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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 06/27/2006

Amazon.com
In the realm of revenge thrillers, you'd be hard pressed to find more ultra-violent vengeance and psycho thrills than in the creepy story of Oldboy. This Korean import made a pop splash at the Cannes Film Festival and during its limited theatrical run thanks to the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who raved about it and its visionary director, Chan-wook Park, to anyone who would listen. It's easy to see why QT fell in love with the grindhouse attitude, fast-paced action, violent imagery, and icy-black humor, but it's a disservice to think of Oldboy as another Tarantino homage or knockoff. The darkly existential undercurrent in the themes that Oldboy traces over its life-long narrative arc is much more complex and deeply disturbing than anything of its kind. The movie's tagline is, "15 years of imprisonment... 5 days of vengeance." The imprisonee is Oh Dae-Su, an ordinary Joe who is snatched off a Seoul street corner and locked away in a dank, windowless fleabag hotel room for the aforementioned 15 years. Just as abruptly he is released, and thus the five days begin. Why did this happen to Oh Dae-Su? Ah, but that would be telling, and in fact we don't know ourselves until the final wrenching scenes.

Oldboy breaks into a classic three-act saga, the first of which details the hallucinatory period of imprisonment in which Oh Dae-Su wades from mild insanity to outright psychosis in the hands of unseen yet attentive captors. Act 2 is the revenge, when an entirely different tone takes over and Oh Dae-Su moves with single-minded purpose and clarity. It's this section that has gained the most notoriety, primarily for the claw-hammer dentistry scene, the one-man-army tracking shot, and the wriggling octopus that Oh Dae-Su consumes in a sushi bar (he's been dead so long he simply needs life back inside him in any way possible). In act 3, answers finally start to emerge and the sinister atmosphere grows even more profound--not without a healthy dose of extra bloodletting, of course. Oldboy is an undeniably poetic masterpiece of tension, fury, and dynamic craft. Ultimately, its epic cycle of tragedy is of the sort that mankind has been inflicting upon itself for all time. Some of the images may be gruesome, but all converge into a kind of beauty. It's in the telling of this lurid tale that these details become one and the memories of pain ultimately heal. --Ted Fry

Customer Reviews: Read 170 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Brutally Raw & Brilliantly Inspiring Revenge Film... April 10, 2005
110 out of 120 found this review helpful

Oldboy has a Shakespearian tone as it depicts the tale of Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi), whose name means "he who can get along with people". Oh Dae-su is on his way home after having been arrested for public drunkenness to celebrate his daughters birthday. However, Oh Dae-su never arrives to his home as he is kidnapped and imprisoned in a small room where his only contact with the human world is a television. During the time Oh Dae-su is caged someone murders his wife and he becomes the prime suspect for the murder. The questions that Oh Dae-su unsuccessfully attempts to answer while locked up is why revenge is being taken on him and who is seeking this cruel revenge. After 15 years Oh Dae-su is released from his torturous imprisonment, which leaves him confused and ragingly vengeful.

Chan-wook Park directs a brilliant cinematic experience that is full of well-written conspiring intrigues that will keep the audience in suspense. The suspense is initiated in the opening shot where a man is hanging over the edge of a roof top causing the audience to asks themselves--why is this happening? The suspense continues as new and mysterious clues appears, but apprehension does not leave the audience even after the end of the film as the final line echos in the minds of the audience. Park's vision of revenge in Oldboy often depicts exaggerated violence that is well balanced with story as it is related to the themes of the film. However, this should serve as a warning to squeamish folks as the film is occasionally brutal and bizarre. Furthermore, the cinematography used in Oldboy vividly projects the emotional tone of the cinematic themes and characters. The characters are also superbly performed by an excellent cast, which will help the audience to experience a first class cinematic event.

5 out of 5 stars

Do I deserve life? April 23, 2005
65 out of 77 found this review helpful

Some films just do not allow themselves to fall into generalizations and these films pose conundrums when one tries to explain them. I've owned _Old Boy_ for a number of months now, but for some reason or another I had been able to make myself sit down and watch the film. For some reason I thought it was a horror film and being that I generally do not care for horror films I let this one sit on the sidelines while I watched other films. However, I was finally inspired to watch this film when my Korean office partner told me how much she enjoyed the film, been amazed by Choi Min Sik's acting, and how long the film stuck in her head after watching it. Trusting my friend's taste in film, last night I finally settled down to watch the film and similar to my reaction with other films that I had underestimated, I wondered: Why the heck had I had not watched this film earlier?

The film begins with a drunken Oh Daesu, Choi Min Sik, sitting in the police office. He is a noisy drunk heaping abuse on the police officers and constantly trying to urinate on the floor. He tells the police to let him go because it is his daughter' birthday, but when his pleas fall on death ears, he becomes even more recalcitrant to remain calm in the police office. Eventually Daesu's friend comes to pick up his inebriated friend. However, while talking to Daesu's daughter on the phone, the friend notices that Daesu is missing.

Daesu finds himself imprisoned in a room that resembles a cheap motel room. Fed a diet of dumplings and with a television as his only companion, Daesu will live for fifteen years inside of that small room. Occupying his time watching television, punching the walls, writing the names of all who might have had him imprisoned in that room, watching television, and carving a hole in the wall with a metal chopstick, Daesu grows older his youth withered away within that room. However, one day, he finds himself on top of a building finally free to hunt the individual who had imprisoned him. Daesu eventually makes a new friend in the personage of the young sushi chef Mido, Gang Hye Jeong, who for some reason seems to fall for Daesu as he consumes a live squid, who accompanies him on his search for the individual who ruined his life.

This is an extraordinary film. Choi Min Sik's acting is top notch and one can really feel his anger and frustration inside of his prison. I won't go into details here, but his performance during the final minutes of the film must be witnessed to be believed. The music is grand and the special effects are nicely done. The ant poking through Daesu's skin is very creepy.

4 out of 5 stars

A mind-bending, disturbing revenge flick September 5, 2006
25 out of 27 found this review helpful

Oldboy's beginning had me excited for the rest of the film. I mean it is a great beginning. Oh Dae-su is kidnapped from the middle of the street one night, and we then learn through his narration that he will be in his cell for the next 15 years. We go through the journey with him, seeing the time pass by as he finds ways to get himself through each day. Then, miraculously, he is released one day for what appears to be no reason whatsoever. Once he is released, he sets out to find his captors. The only clue he has is the food that he ate on every single day for the past 15 years, so he goes to every restaurant named Blue Dragon until he tastes the food he knows so well. Once he finds out where he was kept, he has to find out who and why, and that is where the film goes crazy.

The twists at the end of this film are some of the best I can think of from recent film history. Not only is the subject matter hard to handle, but the film also features some horrible scenes of violence, and one scene where a live octopus was definitely harmed in the making of the film. While I'm not in love with this movie (it definitely slows down after the beginning), it is more interesting and original than a lot of stuff that our country has put out recently. And it was definitely good enough for me to check out the other two parts of Park's vengeance trilogy.

4 out of 5 stars

I've never had more mixed feelings about a film. September 3, 2006
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

The consensus of critical opinion is that Chan-wook Park's "Oldboy" is one of the true cinematic masterpieces of the past decade. In both plot and technique, it is, indeed, incredibly brilliant; on those points alone it deserves four stars out of five. I understand why "Oldboy" has so many ardent admirers (chief among them Quentin Tarantino, for whom Park could be suspected of tailoring this film). Yet, though I have a reasonably strong stomach for cinematic gore, I found "Oldboy" to be a little TOO sadistic. When you compare "Oldboy" with Tarantino's own work--"Pulp Fiction" and the "Kill Bill" movies--you realize that Tarantino's movies have a cartoonishness about them, a hip and ironic remove, that reminds audiences they're just watching a movie after all. There is no such remove in "Oldboy." I have nothing but praise for the performance of Min-sik Choi as Oh Dae-su, the heedless, obnoxious but not really so bad guy who is imprisoned, tortured and toyed with for 15 years. I have never seen such a realistic, heartrending cinematic portrayal of abject grief as Choi's at the end of this film, when Oh Dae-su discovers both his torturer's identity and the full extent of his treachery. And this is precisely my problem: the film's emotions are too real. Obviously I'm in a tiny minority about this, but I simply felt too sorry for Oh Dae-su to get the requisite thrills from this thriller. Vincent Vega and Beatrix Kiddo are, as Tarantino intended, pulp fiction; Oh Dae-su is flesh and blood--and BOY, do we get to see that demonstrated, very graphically indeed. Reviewers have equally high praise for the other films in Park's trilogy, "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance." I think I'm going to wait a while before I check them out, however. The DVD transfer of "Oldboy" is sharp and excellent, but the film has been dubbed rather than subtitled (not really a problem, except for the annoyingly chirpy voice of the actress who dubs the character of Miko). A bigger disappointment is that the deleted scenes and the bonus interview with Chan-wook Park are in undubbed, unsubtitled Korean.

5 out of 5 stars

Masterpiece July 25, 2006
18 out of 21 found this review helpful

One of the best films of the decade. This masterpiece from director Park Chanwook is part of his amazing Vengeance Trilogy (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance / Oldboy / Sympathy For Lady Vengeance). All 3 films are must-see modern classics from one of the best modern day directors.

1. Oldboy (5 Stars)
2. Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (5 Stars)
3. Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (4 Stars)

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