Name of film – Oldboy (2003)
Lizard film – 020
Chosen by – Mashiter
Date – September 2018
Director – Park Chan-wook
Starring – Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jung
Duration – 120 mins
Genre – Action, Drama, Thriller, Foreign
Summary –
Dark, vibrant and twisted revenge thriller by Korean director Chan-Wook Park. Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) has never taken his role as husband and father seriously and has just been released from police custody for drunk and disorderly behaviour on his own baby daughter’s birthday. When he finds himself in solitary confinement in a prison cell after being mysteriously abducted on the street, he has no idea what is going on or why. A year into his imprisonment, he learns from the small television in his cell that his wife is dead, and that he himself is suspected of the crime. When, fifteen years later, he is released as suddenly and inexplicably as he was detained, he is determined to track down his tormentors and wreak his revenge. But little does he know that his kidnappers have even worse horrors in store for him…
JONES’ SCORE & REVIEW
ACTING – 10
DIRECTING – 10
SCORE/AUDIO – 9
CINEMATOGRAPHY – 10
ENTERTAINMENT – 9
TOTAL – 48/50 = 96% *****
My fellow lizards have jokingly called me racist due to certain comments in past reviews. Yes, I may highlight amusing quotes from films like “Drive” – “Shut the fuck up you fuckin’ monkey!”. I may have voiced my annoyance by the “Black Lives Matter” message from “Glory”. Yes, I may have mocked Jamie Foxx for talking a lingo I simply don’t understand in “Baby Driver”, and yes, I may have wanted “The Edge” renamed to “Black Men Can’t Hunt”. In my defence, I would say it’s all black banter. However, I agree it can be seen as cheap and vile, also quite childish so I’ll stop my racist slurs.
So Mash’s next choice was a film from Korea. Oh fuckin’ great. We’ve moved from black slavery to 2 hours of yellow slit-eyed chinks doing Hong Kong Phooey moves, dishing out mountains of rice, littered with scenes of unrecognisable Karaoke, with no doubt, tuk-tuk chase scenes as the Triads terrorise the back streets in a dark, stinky city. Ooooh, Crouching Tigermoth, Hidden Dragonfly!!! To be fair, once I calmed down, I saw names like Park Chan-wook, Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae and Kang Hye-jung. These are some of my favourite Asian dishes. Suddenly I felt hungry, not anger. Either that or these four were the best hookers I paid for on my solo visit to Bangkok. Park Chan-wook? Wasn’t he a character George Lucas forgot to draw? Ok less of the jokey banter, time for my review, here goes…
I have always been a huge fan of Asian cinema. I don’t refer to the martial art films but you can’t beat a bit of Bruce Lee or “House of Flying Daggers”. I’m more into the gentle, heart warming with a strong message Asian movies from China, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and South Korea. In fact my favourite actress is Gong Li and I’m also a huge fan of all films directed by Zhang Yimou. Look out for a future Lizardman Jones pick with these two heavily involved. I’m still deciding which one (too many to choose from). I’ve seen a few films from Korea before and my experience is they are pretty dark, violent but incredibly arty – “Oldboy” ticked all of them boxes. I had also heard of this title before as the Western world embraced the film and it collected many big awards once released in Europe, such as the best film at Cannes. I was looking forward to the next 120 minutes.
Right from the off, the film grabbed me. As the classical music dramatically changes as we see a man being held at the edge of a tall building, within seconds it was tense and just the starter of what would be the most delicious Korean banquet. It was fast and snappy – no time to dwell as quickly we were transported to a police station where we see our main character, Dae-Su, more pissed up than Dreyer, Mashiter and Jones outside the The White Lion after supping only a few pints of Carling Premier and Caffreys one hot afternoon as students. (Remember boys? I ended up pissing in my dustbin in the bedroom I was so wrecked!) I’ve not witnessed such a dark, slightly depressing opening to a film since “Glengarry Glen Ross”. The blackness outside as it pisses down, the call from a public telephone box, but immedately we move to the next scene. We’ve now gone all “Papillon”, as our main guy is locked in a prison cell as the camera pans down to floor level as he begs and pleads for answers. He truly is in a pickle and little sympathy from the guard. Suddenly we see his cell. Wow, has Claire Sweeney been round for a 60 minute make-over? It’s not all that bad – in fact, luxury if you compare it to the cells Mash and Dreyer had to suffer at County college.
For the next 15 minutes, we see our man going madder and madder as the years tick by. He’s mad! He’s mad. He’s madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year’s Mr Madman competition, That demented face and crazy hair. He reminded of the famous Columbian goalkeeper, René Higuita, as he menacingly stared down the middle of the camera directly into our eyes. The prisoner shares his living nightmare with the viewer as he narrates what life was like for him over the next decade and a half. TV was his only company, knocking one off at every chance he gets when a fit bird is on the screen. Now we know why Mash was last to bed each night in Ambleside. The director showed his class for the first time as we see Dae-Su having hallucinations as ants crawl out off his skin and all over his face. This particular scene was fine directing Cronenberg or Del Toro would have been proud of. He’s now punching the outline drawing of a man on his cell wall. It’s brutal and shocking to watch. He’s pumped up and really means business. It wasn’t easy watching him stick needles in himself too as he marks off another year inprisoned. More clever directing skills follow as the screen is split displaying key world historic events like Princess Diana’s death and September 11th, showing the time period moving on quickly. Before we know it, he believes he’ll be free in a month’s time as he’s finally made a hole right through the wall and can literally taste the rain outside.
“What if I break through the wall and I’m on the 52nd floor? Even if I plunge to my death, I’ll still be getting out.”
As every minute went by, I was loving this film even more. I’m a sucker for great directing and how many of us knew the name Park Chan-wook before reading these notes? If you took a piece of David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Ridley Scott, Tim Burton and obviously, Tarantino, threw them in a wok, you can serve up a beautiful dish of Chan-wook. It’s not surprisingly to hear Quentin absolutely loved this film. Whereas most budding directors are inspired by Tarantino, in this case, it’s the other way round as Tarantino adores the Korean director’s work. It was a directing masterpiece. The camera shots were breath-taking. “Oldboy” had everything – camera frames twisting in every position, even angles I didn’t know was possible. We were treated to close ups, slow-mos, freeze frames, aerial shots, low angled floor shots, panning left to right, panning right to left, 360 degree spin rounds, upside scenes, filming through the reflection of mirrors – GENIUS!!! It was creepily beautiful and magical cinema – in fact, this was pure art. If I could give it more than 10/10 I would. Wow.
Our main character is finally free from his 15 year hell experience as the 80’s symphasizer music kicks in. It reminded me of “Blade Runner” and “Stranger Things”. The score throughout was perfectly chosen per scene. My only negative was a few tunes were repeated but maybe that’s what the director wanted, a trade mark piece so possibly, it’s not a fault and I’m just being a touch picky. It was also clever as in quite a few scenes the music was completely turned off and it let the tension build beautifully. As he befriends the girl at the Sushi restaurant, he receives a phone call he doesn’t want to get, and takes it out on the poor octopus. As he rips the alive octopus apart, I’ve not seen eating habits like this since Rob and I briefly lived with Nikki Garnet in Sydney. Although to be fair, at least this fella tried to eat with his mouth closed. Min-sik Choi, the actor who played the main character, is actually a Buddhist and he had to pray after eating the octopi. Four live octopi were eaten for the scene. It provoked some controversy abroad. Eating live octopus in Korea is commonplace although it is usually sliced first. At least he didn’t eat a live dog. Sweet and sour Poodle would have been pushing it a bit too far for the European punters. It didn’t put off Sushi girl as the next scene showed them living in the same place together. Although, she was incredibly forgiving as he tried to shag her whilst she took a shit. Talk about sexual frustration. I’ve not seen desperation like this since Mash pulled that wheelchair girl at the Carleton. Although to be fair to Michael, squeeky wheel didn’t reject him, unlike Sushi girl did to Dae-su. He no longer trusted her. Maybe it was her fishy mott or the fact she was talking to other chaps online.
“I could taste food from 100 restaurants, but I will never forget the food I tasted for 15 years.”
Our man was now on a mission to get justice as we hear his inner thoughts throughout. One of my favourite scenes was the freeze frame as he aggressively holds the hammer over the guy caught off guard sat on the chair. A tableau, some thought tracking and a red line drawn to show the distance from hammer to headblow followed. Toye and Prendiville would have been so excited by the drama techniques, if they watched it together at Zeffirellis cinema in Ambleside, Nigel would have probably unzipped his fly, grabbed Francis’ head (just like Pesci getting a BJ from Stone in Casino) and they would have been caught up in the moment as Prendiville tastes the Toye veal. Nige’s old Fagin would have quickly drooped as the audience tries to cover their eyes as teeth are now being ripped out off a man’s face. Surely this is in the top 10 worst torture moments in film history, enough to make even Tarantino’s (and the kneeling, jizz breath Prendiville’s) eyes water.
The scenes kept on coming thick and fast as now our man was attempting to twat over 30 guys. It was like watching the Russian football hooligans picking out lone English lions as they gobbed off about how great England is whilst acting all hard. Min-sik Choi trained for six weeks and lost twenty pounds to get in shape for the role of Dae-su, and did most of the his own stunts. The famous one-take corridor scene was shot in three days. No CGI was used to cleverly edit the sequence like a single shot but the scene was actually shot in one take (although a little CGI was used to show Oh Dae Su getting stabbed in the back with a knife and to correct some punches landing). This scene, although brutal, was like watching a Matthew Bourne ballet – it was so stylish and graceful, even if hatchets, arrows, Stanley knives and spanners (and whatever else could be found) were used to create pain. Our man looked like a goner at one point but nothing could stop our hero. Not since Dreyer was mortally wounded by a misthrown Mashiter dart at the Golden Rule, have I witnessed such bravery. Even though you could argue this was comic strip Kill Bill fighting, for me it wasn’t. The sound effects of the smacking of a man in the face, a double blow to the ribs, the metal tools banging on the concrete walls – all so realistic. I guess the adrenaline pumping through him, numbed the pain of the knife lodged near his spinal cord. As the lift door opens with a load more wannabe ninjas, our man can afford an evil smile before he wipes out half a dozen more street fighters and steps over their fucked up bodies, as he departs the lift and sees the light. With blood soaking his face (Terry Butcher would be proud of) and his black suit, he eventually collapses on a zebra crossing and shipped off back to the Yo Sushi girl as the plot thickens. He’s soon trying to piece everything together as he listens to a tape recording but the viewer discovers more as the camera pans out to show he’s being spied on from an adjacent building. We can now add Hitchcock to the list of inspiring directors as this was very “Rear Window”.
“Who loathes me this much?
“Those 260 women you’ve had, I don’t know the names of their husbands.”
His arch-rival Evergreen has all the answers. Easy to kill him but then he’ll never know the truth. Oh god no, not another evil dentist scene. This time we are treated to our man suffering the revenge from the victim of the earlier tooth pulling act. As Vivaldi’s Four Season’s Concerto in F minor is blasted in the background, I can barely watch another potential tooth extraction. Oh go on then! Where’s my cushion just in case? At least it’s not like the eye scene from “Marathon Man”.
As Dae Su wriggles on the floor, we are treated to seeing Sushi girl’s fleshy dumplings on display as she’s tied up. She’s not a happy bunny though. It’s certainly been a bad day for our lovely couple. We’re now half way through the film. It’s been engrossing and flown by.
After another comical ring tone, it’s time for a sex scene interlude. It hurts so much but she’ll endure it. Not the first time I’ve heard that or as Dreyer would say, “she had a body of a 14 year old!”. He’s been holding back for 15 years so naturally battered sushi is to follow. She offered him raw fish and he certainly got his chopstick’s worth!!!
It wasn’t too long before we saw more freakiness. A man in a gas mask stands over their sleeping naked bodies – this was definitely a Dennis Hopper in “Blue Velvet” moment. As much as our man is fast and furious, his enemies are always one step ahead and toying with him – a pawn in their game. It was like watching Anneka Rice running around like a headless chicken on an episode of “Treasure Hunt”, trying to unravel the clues, whilst Kenneth Kendall and Wincey Willis had all the answers back in the studio. Like Blofeld trapping Bond at every chance he gets but not actually putting an end to it all.
Another memorable sex moment was to follow as now he was a dirty Peeping Tom. As the music fades out and back in again, we see a lad wrapping his gums around a young girl’s bums. She uses her mirror to be even more turned on as she angles it to see her perky breasts being sucked, then a close up of her own face, before she shockingly discovers they are being perved on by our man through the bullet hole smashed window. The directing was amazing again and us lizards enjoy a bit of raunchy action don’t we? Fast, stylish, next scene… Our man is a pure monster and is killing people with a snapped toothbrush. Now there’s creativity for you.
“Imagine how a girl would feel to carry both her child and her nephew. Do you understand now? Your tongue got my sister pregnant. It wasn’t Lee Woo-jin’s dick. It was Oh Dae-su’s tongue.”
“Oldboy” is now approaching the climax as a big reveal, Poirot style, as we hear he was hypnotised, skills Derren Brown would have been proud of. Suddenly the big shock and huge twist in the story… Sushi girl who he’s been porking, turns out to be his own daughter, Mido, and he hadn’t a clue. Where’s my sick bucket? “Oldboy” turns into the “Jeremy Kyle Show”. He is being tortured beyond words as the truth is discovered as he thumbs through a family album. He is now begging for mercy and offering to be his slave, his dog. A smirking Woo-jin is loving it all. Our guy has gone completely mad as he cuts out his own tongue as a symbol of penance. I’ve not heard grunting noises like that since Chambers was my room buddy for a year above Vicky Wines. Boy could that twat snore? Only to be matched by a sleeping Dreyer full of a cold.
If the physical pain wasn’t bad enough for Oh Dae Su, he now had to hear an audio of him riding his daughter bareback in the bedroom. I bet her never looks at another Sushi train in the same way again!
“This is the whole adventure of my life until now. Thank you for listening to this terrible story to the end.”
In the aftermath of the event, Dae-Su finds the hypnotist from the prison to erase his knowledge of Mido being his daughter so that they can stay together and have a happy relationship. Mido then finds Dae-Su and confesses she loves him while the two embrace. There are no signs of the hypnotist, which implies that this meeting was merely imagined by Dae-Su. He breaks into a wide smile, which is slowly replaced by a look of pain, bringing into question, whether the hypnosis worked. The ending is deliberately ambiguous, and the audience is left with several questions, (but not a headfuck like “Mulholland Drive” left us with) specifically, how much time has passed, if Dae-Su’s meeting with the hypnotist really took place, whether he successfully lost the knowledge of Mido’s identity, and whether he will continue his relationship with Mido.
This is the second one of director Chan-wook Park’s “Revenge Trilogy”. The first is “Sympathy for Mr Vengeance” (2002). The third is Lady Vengeance (2005). So just like Lizardman Dreyer’s first and epic choice of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, there’s two more in the film series we need to watch (“The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest” and “The Girl Who Played With Fire”). Both “Oldboy” and “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” reminded me a lot of each other. Dark, troubled characters with deep emotions, the search for answers whilst on a revenge mission, torture scenes difficult to watch, the audience willing on the main character to succeed, incredible directing and acting with a fantastic soundtrack to boot. Both had weaker Hollywood remakes too.
Oldboy? Oh boy!!! It was simply brilliant and I think we are going to struggle to find many flicks that can match this score. The only reason I didn’t score 10 for entertainment was at times it was rather uncomfortable to watch and sometimes fuckin’ too brutal. Enjoy your moment in the sun Lizardman Mashiter. Although I don’t encourage us to select films none of us have seen, in this case, your research paid off. Very impressed, especially as not a werewolf, zombie, shark or bear featured this time round. Congrats to you for not picking a film from your favourite genre and definitely your finest choice to date. Who would have thought a film from South Korea could be topping our charts? Let’s see what Bossman Dreyer thinks. Although by the time he has caught up reviewing the previous films and gets round to watching this one, we could have all served 15 year sentences.
DREYER’S SCORE & REVIEW
ACTING – 9
DIRECTING – 10
SCORE/AUDIO – 8
CINEMATOGRAPHY – 9
ENTERTAINMENT – 9
TOTAL – 45/50 = 90% *****
ACTING 95%
DIRECTING 100%
SCORE/AUDIO 85%
CINEMATOGRAPHY 95%
ENTERTAINMENT 90%
TOTAL SCORE 93%
(RJ – 96% RD – 90%)
***** 5 STAR LIZARDMAN RATING *****
Lizardman Film Club 