On his young daughter’s birthday, Oh Daesu disappears no more than four feet behind his friend and is imprisoned in what looks like a hotel room. He is held there for 15 years with nothing but a television set and daily meals of fried dumplings. One day, he wakes up on a rooftop in nice clothes with cash in his pocket and no explanation whatsoever, so he begins what any logical person would do after a decade and a half of captivity. Find out why and seek brutal, torturous revenge against the person responsible.
After his commercial debut with JSA and the raw, extreme follow-up of Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Park Chan-wook turns out his second revenge film, Old Boy— a piece of pure cinema with florid, dynamic cinematography and a score operatic in scale. Park holds over elements from Sympathy, turning Oh Dae-su’s seemingly simple task of revenge into something far more complicated and grander. And while both films also uncover the deteriorative and empty side of vengeance, Park’s aesthetic choices here show a completely different side to the theme. While Sympathy is uncompromising and brutal in its wrenching depiction of vengeance, Old Boy masks it with a glossy sheen and lurid visuals. This marks a shift from the gradual decay that we painfully anticipate for Sympathy’s protagonists to the sudden, surprising and devastating punches for Old Boy’s.
Park’s plotting here occasionally falters with the choice, mainly in the middle act, which lacks the intrigue of the beginning and the visceral intensity of the climax. Ludicrous plot issues in this act are also to blame. But in any case, the film still rarely lets up in the entertainment department, as Oh Daesu struggles to solve the mystery, dealing with offbeat Takashi Miike style characters, engaging in a memorable one-take tracking shot fight (armed only with a hammer) and watching over a beautiful sushi chef, Mido, who befriends him after he eats a raw squid whole.
Besides his committed performance in seafood scenes, Choi Min-sik plays Oh Daesu with grandeur, marvelously walking on the edge of insanity, struggling to retain compassion and in one particular scene—shifting through three distinctive reactions in less than two minutes of each other. Yu Ji-tae and Kang Hye-jeong put in strong performances as well, especially Yu, who gives his tormented character a terrifyingly charming trim. Directors should be knocking on his door after this.
And international distributors should be barging down Park’s door, as he solidifies himself as Korea’s most internationally acclaimed director—with good reason. We can only hope his success at Cannes will blow the door upon for theatrical releases stateside. Old Boy comes highly recommended, especially as a film to introduce someone to Park’s oeuvre, or the new wave of South Korean cinema in general.
Reviewed by Tarun
