The victim licks the boot of his tormentor; woofs like a b**ch to please him. Cuts his tongue as penance. Tormentor, hiding his face behind a handkerchief, looks remorseful. As the face is revealed, we know, he wasn’t sympathizing! But trying to hide his glee and control his laughter. That is the true essence of VENGEANCE.
Who is Oldboy?
Oh Dae Su (Choi Min-Sik) is a man who lives like his Korean name "living day to day". Drinking, womanizing and getting into bar brawls. On his daughter’s 3rd birthday, he gets into a drunken fight and lands up in a police station. Bailed out by his childhood friend, Joo-hwan, Dae Su is on his way home; he gets kidnapped, unconscious, to wake up in a cellar where he would spend the next 15 years of life.
Well fed by his captors, he is gassed unconcious to be given a shave, change of clothes and room service - kept like a Zoo animal. Years go by without Dae Su knowing who imprisoned him or why was he imprisoned. With just the grotesque protrait of a disfigured face and a TV for company, he spends his time making a journal of all the people he had wronged. His only purpose in life to break free and exact revenge. He practices fighting by driving his fists into the wall till calluses get formed on it and he grows impervious to pain.
After 15 years, he wakes up from unconciousness to find himself inside a trunk, on the top of a building. Dae Su begins the frantic search for his captors, using the taste of dumpling he was fed everyday of his captitivity to identify a hotel whose name ends in ’Blue Dragon’ ( name seen on a torn receipt in his room). A pretty young thing Mi-Do (Hye-jeong Kang) seems overly eager to help him... or is she in cahoots with his nemesis? Nevertheless, being partners in the quest gets Dae Su romantically and physically involved with her.
With the help of Mi-Do and Joo-hwan, Dae Su does manage to find the hotel ’Violet Blue Dragon’ (whatever that means) after a few violent fights, finds his betenoir to to be one Woo-jin Lee, a name he doesn’t remember. A search leads him to his old school and forgotten memories of a rumour he spread in his schooldays. He returns back to find his friend murdered and his lover kidnapped. He confronts Woo-jin (Ji-tae Yu) with the proof of his crime... and the unexpected happens
Lessons learnt in the School of Revenge
’Oldboy’ is the second movie in the Revenge Trilogy by Korean director Chan-wook Park. The most commercially sucessful movie in the series. It won the Jury reward at Cannes (2004). The movie impressed Quentin Tarantino [ member of the Cannes jury] so much he tried to get it the ’Best Picture Award’, unsuccessfully.
The dialogues are in Korean and I had to rely on DVD subtitles. Even most of the ’specials’ were in Korean including an interview with Park [ subtitled of course]. Spoken language isn’t a barrier to understanding as Park relies more on visuals and facial expressions to tell the story. Camerawork is topnotch and direction is excellent. Choi Min-Sik has given a powerful performance. Ji-tae Yu is at his villainous best. And Ms. Kang is definitely very pretty, both out of bed, and in it.
Not recommended for the squeamish of heart, and the weak in stomach. Dae Su is shown masturbating in front of the TV. Also shown, eating a whole octopus live! [actually five live ones were eaten to complete the shot effectively]. Claw-hammers are used to extract teeth [ no flossing necessary hereafter]. A character cuts his own tongue in the climax, while another shoots himself in the head. There are, of course, steaming sex scenes and incest (eew!)
A gritty movie with a climax that leaves the viewers shaken (but not stirred)