Director/co-writer, Park Chan-wook, is enjoying a renaissance with the rerelease of his 2003 Korean film, Oldboy, an intense, masterful thriller that keeps you guessing until its stunning, extremely unsettling ending.
Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) ends up arrested and drunk, but when released, he is taken captive and subjected to isolation and unimaginable suffering by a mysterious keeper. Years go by, and he becomes embittered and full of rage when he wanders back to the real world on a quest to exact revenge. He also meets a young woman, Mido (Kang Hye-jung), who takes interest in him, and the two are conjoined to unravel his mysterious past fraught with misdirection and often violent confrontations. The answers are buried deep in the past, and when the truth emerges, it goes deeper than Dae-su can imagine as he is pushed beyond his limits.
During his captivity, Dae-su questions his reality not knowing who to trust, and whether he is losing his sanity. His decent into madness foments an inner rage for retribution, to discover his tormentor. This raises questions like what has happened to his family and past life, and what purpose is he being trained for- a specific task or being manipulated as part of a larger conspiracy?
With
dazzling camerawork augmenting and juxtaposing nightmarish visuals and
beautiful images, this film (with a nod to Brian De Palma’s Obsession) appears to have influenced TV’s Daredevil (single take hallway fight), John Wick Chapter 3-Parabellum (Vivaldi accompanied action scene),
and the films of Quentin Tarantino. The mood is foreboding and dark while violent
moments are sudden and uncompromising.
It’s a diabolical, complex plot about past sins and unimaginable
consequences so convoluted and devious, it
defies expectations, and though it may be upsetting, it’s a film that is
continually fascinating.
****1/2
of ***** stars
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