Oldboy

“Even though I’m no better than a beast, don’t I have the right to live?”

I've always wondered why Koreans use thin, metal chopsticks. Oldboy provides the most plausible and practical answer I've heard so far - it would be rather hard to dig your way out of prison with rounded, wooden sticks... here is a nation that planned ahead, just in case, by throwing out all other food utensils that did not use solid metal and point sharp edges.

I watched Oldboy(2003) not knowing what to expect and I came to the following conclusion. Good action and a shocking story make in the right hands a shockingly good film. Chan-wook Park is also responsible for 2009's Thirst, one of the better vampire movies out there. The visual style of the director is as prominent and recognizable in Oldboy as it was in Thirst, but the latter felt far more out of focus and fragmented. Oldboy leaves you with the same feeling for most of the movie, but the ending sure brings cohesion to this wondrous mess in a rather intelligent, if brutal and exaggerated manner. It's an asian film (even Japanese at heart in its madness – it’s based on the manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi) and it's a lot more fantasy than reality has need for, but sometimes such an overwrought manner is appropriate, and Chan-wook Park knows how to paint a dystopia in all its ugly colors.

The film begins most equivocally with our protagonist holding a man by his tie over the edge of a tall building. It's fitting for a movie that plays with its characters' minds that it should play with its audience as well. The man is apparently not being intimated but prevented from jumping off... The music pounds mercilessly and the camera shakes violently. All we can see is the dark foreboding silhouette of a vengeful ghost we assume to be the protagonist. A series of silly shots (of what common sense dictates simply cannot be the same man) follow as he is held for public disturbance in a police precinct as a result of ingesting too much soju. As he leaves with the friend that eventually comes to pick him up, they stop by a phone booth to talk to his family. It's pouring outside and while his friend converses on the phone, our main character, Dae-su, disappears. The music is now a lament, and the camera flies high above presenting a dark, cold street where a group of people slowly march uniformly, under umbrellas, as though at a funeral; they're walking in the opposing direction indicated by the red arrow (with an x through it) painted on the street. Only an umbrella now stands in this desolate frame and under it are the white angel wings Dae-su got for his daughter's birthday. Revenge is a one way street covered in blood, even that of the innocent. We've seen three incongruous scenes juxtaposed, and by now we should know the three main themes of the film - revenge, unforgiving tragedy and in-between some good dark humor.

Dae-su is imprisoned for 15 years we find out, by an unknown person in an unknown location. He is however most methodically and carefully kept alive. He has a TV set in his small, confined room and it serves as a friend, a teacher and a lover... of sorts. After a while the obvious happens - he dedicates his life to plotting revenge against the benefactor that provided him with all this free time and free cable-TV education. The movie is funny, incredibly so. Our hero receives three chopsticks and what he thinks, he tells us, is that the person next door must be eating with a single chopstick. In any case, he pounds at the wall with his fists until he probably kills all the nerves in his knuckles and then pounds some more. He takes one of those handy chopsticks and starts carving his way out through the wall. As an educational moment, here are, according to the movie, a few other things one could do in the time it takes for a hikikomori (granted, against his will) to advance 30 cm away from the confines of his room: send a postcard from Hong Kong during its handover ceremonies of '97, cheer for the South Korean team at the FIFA world cup, or vote for presidency...

In any case, skipping over spoilers, he gets out and decides to tell his story to the first man he meets. And this is pretty much where the movie began. The man in question had a suicide schedule at that time but that'll have to wait now. He listens to the entire story and then wishes to confess his own plight in what he takes it to be a moment of bonding and understanding. Dae-su just gets up and leaves. In the elevator there is a scared woman. The claustrophobic feel is heightened by the distorted camera lens' low focal length... this man has been holding out for a looong time. As he exits the building the woman is complaining to a guard behind while a car is smashed by a man falling from the rooftop. As me, you might laugh at what is actually a rather tragic scenario. "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone" the protagonist's voiceover informs us as he walks away, slowly building towards a sneer. It might be wishful thinking of him; at some points in the film it feels like the phrase requires readjusting to the harsher universe at hand: Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and the world laughs at you.

The movie plays in part like a Kitano piece, but it is more visceral, more exteriorized in its feelings. Entire scenes are often cut down into significant poses and only the beginning and end result is presented, the rest skipped over to heighten the effect through implication. Actors are often filmed head on, expressionless. But this is contrasted by swiveling cameras that leap from rooftop to rooftop, continuously following the action; in a nicely executed scene Dae-su is trying to recall his past by symbolically chasing after his younger self; the camera is dynamic here and follows nearly uninterrupted. At times we get slow motion, at others things are sped up - none of these really remind of the deadpan Kitano. These visceral moments resemble more the cinematic vivaciousness of Oliver Stone; the dark and foreboding atmosphere, the confined, unsettling sets and contrasting colors are reminiscent of David Fincher's Fight Club, or of cyberpunk films. It’s a style unique to the director and that’s something quite rare.

There is a great fight scene in the film that is not to be missed. It is superbly choreographed through its clumsiness and masterfully filmed by a simple tracking camera. Down a long corridor, Dae-su engages in combat with the local tough guys - tattoos, bouncy stomachs and all. A scene so honest I haven't seen since the woodcutter's recollection in Rashomon where the Samurai and thief wage a less than glamorous fight, both scared for their lives. Here our protagonist isn't afraid. He doesn't even seem human as he punches his way with a knife in his back... The musical theme of the movie follows the action in tandem, not a single editing cut here. People trip on bats or by themselves, they swing at the air and gasp for it flat on the floor. When the madness is over, a slanted camera affixed high above stares down a long corridor filled with aching thugs (pulled deeper into the background by the deep perspective) who are trying to pick themselves up. In full focus at the forefront is Dae-su. The elevator opens up to his smile. We then see the object of his amusement. An elevator filled to the brim with fresh meat. The next scene is a logical conclusion justifying another well placed ellipsis. It's hilariously refreshing and a beautiful scene.

But the movie doesn't turn out to be a Kitano Yakuza film because it does not simply present unfathomable situations while refusing implication. Nor is it a Steven Seagal revenge story. It intelligently veers away from convention and leaves us with the sour aftertaste of revenge and not the glorious cathartic scene we've come to expect from most traditional Hollywood revenge stories. As the hero approaches the inexorable moment of confrontation we realize, as he does, that we had been asking the wrong question all along. We had believed Dae-su to be the one seeking revenge when in actuality he was all along the one on which the revenge was exerted. It may seem insignificant but looking at things from this reversed or mirror perspective (and note that the film itself makes a clever use of the mirror in the final confrontation) is vital to accepting the last scene between the two antagonists. The moment to follow is taken to metaphorical heights, with little restraint. Other solutions can be thought of perhaps, but I think this one is forcefully effective… So if you don't like the ending Bogdan, it's you, not the movie.

I'm new to the director's works but he most certainly has a unique style and has shown moments of greatness in both Oldboy and Thirst. As credits go I have Jisoo to thank for recommending both of them to me. The movie is the second part in the director’s Vengeance trilogy, together with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance(2002) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance(2005).