Oldboy.

[modage]

i want to see Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, but it's hard for me to justify spending $25 (on two tix, there are NO matinee's) to see a movie that came out 3 years ago especially after i was disappointed in Oldboy.  and yet.... something calls to me.

[Weak2ndAct]

Ha, I'd say pass, considering your negative reaction to some 'slow' movies as of late.  This one would probably send you over the falls.

[modage]

Ha, I'd say pass, considering your negative reaction to some 'slow' movies as of late.  This one would probably send you over the falls.

yeah i didn't take your advice, though thankfully it didn't send me over the falls.  it was never boring and actually nothing really bothered me about it, but in the end it was still just OKAY (C). i guess i even preferred the frustrating-as-hell Oldboy (first half A, second half D, average C+) to this.  

this was a bit High And Low with some things that were a little hard to follow, but there was really nothing too shocking in this either, a blood squirt and the ankles being cut, probably the most cringeworthy bit was the child autopsy but that was done 10 years ago by Fincher in Alien 3 anyway.  maybe i'm just a fan of old school revenge flicks, where the revenge is the good part and not this recent wave of conflicted revenge movies (Oldboy, Kill Bill 2, etc.) that like to rob you of any satisfaction.  i'll take my Robocop, Darkman, The Crow, Unforgiven, High Plains Drifter, etc. etc. etc. over these movies anyday, atleast until one of these gets it right.  

i think that i would really like this director if he had better scripts to work with.  i'll still give JSA a chance and hopefully that or Sympathy for Lady Vengeance which i will hopefully be seeing at the NYFF next month will come through with something excellent.

[Two Lane Blacktop]

I just saw Oldboy about a week ago, and it took me this long to gather my thoughts on it.  

I have to say, I loved the movie, but it was far from perfect.  

SPOILERS from here on out...  don't read this if you haven't seen it.  

This is probably the only movie I've ever seen-  and I've seen countless zombie movies, not to mention Sin City-  where I thought there was too much violence.  The teeth-extracting scene and the octopus-eating scene were spectacles unto themselves, and they really (to me) overshadowed the plot-  which was VERY slow-moving at those points, especially the scene where he was meeting Mido.  It was spectacular, but it also detracted from the flow of the story, by becoming such a spectacle unto itself.

Everything else about this film, I loved.  The opening scene with him drunk at the police station-  BRILLIANTLY acted and edited.  That hallway fight scene-  it's as good as you've heard it is.  The gal who played Mido-  PERFECT. The guy who played Woo-jin- PERFECT.

I've read that some people have trouble with the ending, but I think it's very Shakespearean...  tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy.  Sure, it's over the top, but it's awesome...  the patrons of the Globe Theatre would've expected no less.  

This would be a perfect tragic film if it weren't for those scenes where Park felt he had to push the envelope.  Those two scenes were so out of line with everything else in the film that I have to give it a 3 stars out of 5...  without them, it'd probably be a 4.5.

2LB

[Weak2ndAct]

Mod: I'd still recommend JSA to you-- it's a solid flick, and certainly the most 'Hollywood' think Park has done.  It's a mystery/military procedural flick, about a shooting at the N/S Korea border.  While some of the accents of the Swiss UN investigators can grate the nerves, it's a really well made flick, plus some good drama to boot.

[NEON MERCURY]

hye!  i saw this last night and i liked it.  but since i am sort of an idiot i didn't fully understand the ending..was is....

spoilers





he got locked up b/c when he was a kid he saw a dude have sexual relations with his sister and he told people about this and this fucked up the girl who thought that she was carrying a child from her brother but her brother was embarrased so he dropped his sister off of a dam and he got the the girl hypnotized at the sushi bar to mess with the "hero" so that way the "hero" can fall in love with mido but he found out that she was hypnotized by the bad guy so he cut his tounge off?  is this it?

[The Perineum Falcon]

spoilers





he got locked up b/c when he was a kid he saw a dude have sexual relations with his sister and he told people about this and this fucked up the girl who thought that she was carrying a child from her brother but her brother was embarrased so he dropped his sister off of a dam and he got the the girl hypnotized at the sushi bar to mess with the "hero" so that way the "hero" can fall in love with mido but he found out that she was hypnotized by the bad guy so he cut his tounge off?  is this it?

The dude's sister chose to kill herself because she believed that she was pregnant with her brother's child. So, Dae-su was locked up for all those years to give Mi-do (Dae-su' daughter) time to grow up and for the both of them to be hypnotized/conditioned so that an incestuous relation would result, paying Dae-su back for the shame he caused Woo-jin and his sister.
Dae-su cut his tongue off so Woo-jin wouldn't have Mi-do open the box, allowing her to find out that she just... fucked her Dad.
That's what I got from it.

[NEON MERCURY]

ah, that makes more since..
thanks rane

[The Perineum Falcon]

Glad i could help.

[SHAFTR]

I went into this movie without any knowledge of the plot, scenes, ending, etc.  I ended up enjoying the movie a lot and I agree with the octupus and hallway fight scenes being pretty incredible.  I actually enjoyed the ending a lot. I think some of the offbeat humor in the film actually hurt it.  I think it takes away from the emotion and verisimilitude of the film.

I do have a question though:

SPOILERS

-
The very last scene in the snow when he gets hypnotized again.  Can someone explain that to me?  Was he just having his memories washed so he can be with his lover/daughter again guiltfree?  And if so, in what capacity...as a lover or as a father?
-

END SPOILERS

[The Perineum Falcon]

I do have a question though:

SPOILERS

The very last scene in the snow when he gets hypnotized again.  Can someone explain that to me?  Was he just having his memories washed so he can be with his lover/daughter again guiltfree?  And if so, in what capacity...as a lover or as a father?

END SPOILERS

Well, if he had his memory washed, then he wouldn't remember that he was her father, right? And she wouldn't have learned the truth either since:

Dae-su cut his tongue off so Woo-jin wouldn't have Mi-do open the box, allowing her to find out that she just... fucked her Dad.

He had fallen in love with her, so I guess he wanted a clear conscience in that.

[w/o horse]

The fuck.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425320/

[Sal]

Ouch.  

[Ravi]

The director, Sanjay Gupta, has also done shitty remakes of Reservoir Dogs, Desperate Measures, and U-Turn.

[pete]

I just saw Crying Fist, Choi Min-sik's most recent movie.  It was really really great.  A boxing movie about two guys with really shitty lives putting their all in boxing.  It's way more engaging than Cinderella Man and really has that gritty urban aesthetics down.  At the same time it had hands down, THE most realistic boxing I've seen on film.  I actually wished it was more stylized, for a more emotional effect, but the boxing in this movie really looked like boxing, as opposed to actors throwing hay makers in front of a shaking camera.  And it had two boxing sequences that were in minute-long continuous takes.  The story is really engaging too, focusing on two tragic tales and you dunno which one to root for in the end.  The acting in this was phenomenol.  Choi Min-Sik has such a good face.  What an actor.  And the other kid too.