OLDBOY by moira

[CAUTION: SPOILERS]

The movie begins with Oh Dae-su’s tight clutch to the tie of this man who’s about to jump off a skyscraper while holding a dog. Oh Dae-su introduced himself and the frame then relapsed15 years back. “Classic.”, I thought to myself.

Behold. You’ll see the not-so-cool Oh Dae-su, with a bleeding nose, utterly drunk and acting superbly stupid, while thrashing at a local police station. After he pissed everybody off, he was bailed out and was abducted and locked away from everything he once knew, leaving only a violet umbrella with a distinctive and ornate design as an insinuation of who his abductor was.

Why?

Was the teeming question in my head and so as Oh Dae-su’s as he was slitting his wrists, writing the names of the people he fought with, bothered and hurt – and while masturbating to a girl on TV who isn’t “fleshly” nor “sexual” to masturbate to. The rest of his time, he devoted to his “imaginary training” to equip himself for his opportune revenge - which, by the way, a 15-year wait.

He woke up inside a suitcase at the same building top where the movie began. Saw the first human being apart from the guy who delivers his meals, so pardon the weirdness. This guy, by the way, was the guy who’s about to jump off a skyscraper while holding a dog. He jumped eventually.

But I remember him say this before he took his last flight out: “Mister, Even though I’m no worse than a beast, don’t I have the right to live?” I was stirred by this for some inane reason.

Oh Dae-su, now looking quite rad walked the streets in flames, at least only on the inside. He met this girl named Mido at a local sushi restaurant where he ate live squid or something with tentacles. This was also the occurrence where he first spoke to his captor. Oh Dae-su passed out afterwards.

He wound up at Mido’s place. From here, his rummage around for his tormentor began. With the help of Mido, this peculiar girl who cries over nothing, they began to trace the crumbs which led them to this guy who looks like a typical Koreanovela dude, Lee Woojin. Certainly, before they did, there were violence, teeth torture, gang brawls, hypnotism, deceit, sex, bondage, incest and lots of valium gases. Lee Woojin has been “kind” enough to leave them hints wrapped in the same violet and ornate packaging as the design of the umbrella. They looked into all possible searches for whatever may be the cause of Oh Dae-su’s ordeal. He was given 5 days to figure the puzzle out. 5 days to untangle a 15-year old wrath. Wow.

“Be it a grain of sand or rock, in water they sink as the same.”

A sin is a sin no matter how small it is. If you’re nosy back in high school and you like to talk about other people’s business a lot, like telling one of the Evergreen Oldboys that you saw Lee Woojin and her sister, Soo Ah sucking faces and bosoms in the Chemistry lab resulting to the girl’s untimely death by freefalling off a bridge after she learned that she's bearing both her daughter and niece, then you need to rethink your life over.

SPOILER STARTS HERE:
Stop reading if you must. You’ve been warned.

It might cost you your freedom for 15 incessant years and a big bulk of your sanity. It could also lead you to fucking your own daughter in the process, which of course, you won’t know until it’s been revealed to you by the tormentor, you’ve wronged. How? By locking you up for a decade and a half with only a television as your window to the universe, by pointing you as the murderer of your own wife, by putting you under relentless hypnosis and by making you believe that you’re the one who’s fixing on vengeance when in truth, it’s the other way around.

I didn’t just tell you that.

I drew one, too many hypothesis as to what the film is about. I even reckoned that the entire occurrence were just fragments of Oh Dae-su’s mind and was illusory since a rather familiar pattern was omnipotent in the entire set up: The ornate design of the violet umbrella, the walls, the clue containers, etc. In the end, I just thought the ornate designs were intended to make the hypnosis work.

Anyway, what happens after vengeance has been realized? Well, two things: The person taking on revenge would either live or rest in peace. In this case, Lee Woojin shot himself in the temples with such great execution and authenticity, you’d almost think it’s real. Suicide’s the ultimate “fuck you”, really - and I just quoted a line from Gingersnaps.

As for Oh Dae-su, I’d say he died too. In a profound way.

I don’t even have to stress out that the movie was superbly structured and carefully plotted like how a revenge movie should be. The cast played their respective roles gracefully as if they’re the characters themselves, particularly Choi Min-sik, who was both disarming and compelling as Oh Dae-su. Cinematography’s splendid as well. I can make out superlative stills from screen pauses anytime.

The best dish served though was the spectacular twist in the end. There were two actually. Else, I was dumbfounded by the fact that Oh Dae-su means “Getting along with people”. It didn’t happen. Lastly,

“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.”

(don skizzo's note: a better review than mine, even with the spoilers. i still call dibs on owning oldboy. and i dont mean just the dvd. see you in la fin absolue du monde, moira)