Our Sponsors

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Oldboy

9:10 PM Wikipedia No comments


Oldboy (Hangul: 올드보이, the phonetic transliteration of "old boy") is a 2003 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook. It is based on the Japanese manga of the same name written byNobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya. Oldboy is the second installment of The Vengeance Trilogy, preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and followed by Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.
The film follows the story of one Oh Dae-Su, who is locked in a hotel room for 15 years without knowing his captor's motives. When he is finally released, Dae Su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and violence. His own quest for vengeance becomes tied in with romance when he falls for an attractive sushi chef.
The film won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and high praise from the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino. Critically, the movie has been well received in the United States, with an 80% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.[2] Film critic Roger Ebert has claimed Oldboy to be a "...powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare".[3] In 2008, voters on CNN named it one of the ten best Asian films ever made.

Plot

Korean businessman Oh Dae-su is bailed out from a local police station by his close friend Joo-Hwan after a drunken fight, on the night of Dae-su's daughter's birthday. Dae-su calls her on a public phone, but as Joo-Hwan takes the phone, Dae-su disappears. Kidnapped and confined to a shabby room with no explanation, Dae-su is not allowed any contact and is fed only fried dumplings through a narrow slot. Experiencing hallucinations, his attempts at suicide are prevented by being gassed into unconsciousness. Thus he keeps himself fit and occupied withshadowboxing; hardening his knuckles by punching the wall. While watching television, he discovers that his wife has been murdered, his daughter sent to foster parents and that he himself is the prime suspect.
Dae-su is suddenly set free on the rooftop of a building 15 years after his imprisonment began, with a new suit. Dae-su is given a cellphone by a stranger and goes to a local restaurant, where he meets young chef Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong), who brings him to her home. Dae-su realises he is being tracked through phone calls from his unidentified captor and instant messaging on Mi-do's computer. Dae-su locates the restaurant that provided the fried dumplings during his imprisonment, and subsequently the building he was held captive in, torturing the warden for information. He finds tape recordings of his captor that reveal little. He then fights his way out past numerous goons, suffering a knife wound to his back. Collapsing on the street, a stranger places him in a taxi, only to direct him to Mi-do's address and identify Dae-su by name.
The man, named Woo-jin (Yu Ji-tae), reveals himself as Dae-su's kidnapper and tells him that Dae-su must discover his motives. Mi-do will die if he fails, but if he succeeds, Woo-jin will kill himself. Later, Dae-su and Mi-do grow emotionally closer together and have sex. Dae-su discovers he and Woo-jin briefly attended the same high school and remembers spying on Woo-jin's incestuous relationship with his sister, Soo-ah (Yun Jin-seo). Dae-su, unaware of their genetic relationship, inadvertently spread the rumor before transferring to another school in Seoul. Soo-ah's mental turmoil grew, causing physical signs of pregnancy and her eventual suicide. During the investigation, Woo-jin kills Joo-Hwan for insulting Soo-ah, enraging Dae-su further.
Dae-su confronts Woo-jin at his penthouse with the information but instead Woo-jin gives Dae-su a photo album. As Dae-su flips through the album, he witnesses his daughter grow older in the pictures, until discovering that Mi-do is actually his daughter. Woo-jin reveals that the events surrounding Dae-su were orchestrated to cause Dae-su and Mi-do to commit incest. It is also revealed that hypnosis and post-hypnotic suggestion were involved with Dae-su's imprisonment, and had been performed on Mi-do as well. A horrified Dae-su begs Woo-jin to conceal the secret from Mi-do, groveling for forgiveness before slicing out his own tongue and offering it to Woo-jin as a symbol of his silence. Woo-jin agrees to spare Mi-do from the knowledge and leaves Dae-su in his penthouse. As he rides alone in the elevator, he is struck by the vivid memory of his sister's death, in which he was complicit, and shoots himself in the head.
Dae-su sits in a winter landscape, where he makes a deal with the same hypnotist who conditioned him during his imprisonment, asking for her help to allow him to forget the secret. She reads his pleas from a handwritten letter and, touched by his words, begins the hypnosis process, lulling him into unconsciousness. Hours later, Dae-su wakes up, the hypnotist gone, and stumbles about before finally meeting with Mi-do. They embrace, and Mi-do tells Dae-su that she loves him, though whether Dae-su knows the secret is uncertain.

[edit]Cast

  • Choi Min-sik as Oh Dae-su: The film's protagonist, who has been imprisoned for somewhere around 15 years. Choi Min-sik lost and gained weight for his role depending on the filming schedule, trained for six weeks and did most of his stunt work.
  • Yu Ji-tae as Lee Woo-jin: The man behind Oh Dae-su's imprisonment. Park Chan-wook's ideal choice for Woo-jin had been actor Han Suk-kyu, who previously played a rival to Choi Min-sik in Shiri and No. 3. Choi then suggested Yu Ji-tae for the role, despite Park's reservation about his youthful age.[5]
  • Kang Hye-jeong as Mi-do: Dae-su's love interest.
  • Ji Dae-han as No Joo-hwan: Dae-su's friend and the owner of a cybercafe.
  • Kim Byeong-ok as Mr. Han: Bodyguard of Woo-jin.
  • Oh Tae-kyung as Young Dae-su.
  • Ahn Yeon-suk as Young Woo-jin.
  • Oo Il-han as Young Joo-hwan.
  • Yun Jin-seo as Lee Soo-ah: Woo-jin's sister.
  • Oh Dal-su as Park Cheol-woong: The private prison's manager.

[edit]Production

The corridor fight scene took seventeen takes in three days to perfect, and was one continuous take – there was no editing of any sort except for the knife that was stabbed in Oh Dae-su's back, which was computer-generated imagery. Though the scene has often been compared visually to side scrolling beat 'em up video games, director Park Chan-wook has stated that the similarity was unintentional.
Other computer-generated imagery in the film includes the ant coming out of Oh Dae-su's arm (according to the making-of on the DVD the whole arm was computer-generated imagery) and the ants crawling over Oh Dae-su afterwards. The octopus being eaten alive was not computer-generated; four were used during the making of this scene. Actor Choi Min-sik, a Buddhist, said a prayer for each one. It should also be noted that the eating of live octopuses (called sannakji (산낙지) in Korean) as a delicacy is not unheard of in East Asia, although it is usually cut, not eaten whole. When asked if he felt sorry for the actor Choi Min-sik, director Park Chan-wook stated he felt more sorry for the octopus.
The final scene's snowy landscape was filmed in New Zealand. The ending is deliberately ambiguous, and the audience is left with several questions: specifically, how much time has passed, if Dae-Su's meeting with the hypnotist really took place, and whether he successfully lost the knowledge of Mi-do's identity and whether he will continue his relationship with Mi-do. In an interview (included with the European release of the film) director Park Chan-Wook says that the ambiguous ending was intended to generate discussion; it is completely up to each individual viewer to interpret.
The motif phrase "laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone", from Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, is referenced several times throughout the movie.

[edit]Response

[edit]Critical reception

Oldboy received generally positive reviews from Western critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 80% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 125 reviews.[6] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 74 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.[7]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars (out of four). Ebert remarked: "We are so accustomed to 'thrillers' that exist only as machines for creating diversion that it's a shock to find a movie in which the action, however violent, makes a statement and has a purpose."[3] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three stars (out of four), saying that it "isn't for everyone, but it offers a breath of fresh air to anyone gasping on the fumes of too many traditional Hollywood thrillers."[8]
Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com praised the film, calling it "anguished, beautiful, and desperately alive" and "a dazzling work of pop-culture artistry."[9] Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gave Oldboy a score of "B-," calling it "a bloody and brutal revenge film immersed in madness and directed with operatic intensity," but felt that the questions raised by the film are "lost in the battering assault of lovingly crafted brutality."[10]
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times gave a lukewarm review, saying that "there is not much to think about here, outside of the choreographed mayhem."[11] J.R. Jones of the Chicago Reader was also not impressed, saying that "there's a lot less here than meets the eye."[12] This film is ranked #18 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[13]

[edit]Box office performance

In South Korea, the film was seen by 3,132,000 moviegoers. (It ranks fifth place for the highest grossing film of 2003[14] and 44th in all-time national movie box-office records.)
It grossed a total of US$14,980,005 worldwide.[15]

[edit]Awards and nominations

[edit]Soundtrack

Old Boy Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack by Jo Yeong-Wook
ReleasedDecember 9, 2003 (South Korea)
Recorded2003
GenreSoundtrack
Length60:00
LabelEMI Music Korea Ltd.
Nearly all the music cues composed by Jo Yeong-Wook are titled after movies, many of themfilm noirs.
  1. Look Who's Talking (Opening song)
  2. Somewhere in the Night
  3. The Count of Monte Cristo - A novel by Alexandre Dumas, adapted many times to film
  4. Jailhouse Rock
  5. In a Lonely Place
  6. It's Alive
  7. The Searchers
  8. Look Back in Anger
  9. Vivaldi - Four Seasons Concerto Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, RV 297, "L'inverno" (Winter)
  10. Room at the Top
  11. Cries and Whispers (Woo-Jin's theme)
  12. Out of Sight
  13. For Whom the Bell Tolls
  14. Out of the Past
  15. Breathless
  16. The Old Boy (Dae-Su's theme)
  17. Dressed to Kill
  18. Frantic
  19. Cul-de-Sac
  20. Kiss Me Deadly
  21. Point Blank
  22. Farewell, My Lovely
  23. The Big Sleep
  24. The Last Waltz (Mido's theme)

[edit]DVD release

Tartan Asian Extreme has released several editions of the film in Region One territories, including a single-disc edition, featuring the film and a small amount of special features.
A three-disc collector's edition has also been released, featuring:
  • Three Audio Commentary Tracks with the Director, Cinematographer and Cast
  • Five Behind-the-Scenes Documentaries
  • Deleted Scenes
  • The first issue of the manga that the film is based upon.
  • Interviews with the Cast and Crew
  • A Featurette titled: "Le Grand Prix at Cannes"
  • And a three-and-a-half hour making-of documentary entitled "The Autobiography of Oldboy"[23]
Oldboy is also available on Blu-Ray.

[edit]Other adaptations

An American remake previously had director Justin Lin, best known for the teen crime drama Better Luck Tomorrow, attached.[24] In November 2008, DreamWorks and Universal were securing the rights to the remake, which Will Smith has expressed interest in starring, withSteven Spielberg as director.[25] Mark Protosevich was in talks to write the script, although the acquisition to the remake rights were not finalized.[26] Smith has clarified Spielberg will not be remaking the film though: he is adapting the manga itself,[27] which lacks the octopus eating and incest invented for the film.[28] In June 2009, the comic's publisher launched a lawsuit against the Korean film's producers for giving the film rights to Spielberg without their permission.[29] Later in November 2009, it was reported that Dreamworks, Steven Spielberg and Will Smith had stepped back from the project.[30] The producing team announced on 10 November 2009 that the project is dead.[31]

[edit]Controversy over Zinda


Zinda, the Bollywood film directed by writer-director Sanjay Gupta, also bears a striking resemblance to Oldboy but is not an officially sanctioned remake. It was reported in 2005 that Zinda was under investigation for violation of copyright. A spokesman for Show East, the distributor of Oldboy, said, "if we find out there's indeed a strong similarity between the two, it looks like we'll have to talk with our lawyers.

Posted in:

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More

 
Design by Free WordPress Themes | Bloggerized by Lasantha - Premium Blogger Themes | ewa network review