Revenge is a dish with live squid! (Old Boy [2003] (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	Old Boy [2003] (DVD)
Date:	01/09/05 (284 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb story and acting. Keeps you watching all the way through

Disadvantages: Violent and the Octopus eating scene

Once again Asian cinema hits us with another very original take on an old age theme…… Revenge. Comparing Old Boy to the two fairly recent American visitations on the theme, ‘The Punisher’ and ‘Man On Fire’, and you realise how predictable and safe American mainstream movies have become (and I say this as someone who quite liked ‘The Punisher’!). Park Chanwook (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance), the director and one of the screenplay writers, has turned the whole dynamic on it’s head and, while still having the element of a man searching for a violent revenge, also manages to instil a real liking for the main characters Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik, also in the excellent ‘Crying Fist’) and Mido. Considering Oh Dae-Su is, or should be, an extremely dislikeable man this takes some doing.

As befits an Asian import the plot for ‘Old Boy’ is suitably bizarre and it comes down to this:-

Oh Dae-Su, a Korean businessman, has just finished a night on the town drunk and at a local police station. After being picked up by a friend they both stop at a phone booth to call his wife and daughter. It’s his daughter’s birthday and he should have been there. His friend, Joo Wan, enters the booth to talk and when he turns around Oh Dae-Su has vanished, nowhere to be seen.
We discover he has been kidnapped and deposited in what looks like a motel room, but one with a prison style door. He has no idea where he is, or why he is there and time passes… in fact 15 years passes for Oh Dae-Su before he is released. He still has no idea of what happened, he was even subjected to a news report on the TV telling him that his wife had been murdered and he was the main suspect. Now free he swears vengeance on whomever it was that imprisoned him and sets about trying to discover their identity.

So begins ‘Old Boy’ and from that point on the story concentrates on Oh Dae-Su as he experiences freedom and tries to work out who, of the many people he has annoyed during his life, could have done this to him.

The acting is superb Choi Min-Sik (Oh Dae-Su), Yo Ji-Tae (Mido) and the person behind it all manage to give very realistic portrayals of troubled people caught up in things they don’t understand and see no way out of the way their lives are heading.

Old Boy could be described as the thinking man’s revenge thriller, the puzzle of what is going on is discovered as Oh Dae-Su discovers it himself, with a typically violent nature. There are some horrific scenes of implied ‘oral’ torture and a fantastic long scrap in a corridor between Oh Dae-Su and a bunch of thugs that reminds you of those old scrolling beat ‘em up games! If you thought ‘Saw’ was grisly then do not see this!
It is violent, it is a thriller rather than horror and it is an absolutely extraordinary film. The only real downside to it is that it is possibly rather too long, there is a period in the middle where things slow down too much and the story lags. Overall though this is well worth searching out and seeing, especially if you like the Hong Kong films of John Woo and don’t mind a bit of brutal blood splattering.

The likelihood of anyone working out what is going on is, I would say very small, but then that is one of the things that makes this so good, when you do finally work it out with Oh Dae-Su the shock is as much yours as his!

Oh Dae-Su isn’t a nice man, he fills books with the names of potential suspects who he thinks he irritated enough to have done this to him, but as he says ‘Even though I am a monster do I not deserve to live?

I have heard that the Americans are currently remaking this and I find it hard to believe they will not ruin it completely. Americans are not known for making their films hard to watch or being reliant on the viewer keeping a close watch on the story. I just feel in my bones that they will dumb down the story and neuter the punch to the stomach his version delivers. Concentration is required to watch Old Boy but it certainly rewards all the effort you put into it.

This is a great film, an Asian film not full of blazing gunfights or martial arts, a film that will have you discussing it afterwards with your friends and one that kept me engrossed all the way through. I would suggest everyone goes and hires or buys it straight away, before the terrible remake comes along and ruins the story completely.

Lastly if you are even a little bit squeamish make sure you close your eyes during the scene with the octopus/squid eating!

Extras on the 2 disc version

Disc 1:-
3 Commentaries
1 from the Director
1 from the Director and Cinematographer
1 from the Director and members of the cast (Wow the director obviously has a lot to say about it!)

Disc 2:-
Deleted scenes with commentary
Interview with Director
Interviews with cast & crew
Footage from Cannes
‘Memory of an Old Boy’ short film

Summary: A revenge thriller with a difference