has anyone seen this movie? the entities from aintitcool are all flabbergasted with this and i'm curious.
I am dying to see this film, along with Park's last film, 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.' I've heard nothing but great things about both. I saw his first film, JSA (Joint Security Area), which is really wonderful-- the only drawback being bad english accents by some of the leads. Otherwise, a great film about friendship and the dicey relations between N. and S. Korea.
and speaking of asian movies that have "boy" in their titles, i think this year (at least in japan) Steamboy will be released. from the creator of Akira.
Park Chan Woo is Korea's David Fincher. His films are very stylized and dark, cynical as hell and heavy (in tone, not theme). Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, I'm still not sure on. I blind bought the DVD and was both amazed and disappointed, especially after all the ridiculous hype from Harry. He knows how to kill a movie. Anyway, there's a cheap Chinese region 0 DVD available.. i suggest going with that one, since the special features on the Korean DVD aren't subtitled and will serve little purpose.. I'm Korean, so... yea. Don't speak it... ask my parents for translations :lol:
The Oldboy trailer/music video makes it look amazing... the actor is one of my favorites.
If you're interested in Korean cinema, I highly recommend Lee Chang Dong's Oasis. Easily one of the best films of the 2000's and I can't stand Korean movies. Oasis is responsible for my desire to search through what is mostly filth (Korean movies, that is) to find rare gems such as Oasis... a beautiful, beautiful movie.
you can find these titles at www.yesasia.com no sales tax and free shipping for purchases above $39. A 2 disc special edition of Dogville is available through the site as well.. ordered mine last night. And I'm not affiliated with them in any way.. just a satisfied customer.
The DVD came in the mail today, and I popped it in a couple hours ago. My "review" is extremely generalized and vague so no one bitches about spoilers. I guess I could just tag them but I'd prefer to avoid spoilers altogether when it comes to films that aren't already in the discussion phase (as should all of you....)
Having just gotten off of a Bresson binge (well, sort of... I watched Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne and Diary of a Country Priest in the same day) and seeing Samaria (Kim Ki Duk's extremely disturbing and strangely beautiful latest... it's very spare and poetic), Oldboy wasn't exactly an ideal "chaser." Having said that, Oldboy proves that not all the money in mainstream cinema goes to horrible projects (this said despite the fact that it's a Korean movie...). In fact, Oldboy is one of the year's best (I'm sure you didn't expect to hear that from anyone), bringing to cinema a manic vision of revenge that, in all honesty, isn't particularly deep or profound in its conclusions, but offers an experience so hypnotic and kinetically charged that I'm going to be revisiting it many times throughout the year (I bought the DVD).
This was my second Chan Woo Park film -- the first being Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance -- and I can gladly report that Park shows signs of improvement with his second film in what is to be a trilogy about revenge; Oldboy is more realized, more entertaining, and executed much better than Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. Choi Min Sik -- who I'm convinced is one of the best actors working today, anywhere -- carries the film with what I think is going to be among the top five performances by an actor this year; he's that good, trust me. "Carries the film" usually implies that everything else is medicore or sucks, but that couldn't be farther from the truth when it comes to Oldboy. It flaunts some of the most bravura filmmaking in recent years, joining Kill Bill and City of God as a kinetic, ultraviolent opus that will floor anybody that sees it.
It is, of course, not without its flaws. Park tends to overdo a lot of things -- stretching reality a bit too far, milking his story/characters a bit too much, throwing in one or two too many twists, etc. The "too much/manys" are definitely detrimental to the film. Also the conclusion the film comes to needs too much explanation from its characters, something I really hate. The film does an excellent job at conveying through images and sound but there's a point where it's all spoken... BAH. The flaws are (sort of) overlookable, however, as they're minute compared to the experience Oldboy provides. This is as "cool" as cinema gets... for now. Most uber stylish films tend to overlook the emotional aspect of cinema, but this one provides a strangely poignant punch. It is what it is, and for what it is, I love it. As flawed and as "stylish! hip! cool!" (all adjectives i hate when associated with movies) as it is, I fucking love it. I enjoyed this film quite a bit.
In terms of Korean cinema, this year, I'm partial to Kim Ki Duk's two films (Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall... and Spring and Samaria) and I still think Lee Chang Dong's Oasis is one of the greatest films ever made (I think it's making it's way through the U.S. right now... it's playing in LA pretty soon) but Oldboy isn't to be missed.
How is the squid scene? Is it tough to watch?
P.S. Oasis is amazing.
Quote from: GhostboyHow is the squid scene? Is it tough to watch?
The squid scene is pretty grotesque as one can imagine... let's just say it leaves nothing to the imagination... absolutely nothing. It's hardly a reason not to watch the film, though :-D
Quote from: GhostboyP.S. Oasis is amazing.
I love you. :shock:
the squid thing was like 20 seconds long. he just kinda popped it in his mouth, and I was like "yeeesss", so were the characters in the film, that's what's so cool about it.
I'm halfway through right now. it's pretty cool so far.
EDIT: HOLY CRAP--a GROUP FIGHT DONE IN ONE TAKE?!?! A choreographed fight between a dude with a hammer and about 20 dudes, in one long ass dolly shot? This has got to be one of the best fight scenes filmmed. Nobody threw any crazy moves, but to do all of that in one shot?
SPOILER
EDIT 2: whew, the film went WAY too far, in a lot of respects. But mainly it just felt like the screenwriter was just like "I can do whatever the hell I want now" so the answers to a few mysteries ended up being pretty contrived. I dunno, maybe I was just a pansy, unwilling to go that far with the plot twists. it was well-made, but the ending was a disappointment. mysteries sometimes fall into that bad habit, of the writer having too much "fun" (I dunno if that's the word, "power" perhaps?) after you've gone deep enough with the characters, the writer can just say or do anything in the end and you'll just have to accept it. Vanilla Sky had a tiny bit of that. this movie had a LOT of that. devices like "hynposis" or "I knew you'd do that from the very beginning" are sometimes way too convenient.
Quote from: petethe squid thing was like 20 seconds long. he just kinda popped it in his mouth, and I was like "yeeesss", so were the characters in the film, that's what's so cool about it.
I'm halfway through right now. it's pretty cool so far.
EDIT: HOLY CRAP--a GROUP FIGHT DONE IN ONE TAKE?!?! A choreographed fight between a dude with a hammer and about 20 dudes, in one long ass dolly shot? This has got to be one of the best fight scenes filmmed. Nobody threw any crazy moves, but to do all of that in one shot?
Yeah, I saw about thirty seconds of that shot on Euronews during the festival and it blew my mind.
Quote from: petethe squid thing was like 20 seconds long. he just kinda popped it in his mouth, and I was like "yeeesss", so were the characters in the film, that's what's so cool about it.
I'm halfway through right now. it's pretty cool so far.
EDIT: HOLY CRAP--a GROUP FIGHT DONE IN ONE TAKE?!?! A choreographed fight between a dude with a hammer and about 20 dudes, in one long ass dolly shot? This has got to be one of the best fight scenes filmmed. Nobody threw any crazy moves, but to do all of that in one shot?
SPOILER
EDIT 2: whew, the film went WAY too far, in a lot of respects. But mainly it just felt like the screenwriter was just like "I can do whatever the hell I want now" so the answers to a few mysteries ended up being pretty contrived. I dunno, maybe I was just a pansy, unwilling to go that far with the plot twists. it was well-made, but the ending was a disappointment. mysteries sometimes fall into that bad habit, of the writer having too much "fun" (I dunno if that's the word, "power" perhaps?) after you've gone deep enough with the characters, the writer can just say or do anything in the end and you'll just have to accept it. Vanilla Sky had a tiny bit of that. this movie had a LOT of that. devices like "hynposis" or "I knew you'd do that from the very beginning" are sometimes way too convenient.
The fight scene is what attracted me to the film in the first place next to the fact that Choi Min-Sik plays the lead. There's a good portion of it in the "music video trailer" that aintitcool.com had.
In terms of taking things too far, I think you make an accurate comparison to
Vanilla Sky. However, to say that
Vanilla Sky's end is only a tiny bit contrived, forced, and absolutely ridiculous (as
Oldboy 's is) is sort of stretching it... I'm guessing you liked
Vanilla Sky. If anything I think
Vanilla Sky's ending was prolonged bullshit whereas
Oldboy at least waited until the very end to fuck up.
After seeing it again
Oldboy isn't very good as a whole. Rather, what you get is an incredibly stylistic and very cool movie with individual scenes that are excellent but don't lend themselves to the film. It's as if Park planned it as a series of vignettes and how cool each one will be rather than thinking of the film as a whole since the narrative thread is very weak, evidenced by the very poor ending. Still,
Oldboy is a pretty good movie; looks very good, has some must-see scenes, and features Choi Min-Sik's superb performance. Definitely worth watching, just not as good as I or anyone else made it out to be thus far. Calling it one of the best films of the year was taking it too far on my part.[/i]
yeah I dunno what came over me to say vanilla sky's ending was only a little bit contrived. I guess maybe it was because that was my favorite part of the whole film (the rest was pretty weak), but I guess liked it or not, it was pretty contrived. but back to old boy. I felt like it was way too "masculine" in a very Asian type of way, well except for when Choi does break down. it's a cool twist--the prototypal mysterious badass is sooo mysterious that, not even himself knows what the hell is up with him.
I watched this last night with a huge audience and can't stop thinking about it. It has scenes that won't leave your mind alone. Like the octopus scene - please, someone verify that was a real octopus?
I found the plot stretching itself too but soon began to regard the movie as I would a comic book/graphic novel. Loved the titles, especially when "old boy" comes on the screen and it's just the "d" (date) and "y" (year) ticking.
Is Choi Min Sik the same actor from Chihwahseon? I think his performance in Old Boy by far supercedes that one.
foray
Choi Min Sik is the actor from Chihwaseon, and though I absolutely loved his work in that film, his performance in Oldboy is definitely superior (in other words I agree with you).
Scenes do brand themselves in the memory but I think as a whole it's a weak film, especially because of the end. Even if regarded as a graphic novel or comic book -- which the movie's based on anyway, a graphic novel -- I still think it goes too far. Besides I pretty much saw the twist coming about 1/3 into the movie and was hoping for the rest of the movie until that moment comes up that my prediction wasn't true. Unfortunately I guessed right.
Stylistically it's a huge accomplishment but comes nowhere near the works of Kim Ki Duk (Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall... and Spring and Samaria) or Lee Chang Dong (Oasis).
Oasis :yabbse-thumbup:
Didn't know Old Boy is from a graphic novel. Figures!
foray
What a wonderful movie. Right from the get-go, with a tie clenched in Oh Daesu's fist, and the music kicking up, I knew I was in for a treat. My expectations were met and exceeded.
Yes, the ending is a little long and explanitory, but it has one of the best F U twists I've seen in ages. I didn't see it coming, perhaps I'm a chump, I dunno.
The best compliment I can give the movie is that I watched for a second time right after it ended. I wanted to be sure the movie earned it's turns, and the few bits where I thought it dragged or was muddled, became even more clear and perfect. And yes, the much-heralded fight scene is the bee's knees.
If you like the movie, the Starmax Region 3 dvd is a definite purchase. The transfer is great, and the 2nd disc has a jukebox feature where you can listen to the score while watching outtakes, film clips, or pulsing images. Sucks that there are no english subs on the documentary, but that's as far as my complaints will go.
I watched this tonight and the first forty five minutes blew me away. The two things that really made the movie for me were: a.) the aforementioned holy-shit fight scene and b.) the ant on the subway, which made me feel downright gleeful when I saw it.
After the extended flashback, though, I thought it just went downhill. Too plot heavy, etc. Bascially everything Pete said. It really killed the buzz I felt during the first half. So all in all, my response to the movie is lukewarm at best.
I wonder what route Justin Lin is planning on taking in adapting this for the US. I can't imagine the same 'twist' being implemented in a US studio film.
Oldboy possessed great style and some great, great moments but the ending was crap, crap, crap.
Quote from: pitbullOldboy possessed great style and some great, great moments but the ending was crap, crap, crap.
Hey you son of a gun. You told me were leaving xixax. Why are you lying to me? I thought we had something special.... :cry: ....hehehehe
I liked it.
But agree with all the points being made about the ending, which is unfortunate...
I felt the entire movie, at times, was a bit too Guy Ritchie for its own good, if you know what I mean... Style over substance. Nothing wrong with that, especially when the (dark) comedy and gritty subject matter is quite appropriate for such an approach.
Don't think it's necessarily in my top ten list of the year, but it is much more refreshing to watch a film like Oldboy than your average Hollywood Punisher/Man on Fire revenge films that seem to be the genre du jour.
Min-sik Choi, as has been mentioned, is absolutely fantastic in the role of Oh Dae-su. Such a varied, controlled performance. Just great. If I don't have my facts absolutely wrong, he demanded to do the squid (yeah, it's real) eating scene in a second take 'cause he wasn't happy with the first. Could just be rumour.
I think I was expecting more depth to the film, especially it having one the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes. There are moments there of surprising emotional resonance, and a lot of the scenes stick with you for their brutality, humour or just style, but overall it's not the Moby Dick of revenge films.
I live in eager anticipation of the inevitable, crap, Americanized and sanitized remake.
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TRAILER HERE: http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/588/588928p1.html
Exclusive Trailer: Oldboy
Preview for the critically hailed Korean film.
February 18, 2005 - Quentin Tarantino called it one of the coolest movies of the year. Oldboy, based on the acclaimed manga of the same name, is a critically-lauded Korean film from director Park Chanwook. It's billed as a "dazzling kidnap drama which rivals Kill Bill for thrills, spills and spectacle."
IGN FilmForce brings you an exclusive look at the trailer for Oldboy's North American theatrical release, which begins on March 25th in select cities.
Here's the setup: Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-Sik) is an ordinary Seoul businessman with a wife and little daughter who, after a drunken night on the town, is locked up in a strange, private "prison." No one will tell him why he's there and who his jailer is, but he is kept in reasonably comfortable quarters and has a TV to keep him company. On the TV, though, he discovers that he has been framed for his wife's murder and realizes that, during one of the occasions in which he's knocked out by gas, someone has drawn blood from him and left it at the scene of the crime.
The imprisonment continues for 15 years, until one day when Dae-su finds himself unexpectedly deposited on a grass-covered high-rise roof. He's determined to discover the mysterious enemy who had him locked up. While he's eating in a Japanese restaurant, his cell phone rings and a strange voice tells him that he has five days to find out why he was imprisoned.
Sound kickass? Well, the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes, so that should be no surprise.
bad poster.
yep hideous.
is the recent fascination with asian cinema the first time america has experienced a behind-the-times phase? i can't remember any other time when the rest of the world got so much shit before them.
has America ever been that much ahead? aside from production values, I mean.
Quote from: GhostboyI watched this tonight and the first forty five minutes blew me away. The two things that really made the movie for me were: a.) the aforementioned holy-shit fight scene and b.) the ant on the subway, which made me feel downright gleeful when I saw it.
After the extended flashback, though, I thought it just went downhill. Too plot heavy, etc. Bascially everything Pete said. It really killed the buzz I felt during the first half. So all in all, my response to the movie is lukewarm at best.
yes. i really loved the first half or so. but the more of the 'story' that revealed itself the more stupid the film became. i would guess it was equal parts great and stupid making it just average overall. firstly, the antagonizing guy who kept showing up took away the mystery and undercut the suspense by always being there. secondly, the twist was just..... ugh. not good. the setup was great, the actors were great, the look was great, the story was just awful. and the more of the story that happened as it went along the worse the movie got. at about the halfway point i was thinking it was the best thing i've seen all year and what a surprise, and then it just crumbled to dust. REALLY FRUSTRATING this movie is from how well it started off. i was under the impression )from the very little i knew about the movie) it would be a lot more 'revenge' but there was very little of that. so also: the one-take fight scene needed some more sound effects because there were certain moves that seemed fake because they didnt have the connecting 'punch' sound. he did remind me of a korean david fincher, so as a director i look forward to what he does and am really interested to see Sympathy now but realize he's only as good as his script, which in this case, was not very.
Hmm, well, if you look at it, it is the ultimate revenge movie: the villain lays out a preposterously complicated scheme, and executes it perfectly. He destroys the hero. Sure, Oh Daesu figures things out, but in the end, he loses.
Also, it doesn't bother me that the villain keeps popping up early on-- it's better to think about why is he doing this, rather than have a bunch of random useless characters that are ploys to make you think they're the bad guy. Like some bad serial killer movie.
Yeah, I love the movie. Sure, I'll give in a little, that hypnosis stuff is a bit much, but I love how it's ultimately used in the end.
yeah, i was under the impression it was along the lines of Kill Bill or Man on Fire or even Darkman. this was something different, and thats fine, but i dont know that i liked what it was instead.
there were lots of things in the film that really stretched believability. hypnosis, the hotel?, this bad dude got REALLY REALLY rich and is still an obsessed prick, etc. etc.
SPOILER
I think the revenge aspect of it was quite profound, just the idea of a deep dark revenge that was based another deep dark revenge, and it was definitely challenging on that level, but I just didn't think it worked well as a thriller/ mystery.
It's a good step forwards; I admire the film's ambition. It was a considerable effort in mixing substance and style. I look forward to seeing the long term effects that all these deeply serious adaptations of pulp material will have on a certain group of future filmmakers.
I don't think there was much substance. Revenge and incest were only excuses to have stylish action sequences, mushy love scenes, and a shock ending.
HUGE spoilers
after watching half of it again (the second half), I think I admired the ending a bit more. aside from the hypnotist thing that still didn't work for me, I saw it as something closer to a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearian one now. I also didn't notice that Oh DaeSu threatened to cut off the guy's tongue first, and then cut off his own.
Quote from: MeatballI don't think there was much substance. Revenge and incest were only excuses to have stylish action sequences, mushy love scenes, and a shock ending.
As in; a larger attempt to add substance to a stylized action flick. If the substance is debatable it is only because it was forced. It clearly was attempting to cross some moral boundaries, not in a visual sense but a human sense. In that vein it went futher than most movies of the same cut.
all i know is: if this movie wasnt subtitled and was an american made movie people would think it was the worst thing ever. except for pete, cause he's actually asian.
Mod, come on now, that's just ridiculous.
no, i'm serious. i think people are lighter on movies that are foriegn/subtitled and tend to think they're somehow better/smarter than they actually are because they're in a different language. i truly believe that if the same movie had an american cast, people would be calling it a total piece of shit.
well, that's like saying kungfu hustle or bad education would've sucked if they starred Americans. of course they would, that's because films are not products with interchangeable properties. but rather, if you believe that they are art, then they are unique results of specific visions. a good film transcends boundaries, but that doesn't mean it can be disassembled and re-assembled overseas like a car. you're saying if Old Boy was "American" as if "American" is some kind of tangeable absolute.
i'm saying when people have to read during a movie they think that the smart part of their brain is active and that the movie is good. when a film is 'foreign' to them, it usually seems cool/exotic/different and is usually cut more slack in departments like story/character/believability for those reasons like maybe they just cant understand the cultural difference or something.
maybe, that is something I cannot prove/disprove because I have no idea what other people are thinking when they watch a foreign film. your argument just got really sloppy in one jump -- from mildly criticizing oldboy for its plausibility to attacking an abstract numbers of faceless dumb American film viewers "out there". yeah sure, I'll agree with you that there some dumbholes out there who like things that they can't understand; but this thread is a funny place to bring it up all of a sudden.
I'm surprised I got to see this, but I did. As for opinion on the ending, I'm in agreeance with just about everyone here. Too plot heavy. Its the first time I ever saw a DePalma-esque ending meshed into a greek tragedy. But, for the bulk of the film, I share little agreeance. I never was too impressed, but opportunistic violence never impressed me much before anyways. The one large fight scene I'd say is technically cool, but after that, I knew the film had lost all hope for any clarity of a thought provoking story.
If anything, I wish the film did invest more into a story that would have justified the heavy handed ending. The intensity of the acting was well worth the viewing experience.
I just now finished seeing Oldboy for the first time. I have been anticipating it for a long time. To be honest I am extreemly surprised at the negative response here at xixax which seems to be a bastion for good taste and a haven for real appreciation of film. But, I digress, my opinion is not lowered at all, I am just surprised. I loved it, but hey, I also loved:
Le Fou Follet
The Royal Tenenbaums
Scarface
Titus
Clockwork Orange
Magnolia
I didn't expect Kill Bill, I didn't expect Ichi the Killer, or an exploitation flick, or anything like that which seems to be what most of the people compare it to on the internet in general. The fight scene was good, but this isn't a movie about bodies fighting. It's a movie about souls fighting. Hypnosis stretching beleivability? Maybe. But everything in Sin City stretched beleivability, was far more concerned with style instead of substance, action instead of interaction, etc etc and yet it is still an amazing movie that connects with moral and emotional nerves. It's an opera of sorts. So as far as comparing it to other movies, I don't know where I stand. I think it's less beleivable that a person would have the willpower to organise such revenge than it is to beleive that hypnosis works. I mean, there's been on record real cases of hypnosis convincing people that they had killed other people, and other instances of hypnosis bringing back forgotten memories. It's a stretch that it would be used in this manner perhaps but I think all these magnifying glasses that are being used to pick apart the movie are out of place. Like I say I'm surprised at the reaction here at xixax. "too plot heavy" sounds like something my photography teacher said.
"I don't like kubrick because he's too cerebrial."
So are you saying "We don't like oldboy because we thought it was going to be Kill Bill 2?"
Kill Bill was inspired by grindhouse/exploitation and samurai movies. So, you reject that expectation and what do you have? I guess you are forced to look at it as a realistic movie if your expectations are extreemly black and white. Isn't there middle ground where a movie is Tragedy, Revenge, and Satirical or Parable-like? The movie is half contained inside the main character's inner monologue dealing with existence at its most basic, with false memories, with moral taboo, and with many extreemly vulnerable aspects of man. I think too many people are judging it superficially or on the surface.
Anyway I'm not sure I'm qualified to continue questioning this movies "goodness" or lack thereof. I do know, however, that I loved it.
I would also love to be shown where I am wrong because I know I am wrong, especially after only one viewing I doubt I have digested enough to see it and the comments on this thread objectionally. So please, someone, tell me I am way off base here, am reading too much into the movie (god forbid) or am just a sucker for "shock value", or I don't know, what would you say about someone who loved OldBoy and wasn't right for loving it?
I appreciate old movies like the 70s New Hollywood and Russian New Wave films and german directors Lars Von Triers and Werner Herzog, etc etc etc... and we look at these movies, foreign or american, an clap our hands because the stories of small people are metaphors or satires for the times, what was going on then, or seek to probe the deeper psyche, or any millions of reasons other than the surface value. Is Oldboy "mediocre" or "not great" because its surface value is as heavy as the underlying context or metaphors or any hundred of possible interpretations?
(/end rant?)
i wouldn't say the response here is negative. it's critical, but overall positive.
when will the new people on this board stop preaching the obvious sermons based on incorrect assumptions after misinterpreting other people's posts?
think of it as a natural process.
there are godawful syndromes though.
Quote from: themodernage02all i know is: if this movie wasnt subtitled and was an american made movie people would think it was the worst thing ever. except for pete, cause he's actually asian.
yeah i know what you mean, same goes for el mariachi, people don't know how bad the acting is in that one because it's spanish with subs. the dubbing sucks too. iguess international markets is the way to go with that type of thing.
do you speak korean?
-sl-
I apologise if I seemed to be preaching, or if I mis-interpreted any posts. I still don't see how I'm wrong, but I will avoid posting in that much detail in the future. Sorry.
EDIT: I also didn't clarify I was only refering to maybe 1 post on here, the rest of what I was "preaching" about was concerning things I have read on other sites and boards. Once again, sorry.
nobodys mad at you
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.
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.
Quote from: Weak2ndActHa, I'd say pass, considering your negative reaction to some 'slow' movies as of late. This one would probably send you over the falls.
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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.
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
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.
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?
Quote from: NEON MERCURYspoilers
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.
ah, that makes more since..
thanks rane
Glad i could help. :yabbse-wink:
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
Quote from: SHAFTR
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:
QuoteDae-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.
The fuck.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425320/
Ouch. :shock:
Indian remake of Old Boy??? (http://d.indiafm.com/videos/ram/05/zinda45.ram)
The director, Sanjay Gupta, has also done shitty remakes of Reservoir Dogs, Desperate Measures, and U-Turn.
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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.
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/004169.html
November 16, 2005
올드보이 (Oldboy) Makers Plan Vengeance on 'Zinda'
(Posted In Action Asia Film News Rumors )
You've read already a few reports on Twitch about the 'Indian Oldboy', Sanjay Gupta's latest film Zinda. And anybody even marginally acquainted with that world knows in Bollywood the words 'homage', 'remake' and 'rip-off' are often interchangeable, good faith or not. The outline - a man facing 14 years of captivity for no known reason, then spending the next four days looking for the culprit - sounds exactly like a certain Oh Dae-Soo's fate, held captive for 15 years, released, and looking for his enemy for the following 5 days.
But it seems some people in Chungmuro are taking it seriously. 올드보이 (Oldboy) Producers Show East talked with the press today, saying that the only remake rights contract they ever signed was with Universal in the US, and with no one else, including India. The company announced that after looking at the finished product they will make their decision, which might have legal ramifications, if the film is as similar to Park Chan-Wook's hit as it's been claimed.
A PR from Show East announced: "We're looking at the similarities between the two films, but since we don't have a final product we can judge, we'll just have to investigate a little more into what kind of relation the films will have. Since we never experienced something like this, we couldn't really set up a concrete plan. But if we find out there's indeed a strong similarity between the two, it looks like we'll have to talk with our lawyers."
Director of the 'Indian Reservoir Dogs' Kaante, Sanjay Gupta is known as one of the most stylish filmmakers in Bollywood, but his latest project might finally get him into trouble for underestimating the often very subtle difference between 'homage' and 'rip-off'.
http://www.kaijushakedown.com/2006/01/zinda_review.html
January 17, 2006
ZINDA REVIEW
ZINDA was 2 hours of a high school production of OLDBOY. ZINDA, for those of you who just tuned in, is Bollywood's remake of Korea's OLDBOY that stars Sanjay Dutt and has the critics panting and the original producers of OLDBOY seeing red. The producers say they are pursuing their legal options, the critics say ZINDA is stylish and powerful, but what is ZINDA really? Don't get up - I've already seen it for you.
It's not like Bollywood remakes are ever as good as the originals so what did I expect? But feel a little sorry for me when I tell you that sitting through ZINDA was sufficient punishment for any sins I may have committed in a previous life. ZINDA was 2 hours of a high school production of OLDBOY, and not the high school production done by the talented and exciting kids at Phillips Exeter Academy, but more like the one done by these kids up there on the right. It was shoddy, dispiriting and dismal.
Shot-for-shot this was an inferior remake of OLDBOY with every bit of conviction, story-telling brio, heart or soul scrubbed away and nothing but soulless hucksterism left in its place. Sanjay Gupta directs with the committment and attention to detail of a man who has a cab waiting for him downstairs and who still hasn't taken a shower and needed to be at the airport five minutes ago. Bringing all of his sub-hack skills to the table, Gupta manages to tell the entire story of OLDBOY but miss the point entirely. I'm not a big fan of OLDBOY in the first place, so for me this was like having rabid weasels stuffed down my shirt: painful and irritating.
So what are the differences? First of all, Gupta seemed to feel that samurai sword fighting was an essential piece of the movie that Park Chan-Wook had missed. I have mixed feelings about this. Maybe it could work - SAMURAI OLDBOY? - but since ZINDA featured actors who wielded samurai swords the way bored 8 year olds on Halloween wield their lightsabers after an exhausting night out dressed as Anakin Skywalker I guess the jury is still out on that one. On the other hand, the scene of Sanjay Dutt teaching himself samurai skills off the television made me laugh, and laugh, and I still smile a little on the inside when I think about it.
The abduction of Sanjay is handled very differently from OLDBOY. Gupta feels it's important to start off with Sanjay drunk, like Choi Min-Shik in OLDBOY, but then he needs to show us that actually Sanjay, for complicated reasons we never really learn, is merely pretending to be drunk. To me this made him even more obnoxious and gives drunk people a bad name. Then, after some truly excruciating scenes with Sanjay's best pal, Sanjay is abducted (we later learn that he is knocked unconscious after being shot with a crossbow by a guy in a party boat) but he is abducted in true Bollywood style. No subtlety here: his wife is running out to the dock where Sanjay is painting to tell him that she's pregnant when suddenly...he's gone. She has taken her eyes off of him for exactly 3 seconds of screen time but poof! He's gone. Vanished. Truly, Sanjay Dutt is the ninja.
Sanjay Dutt's wig at a young ageAnother change that baffled me was that the hatch in Sanjay's door where he's imprisoned is larger than it was in OLDBOY. Did Gupta feel that we needed to see more of Sanjay's face? Maybe he's right, but I'd like to weigh in right now with a hearty: no. In fact, I feel like a step in the right direction might have been to see less of Sanjay in ZINDA. Sanjay sleepwalks through this movie with all the intensity of a man who was just awakened rudely from a particularly satisfying nap. His kung fu fighting skills are out of the Chuck Norris School of Hitting and the poor guy can barely lift his leg above his knee when he delivers a devastating karate kick. Putting him in an action movie at this age was an act of extreme perversity (he visibly gets exhausted during the one-take hammer fight in the hallway - which lacks the point of the original) and as if that wasn't bad enough he's saddled with a wig that looks like it might wake up at any moment and scamper off into the woods.
All of the sexual content of OLDBOY is missing which largely robs the movie of its purpose and ZINDA has, of course, a happy ending. OLDBOY had a happy ending too...for pervs, but ZINDA comes to a genuinely happy conclusion. However, the most painful facet of the multi-faceted torture that is ZINDA (and trust me, it was hard to pick just one) is the cinematography. In a misguided attempt to give the movie style everything was shot in a blue haze that looks like a film printing accident. If the movie was art directed well, or lit well maybe this blue haze would look sharp and exciting, but as it is it just starves your eyes. By the second hour I was feeling like Sanjay Dutt: forced to wear a silly wig and live for 14 years on fried shrimp dumplings.
Zinda comes back from the lab To lower the lights and bring out the emotion stool, like Judy Garland at a concert in Las Vegas, ZINDA does make me very, very sad. Bollywood has always made its fair share of garbage like this, make no mistake about it. But rarely has the junk gotten this much praise. Is Bollywood abandoning what made it special (gorgeous musical numbers, a gift for family melodrama, huge rambling movies that allows epic stories plenty of time to unfold) in order to churn out soulless knock-offs from overseas? Everyone who's praising ZINDA is parading their ignorance on an international stage. It's only because India is such an insular film community (which is mostly a good thing) that a movie this bad, and this obviously a rip-off from another country, could garner any attention at all.
It's a sad day for Bollywood, and I'm going to have to go watch TEESRI MANZIL again to make myself feel better. You can let yourself out, can't you? And shut the lights off, too. It's over.
Oldboy, New DVDs
Park Chanwook's revenge epic returns in a three-disc set.
On November 14, 2006, Tartan Video's Asia Extreme label will release the Oldboy Collector's Edition on DVD. The set features three discs and more than 350 minutes of bonus material, as well as an exclusive film cell from the 35mm reel and the first volume of the Old Boy graphic novel on which the film is based. The set will be available for the MSRP of $39.92.
The three-disc Oldboy Collector's Edition will feature the following extras:
Disc One
Feature film
Director commentary
Director and cinematographer commentary
Director and cast commentary
Disc Two
Five behind-the-scenes documentaries: "Making the Film - The Cast," "Production Design," "The Music Score," "CGI Documentary," and "Flashback"
Cast & crew interviews
10 deleted scenes with optional commentary
Featurette: "Le Grand Prix at Cannes"
Disc Three
The Autobiography of Oldboy - a video diary from each of the 69 shooting days
Included in the metal case that comes with the DVDs is a special collector's edition card featuring an actual film cell from the theatrical 35mm print, as well as the first volume of the Old Boy graphic novel upon which the movie is based. The DVD is also presented in anamorphic widescreen, and features three audio options: Korean Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Korean DTS 5.1 Surround Sound, and English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Check out the box artwork for the Oldboy Collector's Edition DVD below:
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phillip exeter kids were exciting?
Good thing I haven't bought it yet.
I guess that's the same contents as the giant purple box?
Sanjay Gupta is notorious for making horrid, monochromatic "remakes" of international masterpieces.
Time to sell off my single disc copy.