Oldboy Review - Superbuu3

OK lets just start with the fact that this film is korean, it is in Korean (i'm not aware of there being a dub) and you will have to read subtitles, if you don't like doing that then i guess don't bother, but you will be missing out on a great film, I think a good way to describe this film is thought provoking. As inevitably a film like this will make some people look at themselves.

Secondly people say that kill bill was influenced by this film, now considering that film is fairly shit I find that to be a great insult to this film so anyone who said that missed the point of this film or is just extremely stupid.

Ok the film starts off with a man being imprisoned for a length of time. He doesn't know the reason why he was imprisoned and he doesn't know why he was let out, the resons for someone doing this seems baffling. This gets your curiosity kicking in fairly quickly and the way the story is told is amazing, you will find yourself asking questions that the writer wanted you to be asking yourself.

Now i'm not one to noramally comment on a films style of filming, but I will say if you are watching this you will be impressed with the camera work and the way the film is done, this was way beyond what i thought korean cinema was capable of, granted i haven't seen many (if any Korean films), but one can get quite dismissive of foreign film sometimes due to shoddy production values, this isn't the case here however.

The film follows the exploits of this imprisoned man during his imprisonment and after he is let out. The story tells an adventure of a man seeking answers and getting his vengeance all in one go. Strangely there are some funny moments in this, that break up the intensity every so often which I think is a good thing as this film is intense. There are some violent scenes in this movie and it really isn't for the faint hearted, if you are not so comfortable with films showing the dark side of humanity and generally have a gritty look.

If your asking yourself why was that guy imprisoned you should watch this film it is great and the reasoning for the whole film is great and the conclusion to this movie is great if not disturbing.

This film is part of the vengeance trilogy which also includes Sympathy for mr vengeance and sympathy for lady vengeance, to my understanding these films aren't actually linked though there is an ongoing theme, I will try to see these and review them at some point to.

The Mr and Lady Vengeance films aren't as good, and Mr Vengeance is the better of the two. Although I have a friend who preferred Lady Vengeance to Oldboy. Lady Vengeance is really weird though. And really creepy in some places. Like proper squirming-in-your-seat, hard-to-watch creepy.

Quote :

Like proper squirming-in-your-seat, hard-to-watch creepy.

And parts of Oldboy weren't?

SimianWonder wrote:

Quote :

Like proper squirming-in-your-seat, hard-to-watch creepy.

And parts of Oldboy weren't?

It has nothing on Lady Vengeance.

Really?

I've not seen Lady Vengeance; was it as gruesome as Audition?

Haven't seen audition. It's not that gruesome from what I remember (only saw it once), it's just the situations in the film. The second half anyway. The first half is the weird stuff. The story is all over the place. But even then it has some stuff to make you cringe.

Oh, cos Audition was one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. Brilliant, but properly fucked up.

Yeah, I keep hearing that.

Put it on your "to watch" list, you won't regret it.

I'll put it right after Let The Right One In and Session 9.

I really must get round to watching The Orphanage.

Yes you must.

Oh, and back on topic, Oldboy's great. I hope to hell that it doesn't suffer a US remake, as I doubt very highly whether certain aspects would make it.

The US version has been in rumour-limbo forever. Don't know if it was ever actually planned. A lot of people wanted Gary Oldman for the lead though.

was audition good?
i got bored about 40 mins into it and gave up watching

Watch Lady Vengeance again. Better, and weirder, than I remembered.

Wow, I forgot how odd Oldboy was.

so whats better?

Still Oldboy. Haven't rewatched Mr. Vengeance yet, but it's most likely not as good as Oldboy.

So's your face.

Well, after review, Lady Vengeance is better than Mr. Vengeance. It's still a fairly decent film though. One thing that did stand out this time was how little dialogue the film has. Never noticed that before.

you mean not much dialogue
or not much spoken dialogue (cause oldboy monologues a lot)

I mean not much dialogue at all. The main character is deaf, so he doesn't speak, but a lot of the film is done without words regardless of that.

ooh cool
i'm gonna buy mr vengeance soon
the theme sounds really interesting to me

It is, in that of the three, it's the only one that follows two people out for revenge.

Although there is one key plot point I still have no clue about. I remember being confused about it the first time too. There's a letter or something that the deaf guy's sister finds, and its clearly important for some reason, but whenever we see there's no subtitles to say what it says.