#85 Oldboy (Oldeuboi)

2003

Min-sik Choi 

Hye-Jeong Kang (right)

Looking at the list so far this was the most modern movie,and  was looking forward to it, until I found out its a bloody Korean movie. I am no expert on Korean movies, nor do I think ive ever seen one, or even heard of one, but who knew Korea could make such a good movie like Oldboy. The movie is gripping, gritty and god damn brilliant! so good in fact, it is being remade this year by the Americans, Spike Lee as director and Samuel L Jackson as the lead. Ill be very interested to see how their adaptation of the move comes out, because the original has a very bizarre storyline.

The movie starts with Dae-su oh (Min-sik Choi) drunk in a police station, it shows him being loud and brash, constantly talking, and holding a present for his 3 year old daughter. His friend comes to bail him out and they set off home, on the way the use a payphone to call home and tell his family he will be home soon, while his friend is on the phone Dae-su oh disappears in to thin air, leaving the present he has bought laying in the rain. 

Cut to the next scene and Dae-su oh is imprisoned in a room, he has been there for 2 months already and is pleading with the person serving him food through a small hatch in the door to let him go, or tell him why he is there and how long he is there for. We get taken in to Dae-su oh's room and its a small "hotel room" with a shower, TV, bed, clock and a picture on the wall that says "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone".

Dae-su ho is gasses every night to make him sleep, while he is in a gas induced coma, they would cut his hair, change his clothes etc... while he is in the cell he is watching the news when he see's that his wife and child have been murdered and he was framed as the man who did it. After this Dae-su oh goes a bit crazy, he starts to train to fight, punching the walls until his knuckles are burst open and bleeding. He is also slowly cutting away at the wall to escape to freedom.

Randomly (so it seems to Dae-su oh) after 15 years he is released. He has a suit on and a mobile phone. The first place he goes is for some food and decides he wants to eat something alive, so he eats a live squid. Once eaten his phone rings, and he collapses on the table, the girl serving him takes him home and nurses him back to health.


When he awakes he tells the girl his story and that he is seeking revenge, the girl offers to help and so they set off on trying to find who did this to him and why. The whole film is a big game to Dae-su oh's captor, they are constantly following him and predicting his movements. Unknown to Dae-su oh he was hypnotized in his cell, and everything that he has been doing has been pre programmed into his head, the have also hypnotized the girl at the restaurant    Dae-su oh falls in love with the girl who he has been helping him, and they finally have sex after many days of dae-su oh trying. 

Now here's the crazy twist (spoiler alert) as you find out in the end, The girl who has been helping Dae-su oh is actually his daughter, she was never murdered. So essentially the captor of Dae-su oh did all of this just to make him have sex with his daughter. He did this because, back in school Dae-su oh saw his captor have sex with his sister, the captor then killed his sister to hide the fact that he got her pregnant. 

This crazy story is entwined with gory violence  for some reason Dae-su oh's weapon of choice is a hammer, he likes to pull peoples teeth out with it! Dae-su oh also decides to cut his tongue out, to show his captor he will never tell anyone about what he did with his sister, in return his captor will not tell the daughter that she has slept with her dad.

The Scores

Visual
7/10 - Good action and fighting scenes

Sound
5/10 - Well as the talking was in Korean I don't know how it sounded, but im pretty sure the sub titles didn't say everything that was being said by the actor.

Acting
7/10 - Good acting by the man character.

Plot
8/10 - Brilliant plot, pretty twisted, but I like that!

Ending 
7/10 - Now, the actual ending is a bit "meh" but the build up towards the end is great, so it gets a good score.

Final Score

35/50

Great movie, I couldn't believe how good it actually was. I would recommend everyone who reads this to give it a watch. If you don't want to watch the Korean version watch the American version, although I think they will change the story too much and make it less gritty, So my recommendation is watch this one!!!

Total Movie Minutes So Far ~ 1916

Next up is Braveheart (1995)

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Thanks, Luke.