's been put on hold, which I think is a good thing. Inevitably, I think an American filmmaker or film company would try to make it more appealing to a mass audience by watering down the story and violence.