I'm giving this movie, Oldboy, the Silver Screen Kid's coveted Lock-of-the-Week. You will enjoy this movie. It's a lock. It's also a troublesome movie to review effectively (if any of my reviews could be considered effective). Watching Oldboy for the first time is like diving into an ice cold pool; you know it's going to be shocking, but nothing can truly prepare you for the frigid plunge, and before you know it you're choking and gasping for air at the surface. (I really need to work on my metaphors). The less you know about Oldboy going into it, the better. I watched it for the first time on the strength that a crappy day-time VH1 special included it in a list of Scariest Movie Moments of all time. It was a well deserved endorsement.
If you haven't watched Oldboy yet, don't even bother reading this review. Anything AT ALL you know about it will lessen the impact. It is savage, graceful, fun, terrible, exciting, depressing, revolting, endearing - basically one hell of a ride. There's something sickly universal about the main character's predicament. Kidnapped for seemingly no reason, Oh Dae-Su (played by Min-Sik Choi) is held captive for 15 years without any explanation, or knowledge of when he will be released. Who couldn't sympathize with what he would feel at that point? I'm sure after a few more years of being out of college I'll feel much the same way. So what does Oh Dae-Su do when he gets out? He goes hell-bent for revenge, stupid.Oldboy features one of the freshest, most exhilarating fight scenes in the history of cinema. The scene involves: our hero, a hammer, and around 20 mean looking dudes with various melee weapons. In a single unbroken take we see our hero hammer the shit out of the 20 unlucky saps, ending up with a knife in his back and a sea of well bruised thugs groaning at his feet. It took 3 days and 17 takes to perfect. I'm so glad there are people out there willing to do these things for art! Director Chan-Wook Park really came through for this movie. It is the second film of his self dubbed Revenge Trilogy, a trilogy of films that examine the many triumphs and pitfalls of taking revenge on those that wronged you. As you might imagine, it does not carry a happy ending. Even though the last shot shows Oh Dae-Su letting out a big grin. If you don't know why he's grinning, you'll just have to watch the thing.
