Oldboy.

[Ghostboy]

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.

[meatball]

Oldboy possessed great style and some great, great moments but the ending was crap, crap, crap.

[SiliasRuby]

Oldboy 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.... ....hehehehe

[Slimepuppy]

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.

[modage]

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.

[pete]

bad poster.

[Pubrick]

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.

[pete]

has America ever been that much ahead?  aside from production values, I mean.

[modage]

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.

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.

[Weak2ndAct]

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.

[modage]

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.

[pete]

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.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

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.

[meatball]

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.

[pete]

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.