With Oldboy’s main character, Oh Dae Su on the brink of insanity wanting revenge against an unknown mysterious captor, director Park Chan Wook makes for a riveting to watch masterpiece film. In my opinion, the way the director successfully pulls off making the audience see in perspective of Oh Dae Su (being imprisoned for 15 years and then having 5 days to figure why) is what sets the suspenseful atmosphere which is why I praise this film. Examples include how the camera is shaking when Oh Dae Su is experiencing shock and stress and also how the melodramatic music captures the full feelings of Dae Su in many scenes. One of scenes where I feel the music captures the feeling of Dae Su is when he is fighting Woojin’s bodyguard during the final scene of the film. The music that plays right after the climax of the film sets a feeling for the audience that makes everything seem numb and unreal. What I mean is that after Dae Su finds the shocking truth, he must feel as if he is in a dreamlike state and almost numb to everything around him and I feel the music that played during that scene was perfect to capture that exact moment. During the five days after release, Dae Su unknowingly opens many doors that lead to his demise; in which all the results are completely hidden from the audience until the shocking climax. The way the director ties most significant events for an effective climax is what sets the film apart from most every other film I have ever watched. Another way Park Chan Wook successfully keeps the audience glued to the film is the constant violent intensity which leads to a relentless dark atmosphere. At the same time, the cinematography is crisp, fresh and full of style. One of the greatest scenes that portray this idea is the breathtaking hallway fight. The unusual long continuous take leads to the audience’s suspenseful feeling that I have never experienced in any other film. The continuous take effectively captures the full feeling of Daesu’s want for revenge which ultimately sets for an incredibly dark atmosphere but at the same time has the audience feel a sense of excitement for Daesu. I was greatly impressed how Chan Wook made a scene full of pure violence into a scene full of emotions that overwhelmed the audience through music and camera angle.
I think that the Oldboy was a great movie I have never seen before and it made me think when I saw the movie. There were lots of good things in the movie. Especially, visual effects, cinematography and art direction was amazing and beautiful. the composition of figures was wonderful and the particular quality of color in this film was beautiful. Therefore, after I saw this movie, I understood why people recommended me to see Oldboy. The Oldboy started from a bad memory between two high school students. The bad memory is about incestuous relationship and it reached a young woman to death. It was totally wrongful death, so her younger brother who was a partner of incest plotted revenge to main character; dae su- oh who it was that started such report. I think that the revenge is also important to woo-jin, but he was too cruel and I felt that dae- su was pity because he lost his life for 15 years. In addition, he lost his family. More shockingly, he fell in love with his daughter and had a sex with her. Thus, I was not feel good throughout the movie. Finally, I was really impressed by this movie and the actors looked good and fit comfortably into the film, and they were good at acting, too. However, the Oldboy was a movie that bloody, brutal, and uncompromising from the beginning to the very end, so it was too violent film.
The film Oldboy by Park, Chan-Wook, shows creation, suffering, and ending of a type of a monster. During this film specific score is played almost every encounter of Oh Dae Su and Lee Woo Jin. This score was very well used to evoke sentimental emotions of the audience of this particular film. Also, 1st movement of Vivaldi’s winter was properly used to maximize intensity of horror. Along with it, the Vivaldi’s winter surely showed the eagerness of Oh Dae Su’s revenge against Lee Woo Jin. During all physically violent scenes, diegetic sounds describe the incidents with detail. These scenes would be such as when Oh Dae Su pulls out teeth of gangster. This film is definitely a “showing” movie since it has a lot of strong visuals. The director of this film used variety of angle shots to identify state and mind of each character. When Oh Dae Su appears on the screen in the beginning of the film, many of the shots are high-angle shots. This showed his impotentness since he was locked in a room for fifteen years by another monster. However, as film progresses, number of high-angles shots decrease significantly. As the film approaches the end, most of the shots are eye-level shots as if the audience understands the memories of the monsters and feels the pain as well. When Oh Dae Su opens the last page of album which Lee Woo Jin made, he sees himself in a small mirror attached to the album. Instead of filming the character himself, this time, the character is shown through reflection in the mirror. This particular shot plays a major role to understand the audience about unstable mental state of Oh Dae Su, by utilizing Dutch tilt shot. The director Park, Chan-Wook uses idea of incest and revenge for means of creation of the two monsters. The monsters from both movies, The Host and Oldboy are man-made, one from The Host has physicality of a monster when the later has psychological characteristic of a monster.
The movie Oldboy is a mesmerizing film, which also shows sexuality and violence. It is sophisticated and suspense. At the begging of the movie, Daesu is catching a man’s tie, the light the back the sunlight, so we cannot identify his face. That forms contrast with color, which seems to refer brightness and darkness of life, in another word, it sets the stage for the hero lives in prison and his life outside. The story is about a man who revenge after being caught ad imprisoned for 15 years and with unknown reason, and when he is released, he is given 5 days to figure out the reason. And there still many mysterious scenes through expressions of Daesu, which are suspense, violence driven and emotional changes such as he fists and hitting the wall and tries to suicide. Some scenes from the film are controversy. For example, Daesu eats an alive octopus. Eating live octopus in Korea is common, he tries to eat it up with one bite, which may cause apnea. Another realistic scene is that pulling teeth by using back of a harmer which makes me feel painful as the character. Humanity is one of the main topic in the movie, For example, when Daesu in the prison, he like to touch Tv set, and he smells the man who wants to suicide and touch his body. That seems like black humor. He wants to be connected with life outside the prison. 15 years have changed a lot for him. Howver, humanity is never changed. Like Woo-jin, he is selfish, cold, and aggressive and hatred, until the moment he died, he still doesn’t learn to forgive.
What I saw throughout the movie was selfishness of Woo-jin Lee. The problem started by Woo-jin having relationship with his sister, Soo-ah, in school. It was morally wrong to have relationship with sister, more wrong to do it in Catholic school. Dae-su Oh saw them and mentally shocked and tells his friend about this, not to make a rumor about it but to gain relief. When Soo-ah dies Woo-jin did not think of what he has done but instead puts all blame on Dae-su. Dae su, who became victim of this irrationality, is completely destroyed. It was such irony when Woo jin tells Dae-su end of revenge is futile while he was revenging. As the result Woo-jin destroyed Dae-su with himself. I think the quote “Be it a stone or a grain of sand, in water they both sink” Woo-jin said meant small sin and big sin are same sin. They both went to Catholic school and it may varies among Christian but most Christian believe God sees a small sin and big sin the same. Because of what Dae-su said, Soo-ah kills herself and made Woo-jin’s purpose of life is to revenge, Woo-jin’s planned revenge against Dae-su destroyed Dae-su’s life, even though what they did was different result of their action is very similar.
Different perspectives in “Oldboy” One thing I really enjoyed about „Oldboy“ was that the film mesmerized me from the beginning to the end. Of course a big part of the films power to captivate is due to its thrilling plot. However I thought one other element besides the plot also very successfully helps to capture the: the camera’s movements and angles. A good example is when Oh Dae-su is at the police station because of his excessive drinking. During the whole scene the camera is or seems to be hand held. Through these hand-held, shaky shots it feels like you are a part of the happening. Moreover throughout the whole movie the camera never always seems to be steady. Through tilts or pans, changing angles and even close-ups it feels as if you yourself are always on the move.
Controversially at some points during the film it seems to me that Park Chan-wook suddenly wants to distance us from feeling like a part of the story. He does so, for instance, by swiftly presenting us a somewhat objective point of view (e.g. a birds-view/perspective). These overviews or sometimes accompanied by Oh Dae-su’s narrating. In a blink of an eye we are no more silent observers next to the characters in the plot, yet find ourselves being outside of the happening listening to Oh Dae-su’s life story. In a way I think the change of perspectives enables Park Chan-wook to play with the audience - keeping us close for the captivating tension, but also sparing us from too much violence and disgust.
I understand why Oldboy is part of this week's monster series now. Although the movie does not show any scenes with an image of a monster we associate the word with, the movie indeed has a monster, Oh Daesu.
While he is imprisoned, there is a scene where we see an ant come out of his skin and crawl on his arm. Later, ants start crawling all over his face and body while the camera spins around the room. Shadows are projected onto the wall to present a kind of chaotic scene. I feel that this is the transformation of Daesu into a monster because he couldn't take the news of the death of his wife who was 'killed' by himself. The fast forward cuts of his time during the imprisonment shows him turning further into a monster. His hair is bushier and he is training to build up his strength. When he finally cuts a hole in the wall and he reaches out for the rain water, his stature and the angle of the camera makes him look more animalistic than human.
Also, in the end of the movie when The truth was revealed to Daesu, there is a split moment when his face and Woojin's face overlap and it seems like they are the same person. I feel that this scene has the meaning that Daesu is just a monster that Woojin created. Woojin is just making Daesu experience the same thing that he had to go through during the relationship with his sister.
I think making movie “old boy” was very challenge for Korean Movie industry because general story of this movie is about committing incest between brother and sister, and father and daughter. I know that movie director usually does not prefer to use this kind of theme because it’s too risky; however, Park Chan Wook, movie director gave a shot and succeeded. The most impressive part of the movie was actor’s performance, especially Choi Min Sick who performed Oh Dae Soo role. He understood the character completely and performed really well.
The movie is about Lee Woo Jin loved his sister; however, she killed herself due to other people’s stereotype against their relationship. He was so furious that he decided to revenge to Oh Dae Soo, main instigator of the problem, in same way how he suffered.
Majority of audiences thought that the main point of this movie is focused on committing incest; however, I thought director wanted to teach us that having trivial conversation about somebody to others without concerning the person directly involved would give incurable scar. However, I can understand Oh Dae Soo’s situation because at that time he was young and had lack of empathy or indulgent.
The movie Oldboy is one of the most disturbing, yet expertly crafted movies I have ever seen. The protagonist, Daesu, is the heart of the movie. His character is complex, dark, and compelling. Daesu’s personal quest to cover the reason of his 15-year imprisonment drives the movie to explore the darkest limits of the human condition. The sadistic, brutal nature of humanity is portrayed throughout the movie, but two aspects of the film stood out to me the most. I was impressed with the fight scene in Daesu’s former prison and the bright, vivid color of blood in the film. The fight scene is an impressive continuous take, but several aspects of that scene struck me as interesting. First of all, Daesu is pitted against a multitude of men. The prison employees are all younger and more typical rough-housers, with tattoos and clubs. Daesu is still clad in a suit, wielding a solitary hammer. The fight is messy; Daesu is stabbed in the back and appears to be badly injured, yet by the end of the scene rises triumphant from the mess of men, the solitary victor. The shot is wide, allowing the viewer to absorb the absurdity of the scene, at least ten or more men attacking a lone older man. This scene echoes Daesu’s earlier voiceover, where he noted that he would be absolutely alone in his quest. Daesu’s battle against the world is expertly portrayed in a single scene. Additionally, I noted the bright, vivid color of blood in the film. Daesu is bloody or injured for much of the film, marking him as separate from other characters. This was particularly evident after the prolonged battle in the prison, as he staggers down city streets in broad daylight, soaked with blood. Even though it’s evident that he is injured, no one approaches him until a good Samaritan (who is later revealed to be Daesu’s torturer and prison warden) puts him in a taxi and sends him home. The color scheme in the movie is generally cool, monochromatic tones--blue, black, and grey. The notable exception is the unnaturally vivid blood that is constant splashed throughout the film. Blood represents pain, violence, and human tragedy. Daesu has survived much bloodshed, and the unexplained tragedies that he alone suffered are the core of this movie.
Old Boy, directed by Park Chan-wook, is definitely a violent and odd movie. It came to a stage where it was very uncomfortable to watch the movie. The general story of the movie is about Lee Woo Jin making a revenge to Oh Dae Soo for gossiping about Lee Woo Jin and his sister. Lee Woo Jin commits a suicide because the rumor about her and her brother loving each other was spread. Therefore, Lee Woo Jin decides to make a revenge on Oh Dae Soo. Lee Woo Jin locks Oh Dae Soo for 15 years and hypnotizes Oh Dae Soo and his daughter to love each other. I guess I can understand why Lee Woo Jin was so mad at Oh Dae Soo but they were young back then and I think that the revenge was to cruel. To be honest, I feel like both characters are kind of psychopath. I have watched the movie once when I was young. This was my second time watching it. At the end of the movie, I wandered if Lee Woo Jin hypnotized Oh Dae Soo and his daughter, then it is not real love. Would it have been too late for him to be just a father not a lover? Also, when Oh Dae Soo met up with his best friend, his best friend must have known where about his daughter.
The body is a messenger of truth and emotions, displayed in a raw form that is so vivid throughout the film Oldboy. Director Park Chan Wook utilizes violence to highlight the themes that are prevalent in this cinematic masterpiece. A key component that is widely represented in Oldboy is the body, especially the mouth, where Oh Dae Su wreaks vengeance through removing one’s teeth or seeking the truth by sampling various dumplings. Choi Min Sik enters this role in an intense method, even physically consuming a live octopus, once again demonstrating the body aspect of the film. Amidst the violent fashion in Oldboy, there is a colorful touch in certain scenes, where the lighting is brightened, especially between Oh Dae Su and Mido. Although a brutal thriller, Oldboy’s score is melancholic at times, underlying the romantic subplot between Dae Su and Mido. A bleak atmosphere, the dark setting is consistent for the reminder that Dae Su is still imprisoned in the basement. Even in an outdoor environment, the audience feels trapped by the mystery surrounding Oh Dae Su’s complex tale.
Character development is such a key component in explaining the plotline, such as Oh Dae Su’s boorish behavior in the beginning to a concentrated character bent on revenge. As the audience is attempting to solve the puzzle behind Oh Dae Su’s imprisonment, there is a monster personality evolving within Oh Dae Su, exemplified through his torture methods and the self mutilation. Another key character is the primary antagonist, Woo Jin, who is behind Dae Su’s pain, where initially he is shown as a charismatic figure but later there is an ambiguous understanding to his terrible acts. He displays a sudden surge of anger when his painful past is brought up, such as the scene where he brutally murders Dae Su’s friend. He also bears a symbolic mark in his body, where a scar covers his pacemaker and represents the inevitable death he faces. Although the film shows violence and sexuality at an explicit term, there is an array of depth and symbolism in Oldboy.
Old Boy directed by Park Chan-wook, is a fictional mystery thriller which captivates audiences with its unpredictable twists and cynical revenge plots. One component Park plays with during the film is time. This is definitely a major factor pertaining to all the precise timing the plot works with. Throughout his life the main character Oh Dae-su has caused much deceit, this is shown not only through the main conflict of the story, but was also admitted by himself. The whole concept of revenge in this film is portrayed through twists which were not expected. Lee Woo-jin's whole plot scheme of revenge is definitely not a common one. Lee puts Oh Dae-su in a situation very similar to the one he was caught in, in the past in which the main conflict originated from. With the situation of the original rumour being incest happening with Lee Woo-jin and his sister, Lee places Oh Dae-su and his own daughter Mi-do, in a situation in which there is no other way for them to not fall in love with each other. Lee Woo-jin even says it himself, that making two individuals fall in love is a much harder task especially when it comes to hypnosis. This situation was specifically hard to believe, due to it being between a father and daughter. It was one of the many twists the audience was exposed to when watching this film. In the end Lee Woo-jin received the result he wanted, but through this he relived his own sisters suicide which backfired and ended up killing himself as well. With Oh Dae-su's revenge on Lee Woo-jin for locking him up for exactly fifteen years, he didn't get complete satisfaction although Lee did die. The fact of the matter is, Lee executed his revenge so cynically that it not only affected Oh Dae-su's life, but Mi-do's as well. When Oh Dae-su begged the hypnosis to make him forget the secret of his daughter, it left the audience with an open ended ending. This is proven by the ending when Mi-do comes to embrace Dae-su, at first he has a look of happiness after the hypnosis supposedly 'cured' him, but it quickly changes to a look of pain, showing the fatalities of revenge on both sides of the spectrum.
Revenge and truth, these are easily reoccurring themes in “OldBoy” and the two concepts that fuel this intricate dance of characters we see played out. Revenge as a driving force for a human’s existence legitimacy is questioned. What happens to a life once revenge has been filled? By Woojin’s suicide in the end, we see that a life fueled by revenge is an empty one once that goal has been reached. The truth as a tool to heal and to hurt is showcased. Both in the way that Oh Daesu desperately seeks for the truth of his imprisonment, giving him a purpose, but once he discovers the real truth of his “prison” he wishes he had never learned it in the first place. I think a particularly powerful line in the movie that sums this up is Daesu’s line, “revenge is good for your health, but pain will find you again.” I think a scene I found particularly powerful in “Oldboy” is when Daesu is leaving the building of his 15-year imprisonment, after fighting off hordes of thugs. We see him staggering and covered in blood. He thinks to himself that he has truly become a monster at this moment. I immediately thought this scene to be a baptism of sorts, one in which Daesu has committed his first real act of violence on his road of revenge, and can no longer go back to who he was before. I think this self-accusation of being a monster is Daesu committing himself fully to seeking revenge and truth no matter what he needs to do to achieve these. Overall I thought “OldBoy” was a very powerful and thought provoking movie. I think it is one that truly captivates its audience from start to finish both in terms of style and content.
Old Boy Watching the movie, it motivated me to think upon the definition of revenge. I finally could not decide who is more malicious or cold-blooded, but that Daesu and Woojin are just the same old boys starting back from High School class mates. Revenge is displayed in so many ways in the film – through violence, letters, background music, and eyes. Panning the whole hallway, where Daesu has been imprisoned and where he fist fought with the bandit-looking guys symbolized the endurance of Daesu and very small triumph of his revenge. Once Daesu has pulled off 15 teeth of the head of bandits, this could have helped Daesu to catch up with his hardship and loneliness. The mind of Daesu was explained in one of classic music as background. I believe this effect served as an explanation of a hypnotized guy has kept a clear and refined mindset for his revenge. Copious scenes with brutality, obscenity, and violence have settled in for Korean Cinema and rivalry of two famous actors have promoted to have those characteristics as a distinctive Korean film. It is worth discussing about the plot and theme of the movie. As a motif of incest, the revenge have started and ended the lives of two old boys. It is not why Woojin imprisoned Daesu, but it is a question of why he released Daesu. Woojin started his real revenge as Daesu thought he has started his just after he got off the mysterious room. Then as the story goes, it has gotten harder to decide whose fault it is whether to: spoiling the secret of Woojin and his sister or imprisoning and releasing Daesu and have a relationship with his daughter. Reasonably it is unrealistic and so it is more powerful to focus on the definition of revenge rather than the contents. But personally, I think director Park has put Daesu as more mercy-deserving character than Woojin. Because of his inability to manage himself and his lack of duty to be a responsible father and a husband, as well as his unfit body, disheveled hair, and silly looking smile bought him pity. Furthermore, his lack of information about his new world after 15 years of no social activity made him to seem more innocent, and indiscriminating troubles built Daesu as more heroic one rather than monster.
Overall, for Woojin 15 years of imprisonment cannot compromise the loss of Woojin’s sister, and the death of a lunatic who put him for 15 years did not satisfy Daesu, because they both desired for something more that draws radical and insane revenges.
Like Director Bong Jun Ho, Director Park Chan Wook establishes various genres, including mystery, drama, and comedy, in one film and delivers a story that carries multiple messages. Overall, the movie is concentrated on punishment and vengeance of Oh Dae-Su, a man who gets locked up in a prison for 15 years for reasons he doesn’t understand. With dark palettes and intense, often loud non-diegetic sound, the general mood and score of the film correspond to such theme of the movie. However, Director Park Chan-Wook also tells a story of a dramatic relationship between characters Oh Dae-Su and Mido, using contrasting color palettes of red/ purple and green. The crimson colors are used to depict Mido as she often wears red clothes throughout the film, whereas green portrays Oh Dae-Su since many of the scenes in which he appears have greenish yellow overtone/ background. These complementary colors not only emphasize the discomforting mood of the film, but also signify the forbidden love between Mido and Oh Dae-Su. At times, the film includes some comical scenes which may seem abrupt and disruptive. However, I believe they merely evoke laughter from the audience and show the director’s unique, witty signature which can be seen in many of his other works such as Sympathy for Mr. Vengence and JSA: Joint Security Area. Furthermore, the director’s innovative touch can be seen in the camera work. Conventionally, most fighting scenes are broken into several short takes from different angles to create a more fast-paced and exciting mood. But, in filming the hallway fighting scene in which Oh Dae-Su goes back to the prison to obtain more information about the mysterious captor, Director Park decides to take one long, uninterrupted take. As a result of his choice of camera work, the scene looks more sluggish compared to traditional action scenes, but it effectively emphasizes the solitude of Oh Dae-Su as he arduously fights innumerable enemies alone. Also, the camera movement in the scene in which Oh Dae-Su reminisce about his high school memories is notable. On the contrary to the fighting scene where the director deliberately created a slow-paced mood, in this scene, he takes short, crisp shots following the footsteps of young Oh Dae-Su to heighten the viewers’ emotions until the moment in which the truth about Lee Woo-Jin is revealed.
Billy Vang Oldboy, a 2003 mystery thriller film directed my Park, Chan-Wook, has got to be one of the most mind twisting movies I have ever seen. Not because it is under the genre mystery, but because director Park managed to mesmerize me (I want to say the audience too) from beginning to end of the film. By incorporating the camera’s movement as part of the film, Park gives the audience a more realistic perspective; as if we were in it. A scene I can recall is the one when Oh Daesu, main character, goes into a flashback of when he followed Lee Woojin and accidentally caught Lee and his sister incestuous relationship. The camera unsteadily followed Daesu’s chasing movement and at times, we were seeing things in his perspective. I felt captive along Oh Daesu in his strive to uncover the reason of his 15 years unexplained imprisonment. There many other scenes where this happens that I wish I could recall more, however another point I like touch upon is the visuals of Oldboy. Throughout the film, scenes, cuts, and longshot takes were strong and intensively captivating that the audience cannot intend to miss. When a character is showing some sort of emotion, the camera zooms in so we can see the facial expression of the characters. Longshot of intense fighting /torture/love scenes created an atmosphere where the audience kept being sucked into. And with this, Park manages to both heighten the climax and seclude major twist of the story from the audience till the end. I have to admit I didn’t catch on that Mido is Daesu’s daughter until the very end. Frankly, my first impression of the film 30 minutes in is that Oldboy is just going to be one of those revenge films where a person commits a hideous crime to another and then it ignites this emotion of hatred and anger inside someone strong enough to seek revenge. I did not expect such a disturbing twist at the end.
While watching the movie, “Old Boy,” I thought the movie contains a meaning of how a person becomes a monster throughout the process of revenging. In the movie, there are two main characters, Dae Su and Woo Jin, who try to revenge to each other, without realizing that they are destroying themselves. To revenge, they both commit a sin, which completely ruins their own lives. I thought this movie teaches us about how a small thing could cause a huge results, just like how Dae Su’s forgettable memory of Woo Jin and Soo Ah’s story cause Dae Su to get imprisoned for 15 years and to commit a sin with his own daughter. Toward the end of the movie, I thought Woo Jin and Dae Su show interesting relationship with each other. Before Woo Jin kills himself, he tells everything to Dae Su about what he did and gives shock to Dae Su. He made Dae Su to commit the same sin and made him to feel the same suffering. I thought Woo Jin created another monster just like himself before he dies. Through the revenging process, Woo Jin made Dae Su to become just like him, who commits same crime, spends his life for revenging, and feels similar anger. The characters were very interesting in the movie. Also, I thought the colors and patterns shown in the scenes are pretty interesting. Overall, the color tone of the movie is very gloomy and dark. Not only room that Dae Su was imprisoned, but also Woo Jin’s luxury house seems very gloomy. I thought it creates the mood of the movie more mysterious and dark since the main theme of the movie is about revenging. Also, I thought the purple umbrella and boxes helped Woo Jin to be shown as more mysterious character. Generally, the color purple has mysterious and some kinds of solitude feelings. I thought it represents Woo Jin’s situation and emotions of feeling loneliness and anger toward Dae Su after losing his sister. Even though the movie was really violent to watch, it was really great movie that contain lots of interesting elements.
The film Oldboy illustrates revenge between two men. In this movie, there are a lot of intense elementary included such as near relationship. This is very sensitive topic to Asia culture as well as European culture. Then, why does Park, Chan-Wook make a decision to put this sensitive topic into movie? The reason is there has to be special cause that lock in one guy 15 years by alone with prohibiting conversation with society. In addition at the last scene, Dae-Su cuts his tongue by himself to protect Mido and it is kind of similar situation that one Greek novel "Oidipus". Oidipus also has near relationship with his mother, eventually gets punished that pull out his eyes by himself. Oldboy also illustrates narcissism in the movie. The scene that when Woo-Jin makes love with his sister, she keeps looking her face with mirror and taking a picture by herself. Finally, She commits suicide and puts her body to the river and there is also similar Greek character "Narcissus" who has narcissism and die same way as Woo-Jin's sister. Oldboy has a lot of action scene and shocking story. It may makes audience uncomfortable for the movie, but Chan-Wook, Park solves this problem by inserting humor into the movie. The color and music is pretty important in the Oldboy. I see a lot of purple color in the movie. The color purple has meaning that death and satisfaction. At the beginning scene when Dae-Su got kidnapped, his umbrella was purple and at the last scene the box color also was purple. Music always follow with this movie. When Dae-su and Mido has common sense for lonely and Dae-Su just gout out of the room, music is coming that feel like showing pain of Dae-su.
Park Chan-Wook directed the complex revenge story of Old Boy. The cinematography of the film gave the atmosphere a dim gloomy feeling. During the captivity of Oh Dae Su, the lighting through out the whole film has a grayish yellow tint. This tint gives the impression of a dark and sinister environment. This lighting affect helps the set the background for the character’s emotion to really show. This lighting can be seen in the scenes where Oh Dae Su is held captive in an isolated room. There is not much lighting in the room, making it feel more uncomfortable and not a welcoming place to live. Also, the setting of the prison had not much lighting making the place seem like a dirty and dangerous place. The movie starts out on comedic terms with the old Oh Dae Su living his regular life. This gives the impression of a happy environment. As the movie goes on, the dark cinematography matches the changing personality of Oh Dae Su as he is being consumed with revenge and darkness. He starts to turn into a monster, which he claims in the movie that he is uncertain that he can go back to his old cheerful self. As he looks into the past of Wool-Jin, Oh Dae Su’s old personality is shown as a jokester. From this, it is possible to see the change of Oh Dae Su’s cheerful personality to the inhumane person he became. Revenge is the reoccurring theme that happens throughout the film. The main concept of revenge can be explained through Oh Dae Su and Wool-Jin’s relationship. The revenge starts out with Wool-Jin’s anger from the death of his dear sister. Oh Dae Su was responsible for the revealing of Wool-Jin and his sister’s scandalous relationship. Therefore, Wool-Jin blames Oh Dae Su and tries to heal from his sister’s death by seeking revenge on Oh Dae Su. Wool-Jin seeks revenge by placing a similar but twisted misfortune on Oh Dae Su. After Oh Dae Su is captured and manipulated, he then seeks revenge for the person who kept him captive, which is Wool-Jin. The main point of this movie is that revenge is a never-ending cycle that is fueled by anger and misfortune. If there is a person responsible for one’s suffering, then revenge becomes the only solution to heal the anger and pain. That’s what both Oh Dae Su and Wool-Jin try to pursue which ends badly for both.
Korean film, “Oldboy” as a whole is very violent, with some wince-inducing moments that may be too much for sensitive viewers, especially the infamous live squid eating scene. The movie really does unravel the secrets of the human mind and the evil that goes behind the mind. It is about unravelling these secrets and seeing how evil they are – and what people are willing to do to hide secrets or to reveal them. It is also about revenge, morality and romance. A nod here to the sound and the look of the movie, the use of stylised colour adds greatly to the surreal experience again making the violence seem more visceral than it actually is. After I watched this movie, I thought that I have not to talk about others and keep my mouth close. This is a movie that leaves a big impression on me.
Within the movie, Old Boy, there are some very interesting and imaginative transitions, shots, and storytelling methods that make for a very engrossing cinematic experience. The first transition that really stood out to me was one of the first flashback moments in which a train comes out of the background to reveal a surreal moment when Mido sees a human sized ant sitting on the subway. What was very intriguing about this shot was how it came out of the background without being jarring, which is seen throughout the movie. Another example would be near the end of the film when Woo-Jin has a flashback to his sister’s death right before he commits suicide. We see him holding another person’s hand which transitions us into what is going through the characters mind at that moment. It is a really unique storytelling method; the most intense example of this would be the series of scenes in which Dae-Su is searching his old high school which melds the past and the present as if in a chase scene. By the end of the chase the audience has transitioned into a first person perspective in the memory; as high school Dae-Su witnessing the scene as a peeping tom through the hole in the window. Another interesting thing is how the all the flashbacks scenes are shot with a yellowish almost sepia tone quality to help differentiate the audience differentiate between reality and memory. While the cinematography was amazing and really imaginative, the story itself did not seem to hold up quite nearly as well. The motivation of Woo-jin just seemed so extremely misplaced, but more importantly is that his whole scheme felt so contrived to the point of almost ruining the movie. The two main problems with the plan was the idea that just through hypnotism, he could orchestrate the entire father daughter incestual relationship, and that he has unlimited resources in which to enact his revenge. While I understand why these are in place -if they were not we would not even have a movie- they are not justified by the world they are in enough to let the audience sufficiently suspend their disbelief. For example in the movie, Cure, the idea of hypnotism is sufficiently grounded in that movie because of the dark mysterious almost supernatural undercurrents seen in that world. But Old Boy’s setting does not provide this context to which Woo-jin’s scheme can go perfectly to plan through hypnotism or necessarily explain his omnipotent/omnipresent resources and influence.
Overall, the scenes from the movie are largely dominated by red. Many crucial sources are also related to red, tongue, blood (as in family, or revenge), love and eroticism. Even in the first scene, after Oh Daesu was kidnapped, the arrow that has 'x' in the middle was reddish instead of white, which is the usual color of the arrow signs in Korea. It must have implied that the movie's flow, whatever the characters lead it to the end is wrong. Also, time, or the sound of time ticking has been described quite important in the movie. Calendar showing the pass of days raised the tensed mood in the movie, however, more than that, all these time related items emphasize the inner wound that was never been able to be healed. At the same time, it was very interesting how the movie drew the time passing through the news. When all these major events happened, he was never been able to be a part of the events, or the world. It could also have delivered a message saying that the world flows well without Oh Daesu, he is not really a big part of the world. However, he must have been a big part of Lee Woojin's life. Cutting one's tongue is a sign of atonement for this, at the same time, a safe cushion keeping him from telling Mido the truth, or maybe an implication of bearing the big burden to himself so that both can live. There is an original comic that the movie was based on, and looking at the differences, it is quite impressing. First of all, the time Oh Daesu was trapped in that room, was different because of the statute of limitations in Korea. Also, the reason for the revenge was also different but this change is due to more of a persuasive and dramatic flow for the movie. Incest is considered a big sin especially in Korea, maybe due to Korea's conservative position, and thus, it is possible to lead a person to suicide. I think when the sister of Woojin's died, Woojin's human part died as well. The only remaining part, the beast that lives only for the revenge, has been created, and he is taking away Oh Daesu's human part as well by taking away everything he had. Apart from the original, the movie keeps saying something about 'living today,' and it plays a crucial role in the movie as Oh Daesu believes in that even if someone is worse than an animal, they still have right to live. That is the reason why he decided to live with Mido after forgetting everything. He couldn't have survived near Mido carrying the knowledge of the relation between them. Many critiques say that Oldboy has a lot of cross-overs with Greek Mythology, especially Oedipus. However, this movie has given a different conclusion from the myth where physical or social death was the remedy, by letting Oh Daesu to live, just like what he said in the police office in the first scene, live day by day somehow taking care of it.
Old Boy is a powerful film, not only because of what the movie depicts, but also because of the effective usage on the film movement and setting throughout the film. The movie opens as the audience see little glimpse of Oh Dae-su’s life, being drunk and causing small troubles through fistfights. The next we see Oh Dae-su, being left alone in the dark prison, without knowing the reason why he is left alone in the place. Then, the next scene appears a psychiatrist, telling Oh Dae-su that he is thrown out to the nature. This flow of space movement from the dim, shady jail room to a bright, free land suggests that Oh Dae-su is finally free. The setting of the nature was useful since it has a representational idea of freedom. Without giving us obvious scenes, such as Oh Dae-su directly coming out from the jail, the choice of the setting has much expressive value. The setting of the nature appears once again at the end of the film, where we spot Oh Dae-su and psychiatrist sitting outside the forest. This scene shifts from Woo Jin’s office, where all the dirty fights and were revealed. The end of the scene portrays Oh Dae-su, whom is informing his story to psychiatrist in the cold snow. Not only through his actions, but the cold, empty space illustrates how Oh Dae-su feels, as he feels harmed, lonely, and weak. Although the nature does clearly tell that Oh Dae-Su is once again “free” from knowing the secrets, the aura of the place sends a message that Oh Dae-su is weakened by the truths. Park Chanwook’s choice on the nature sets has created the film more powerful, stylistically improvising Oh Dae –Su’s point of views.
The movie 'Oldboy' was a masterpiece. Even though I already saw the movie before, it did not bored me at all. The camera's movement and sound effect, acting of actors, change of scene etc. were really well organized and they lured me again. For example, the scene that Dae-su Oh realized his wife was killed by someone pretending him, was made up with ants crawling on Dae-su's body made by computer effects, camera's circling around the Dae-su Oh and sound of strong wind. They were in one scene to show how much Dae-su Oh was frustrated, was in extreme grief and how Dae-su Oh started to become mad at the one who captured him in private prison. The scene was powerful enough to make anyone to sympathize to his pursue for revenge including me. And this film never give up to bring this harmony until the end of movie. Of course the movie makes people to feel uneasy as the movie emphasizes cruel and pornographic moments for the movie's theme; men's extreme revenge because of love. However, if you can find that many people's death in Macbeth, one tragedy of Shakespeare, was necessary for the tragedy, then you would understand this movie, Oldboy also needed cruel and pornographic moments.
The movie 'old boy' has a twisted plot, in my perspective, somehow it contains nasty stories such as having affairs with family members, mentally and physically. The fact that this movie is praised by people is that it shows the opposite social norm in South Korea, since Korea is considered as a conservative country. This movie has not only the theme of vengeance, but also the turn-around at the end. It shows how one's word could screw thing up so badly of others, but also its own. Moreover, the movie demonstrates that human being can be so cruel and violent to approach a goal, a revenge, beyond the limitation. Additionally, Old Boy shows a loneliness ruins people, furthermore, a human can hide its own desire and let go of oneself to protect a loving one. Overall, Old Boy creates mysterious atmosphere with a color, red, and a music. The music played not only in the background but also Ji Tae Yu sings in the movie.
The cinematography of the film, in many ways, brings out the plot really well. One memorable scene for me was at Sangnook high school where Oh Daesu tried to trace his past. The characters switched between the young and old Daesu, and the old Daesu was chasing the younger version of himself. Strangely enough, he could not remember anything, it was as if it was the first time he had seen Woo Jin and Soo Ah. This emphasises Woo Jin's hatred for Dae Su as he was unaware that his actions would have caused Soo Ah's death.
The scene where Dae Su and Woo Jin's faces were aligned on the screen brought out the theme of monstrosity in the plot very well. Woo Jin seemed to be the monster at first, seeking revenge by plotting the demise of Dae Su for 15 years, creating a monster in Dae Su. Dae Su, however, gradually becomes a bigger monster by wanting revenge so much that he lost himself
Oldboy is a film that is widely regarded as one of the biggest cult classics from Korea. Through the scope of national cinema, the film evokes much pride from Koreans, won international acclaim, and even has a Hollywood remake being released later this year. However, the film itself is based off a Japanese manga, so although it contributes to Korean national cinema, the original material is not Korean. Nevertheless, it is one of the most well-known Korean films, and has showed international audiences that Korean national cinema can be top quality.
The cinematography in the film is, in my opinion, outstanding. Park Chan-wook's very gritty style and camera techniques help make the film as great as it is. The long shot that includes the hallway fight, for instance, is one of the best fight scenes I have ever seen, and the way the camera views the hallway as a whole and moves back and forth help make that fight as intense as it is. Other scenes I enjoyed included the one where Oh Daesu is in the police station and the montage of his imprisonment with the recent events shown on the TV. Those two scenes' use of rapid shots and takes were very effective. The different uses of cinematography definitely, in my opinion, helped make the film what it is.
Steven (Seung Tae) Kim Oldboy is one of those movies where the viewer watches the movie feeling like they're in a sleepy, and dream-like state. The movie's tone is very atmospheric and surreal, sort of reflecting Oh Dae Su's state of mind. The gloomy shots and surrealistic style of filming is in a way Oh Dae Su's perspective and how he sees the rest of the world after being held prisoner for so long. Dae Su's behavior and the way he sees everything sort of accurately reflects anybody's actions after suddenly being reintroduced to the outside world after more than a decade. His mixture of confusion, bitterness, anger, and absolute desire for answers really accentuates Oh Dae Su's role as this stranger in this world. It's almost as if he is this otherworldly creature who's a complete misfit and completely doesn't fit in to his current time period he's in. This "stranger in a strange land" aspect, and the fact that Oh Dae Su has literally nothing in the world that he's in, and everything that ever shaped who Oh Dae Su is got left behind 15 years ago further fuels Oh Dae Su's desire to find answers because that's the only thing he has to live for now.
With a screaming of a guy, locked in the hotel room for fifteen years, the movie opens the first scene. Directed by Park Chan-wook, the movie, “Old boy”, mainly focuses on people’s revenge, and how that vicious cycle continues. The main character witnessed a girl’s affair accidently when he was in high school year. Without knowing how this conversation would cause huge problem later, he talked to his friend about what he saw. This trivial chat which Dea-su considered as a trivial thing made a horrible ending to one’s life and even put himself in a danger of ruining his whole life. As the captor’s purpose of capturing Dae-su is revealed, the director shows how trifling rumor can cause harms to other people awfully, and the terrible consequences of revenge. The captor, one of victims of rumor, committed terrible sins, including murder, and contributes his whole life for revenge. However, at the end of the movie, he realizes how meaningless it was and commits suicide. As the tone and the color are gloomy all the time in the movie, whether in the captor’s luxurious room or in the hotel room, the movie’s dark and depressed moods are highlighted well. Moreover, as there are many eye-shots at the end, it makes easier for audience to be assimilated into characters’ feeling. Personally, I would consider these two men as monsters who become blinds for revenge regardless other people’s pain and burden that they have to carry.
This may be a bit of a stretch, but I want to present a different interpretation of the film, Old Boy. Perhaps the two main characters, Oh Dae-Su and Woo-Jin, are actually the same person: Woo-Jin being the actual living being, and the other, Dae-Su, an incarnation of Woo-Jin's mind as a human. Let me explain. I am suggesting that Woo-Jin's incest and his sister's death did in fact happen, and that he now suffers from guilt and trauma from the fact. This agonizing guilt-ridden monster inside his head is portrayed through the character Dae-Su: Woo-Jin captures and locks Dae-Su into solitary confinement, thus theoretically burying the problem into the back of Woo-Jin's mind. The film, what would be normally seen as a revenge film, then becomes the story of a sinner who tries but fails to fight off the wild,sinning, guilt-ridden beast inside of him. The very first scene is that of Dae-Su (or maybe his name isn't Dae-Su as the scene cuts right before he reveals his name) holding onto who I believe is the real Woo-Jin and preventing his suicide. And for some odd reason he is holding a white dog as he tries to kill himself. The white companion parallels the white-haired side kick that sticks by the "imaginary" Woo-Jin. it seems plausible that the suicidal man in the first scene and the man who calls himself Woo-Jin are connected in some way. In addition, the scene in which Woo-Jin and Dae-su first meet, Woo-Jin, as he is being choked, tells Dae-Su something along the lines of "You're strong. You are indeed the monster that I created". This also further supports this wayward interpretation of this movie.
Furthermore, at the end of the film (the part that we didn't get to see in class), the hypnotist having been asked for help by Dae-Su, tells him that he will split in into two people. One is the monster who knows the truth, and the other oblivious to his traumatic past. After she rings her bell, the monster will walk away, age 70 years, and die a peaceful death, possibly implying that Woo-Jin's painful memory will once and for all be buried and forgotten in the course of time.
All in all, this is kind of a far feched idea but that very first scene in the film was just so strange and random... there had to be a reason director Park Chan-Wook placed that scene at the very beginning of the film.
My father used to told me that "Guys should becareful three ends, First one you should worry about is end of your hand. Do not sign it in contract without reading carefully. Next, becareful with your tongue, words you spoke can never be returned or canceled. And lastly, the most important one is end of your dick." I was able to check at least two of them through this movie. This movie is mainly about the revenge which ends with feeling the fulfility of life after everything is done. But actually, I believes it is cruel and immature revenge. All the action scenes waere violent with many blood. Factor that I really like about this movie is how they film this movie. The way how they display the story line is showing not only situation of Daesu ,but also the situation of Woojin. So that audience were easy to understand what is going on between two main characters. Usually, in the movie which is searching for clues, it doesn't show what is also going on with the criminal. However 'Old boy' showed how does Woojin reacts with Daesu which increased the curiousity of audience. It helped me to understand this movie easily.
The film Old Boy is surely one of the best films made in Korea. Its complexity and combination of various genres within the movie were more than enough to praise. Also the director Park Chan Wook's attempt to convey philosophical messages throughout the movie was astonishing.But for many of ordinary viewers, who do not pay as much attention to the messages, were also able to enjoy Old Boy because for the combination of action and thriller. Park Chan Wook purposely made movie to be complicated and tangled. The process of solving the mystery of 15 years in prison maximizes the tension among the viewers. Gradually revealing the secret captivates and foster audience's curiosity. Beside the plot line, the development of characters were also amazing. Oh Dae Su the main character of the movie clearly conveyed how people should be careful of what they say. On the other hand, Woo Jin's revenge displayed how revenge does not solve anything. Overall, it was great movie that every mature viewers could enjoy. It was a movie that people should watch more than twice to fully understand the meaning.
The film "Old Boy" is merely of vengeance. The plotline consists of revenge of one man that ultimately ruins another man's life. There are many symbolisms that help carry on the message that the director Park Chan Wook is trying to convey to the audience. Bodily disfiguration, hallucination, existential paradox are all parts of the film that bring on the overall theme. Oh Dae Su, the protagonist of the movie, was captivated in an unknown room for an unknown reason for 15 years. Just by knowing this fact, it does seem very questionable - which creates the curiosity of the viewers further becoming a catalyst for the audience to keep on watching the film. The protagonist's main goal was to find who did this, and for what reason. The grasping factors can be how Park makes "vengeance" as some sort of a game and a choice. It can be seen sort of comical of keeping a man for 15 years without knowing why, and this may be the start of the game where the main character has to first endure in a single room, and figure out why he is trapped for such a long time. It does gradually build up intensity to a point where the game's conclusion is made with a choice. Woo-jin, who created this scheme of keeping Oh Dae Su, shows his remote control to him, which Woo-jin's life relies on a single button.
Body parts are crucial in this film. When Oh Dae Su is captivated, the only live, reliable factor is himself, or his body. He tried to suicide several times by making cut on his wrist - there are numerous scenes in the beginning showing blood on his wrist with him fainted. Not only this, but Oh Dae Su also seeks revenge on a man by pulling his teeth out with a hammer. From this, we can tell that mouth, as communication, is an important idea in the film. Ultimately, Oh Dae Su was captivated because of his "mouth", how he told his friend a secret about a sight with Woo-jin and his sister. Furthermore, hallucination is another portion of the film where Park Chan Wook hints the audience that Oh Dae Su was psychologically damaged for the fact that he is lost to why he is in the room. There is a scene where ants come out from Oh Dae Su's arm and spreads all over his body. It is later explained by Mido, his lover/daughter, that hallucination of ants show some kind of loneliness and that he has nowhere to go.
Woo-jin, seeks revenge on Oh Dae Su, who he thinks ruined the relationship with his sister and made her die. Therefore, Woo-jin creates a similar situation with Dae Su's own daughter by making them fall in love with each other. In Old Boy, there is this never ending revenge cycle that make the two characters' only option for anger is revenge.
The film Old boy by Park chan-wook is a successful Korean movie which won so many world movie awards. Sometimes it is very odd and brutal to watch, but at the same time, it has its own power that audience cannot stop watching. There is interesting and unique style of storytelling and essential parts like ant and the background music which made the movie flourish. It is pretty straightforward to understand what this movie wants to tell about, but it also really delivers it in extreme way. Main theme like revenge, which is dominantly spoken from the main characters like Oh dae-su and Woo-jin, is importantly grown up in each character. Especially for Dae-su who curves the years in prison on his hand was one of my shocking scenes that I could not imagine. His sorrow, pitiful, and evil mind is grown up in the prison for fifteen years while the sadistic, brutal nature of humanity is portrayed. While the movie was amazing and really imaginative, the motivation of Woojin to revenge daesu was not quite understandable, but it is important to grasp the idea that he erased daesu’s memory and made him to find out what he had done. The two main problems with the plan was the idea that just through hypnotism, he could orchestrate the entire father daughter relationship, and that he has unlimited resources in which to enact his revenge.
Firstly, my first thought that came into my mind when the professor told us that we are going to watch Old Boy, it was "ugh.. I have watched it so many times!". However, because it has been so many years I forgot some important details what happened in the movie. It was interesting to figure out the mysteries in the movie every time watching it. As genre of Old Boy is mysterious thriller, it is another fun to try to figure out the mysteries that the director put in the movie. Although it seems pretty extreme how Woo-Jin makes Dae-Su a monster in order to avenge against Dae-su. The director Park Chan-wook's cinematography was very exceptional. His camera and focusing works helped me a lot to understand what is going on and which details are important to catch. Also, the movie portrays how an evilly made monster would be extremely hard to change and go back to Dae-su he used to be before he has been imprisoned for 15 years.
suyon shin Basically Old Boy is a revenge story about Oh Dae Soo and Lee Woo Jin. Oh Dea Soo was just an ordinary person who did not seem to have any special thing in his life. One day, without any notice, Oh Dae Soo disappear from nowhere; he was captured by people who were employed by one anonymous person. Oh Dae Soo had to live in a very poor isolated cell for 20 years ever since he got captured without knowing any reason. He was released 20 years later and his dramatic story began. He started to search for the hints why he was captured from unknown person. While he was looking for the employer, he met a girl and eventually fell in love. At the very end, he found out that whole his life in the cell was drawn out from one guy named Lee Woo Jin who wanted to destroy Dae Soo’s life. Once, Lee Woo Jin had a loved one few decades ago when both of the guys were students; however, the girl he loved was his only sister. Dae Soo was very talkative and wild in his adolescence and when he found out that Woo Jin and his sister’s love story, because of his gossip the rumor had been spread out and eventually that rumor led the sister to suicide herself. Because of his sister’s tragic death, Lee Woo Jin decided himself to live for revenge to Dae Soo. I have seen the movie once before and it was very shocking but kind of make sense. It is somewhat understandable that living for a revenge. The whole movie had a very gloomy and mysterious atmosphere. Two things that I impressed about were one pitiful gossip could affect one’s life and how the tragic events could be done by revenge.
The film ‘Old Boy’ deals with revenge through out the film. Lee Woo Jin thought of revenge when his hatred was at maximum, which was when her sister committed suicide. I think it was wrong for Woo Jin to blame everything on Oh Dae Su because Woo Jin’s action with his sister at the school wasn’t morally right and Woo Jin’s revenge completely ruined Oh Dae Su’s life. I think Woo Jin just concentrated thinking of revenge that he couldn’t think about what he has done wrong.
At the end of the film, the hypnotist helped Oh Dae Su to erase his memory. When the hypnotist asked Oh Dae Su to will split into two, one who knows the past and the other who doesn’t know his past, his reflection appears in the window. I think it is possible that when Oh Dae Su who walks away from the window, it is Lee Woo Jin’s memory that is being removed after the revenge.
The title of this movie is “Old Boy”. I was kind of wondering that how it related to the whole story. I figured out that it meant to be an alumnus. This story was based on revenge and incest. The one sentence came into my head was 아무리 짐승같은 놈이라도 인간답게 살 권리가 있는 것 아닌가요?. Originally, Incest was considered as a taboo furthermore a sin. However, this sentence made me thinking of a human condition. No matter how badly people experienced a tragic affair, they could overcome the difficulties well if they truly wanted happiness. I felt this movie was expressed a salvation inside of a violence. In the last scene of the movie, Yi Woojin looked back on the past after avenged on Oh Daesu for the death of his sister. He redeemed his sister through the violence about Oh Daesu and he redeemed himself through the violence about suicide. The vicious cycle of the violence what our society had that still occurs today.
With Oldboy’s main character, Oh Dae Su on the brink of insanity wanting revenge against an unknown mysterious captor, director Park Chan Wook makes for a riveting to watch masterpiece film. In my opinion, the way the director successfully pulls off making the audience see in perspective of Oh Dae Su (being imprisoned for 15 years and then having 5 days to figure why) is what sets the suspenseful atmosphere which is why I praise this film. Examples include how the camera is shaking when Oh Dae Su is experiencing shock and stress and also how the melodramatic music captures the full feelings of Dae Su in many scenes. One of scenes where I feel the music captures the feeling of Dae Su is when he is fighting Woojin’s bodyguard during the final scene of the film. The music that plays right after the climax of the film sets a feeling for the audience that makes everything seem numb and unreal. What I mean is that after Dae Su finds the shocking truth, he must feel as if he is in a dreamlike state and almost numb to everything around him and I feel the music that played during that scene was perfect to capture that exact moment. During the five days after release, Dae Su unknowingly opens many doors that lead to his demise; in which all the results are completely hidden from the audience until the shocking climax. The way the director ties most significant events for an effective climax is what sets the film apart from most every other film I have ever watched.
ReplyDeleteAnother way Park Chan Wook successfully keeps the audience glued to the film is the constant violent intensity which leads to a relentless dark atmosphere. At the same time, the cinematography is crisp, fresh and full of style. One of the greatest scenes that portray this idea is the breathtaking hallway fight. The unusual long continuous take leads to the audience’s suspenseful feeling that I have never experienced in any other film. The continuous take effectively captures the full feeling of Daesu’s want for revenge which ultimately sets for an incredibly dark atmosphere but at the same time has the audience feel a sense of excitement for Daesu. I was greatly impressed how Chan Wook made a scene full of pure violence into a scene full of emotions that overwhelmed the audience through music and camera angle.
I think that the Oldboy was a great movie I have never seen before and it made me think when I saw the movie. There were lots of good things in the movie. Especially, visual effects, cinematography and art direction was amazing and beautiful. the composition of figures was wonderful and the particular quality of color in this film was beautiful.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, after I saw this movie, I understood why people recommended me to see Oldboy. The Oldboy started from a bad memory between two high school students. The bad memory is about incestuous relationship and it reached a young woman to death. It was totally wrongful death, so her younger brother who was a partner of incest plotted revenge to main character; dae su- oh who it was that started such report. I think that the revenge is also important to woo-jin, but he was too cruel and I felt that dae- su was pity because he lost his life for 15 years. In addition, he lost his family. More shockingly, he fell in love with his daughter and had a sex with her. Thus, I was not feel good throughout the movie.
Finally, I was really impressed by this movie and the actors looked good and fit comfortably into the film, and they were good at acting, too. However, the Oldboy was a movie that bloody, brutal, and uncompromising from the beginning to the very end, so it was too violent film.
The film Oldboy by Park, Chan-Wook, shows creation, suffering, and ending of a type of a monster. During this film specific score is played almost every encounter of Oh Dae Su and Lee Woo Jin. This score was very well used to evoke sentimental emotions of the audience of this particular film. Also, 1st movement of Vivaldi’s winter was properly used to maximize intensity of horror. Along with it, the Vivaldi’s winter surely showed the eagerness of Oh Dae Su’s revenge against Lee Woo Jin. During all physically violent scenes, diegetic sounds describe the incidents with detail. These scenes would be such as when Oh Dae Su pulls out teeth of gangster. This film is definitely a “showing” movie since it has a lot of strong visuals. The director of this film used variety of angle shots to identify state and mind of each character. When Oh Dae Su appears on the screen in the beginning of the film, many of the shots are high-angle shots. This showed his impotentness since he was locked in a room for fifteen years by another monster. However, as film progresses, number of high-angles shots decrease significantly. As the film approaches the end, most of the shots are eye-level shots as if the audience understands the memories of the monsters and feels the pain as well. When Oh Dae Su opens the last page of album which Lee Woo Jin made, he sees himself in a small mirror attached to the album. Instead of filming the character himself, this time, the character is shown through reflection in the mirror. This particular shot plays a major role to understand the audience about unstable mental state of Oh Dae Su, by utilizing Dutch tilt shot. The director Park, Chan-Wook uses idea of incest and revenge for means of creation of the two monsters. The monsters from both movies, The Host and Oldboy are man-made, one from The Host has physicality of a monster when the later has psychological characteristic of a monster.
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The movie Oldboy is a mesmerizing film, which also shows sexuality and violence. It is sophisticated and suspense. At the begging of the movie, Daesu is catching a man’s tie, the light the back the sunlight, so we cannot identify his face. That forms contrast with color, which seems to refer brightness and darkness of life, in another word, it sets the stage for the hero lives in prison and his life outside. The story is about a man who revenge after being caught ad imprisoned for 15 years and with unknown reason, and when he is released, he is given 5 days to figure out the reason.
And there still many mysterious scenes through expressions of Daesu, which are suspense, violence driven and emotional changes such as he fists and hitting the wall and tries to suicide.
Some scenes from the film are controversy. For example, Daesu eats an alive octopus. Eating live octopus in Korea is common, he tries to eat it up with one bite, which may cause apnea. Another realistic scene is that pulling teeth by using back of a harmer which makes me feel painful as the character.
Humanity is one of the main topic in the movie, For example, when Daesu in the prison, he like to touch Tv set, and he smells the man who wants to suicide and touch his body. That seems like black humor. He wants to be connected with life outside the prison. 15 years have changed a lot for him. Howver, humanity is never changed. Like Woo-jin, he is selfish, cold, and aggressive and hatred, until the moment he died, he still doesn’t learn to forgive.
What I saw throughout the movie was selfishness of Woo-jin Lee. The problem started by Woo-jin having relationship with his sister, Soo-ah, in school. It was morally wrong to have relationship with sister, more wrong to do it in Catholic school. Dae-su Oh saw them and mentally shocked and tells his friend about this, not to make a rumor about it but to gain relief. When Soo-ah dies Woo-jin did not think of what he has done but instead puts all blame on Dae-su. Dae su, who became victim of this irrationality, is completely destroyed. It was such irony when Woo jin tells Dae-su end of revenge is futile while he was revenging. As the result Woo-jin destroyed Dae-su with himself.
ReplyDeleteI think the quote “Be it a stone or a grain of sand, in water they both sink” Woo-jin said meant small sin and big sin are same sin. They both went to Catholic school and it may varies among Christian but most Christian believe God sees a small sin and big sin the same. Because of what Dae-su said, Soo-ah kills herself and made Woo-jin’s purpose of life is to revenge, Woo-jin’s planned revenge against Dae-su destroyed Dae-su’s life, even though what they did was different result of their action is very similar.
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ReplyDeleteDifferent perspectives in “Oldboy”
ReplyDeleteOne thing I really enjoyed about „Oldboy“ was that the film mesmerized me from the beginning to the end. Of course a big part of the films power to captivate is due to its thrilling plot. However I thought one other element besides the plot also very successfully helps to capture the: the camera’s movements and angles. A good example is when Oh Dae-su is at the police station because of his excessive drinking. During the whole scene the camera is or seems to be hand held. Through these hand-held, shaky shots it feels like you are a part of the happening. Moreover throughout the whole movie the camera never always seems to be steady. Through tilts or pans, changing angles and even close-ups it feels as if you yourself are always on the move.
Controversially at some points during the film it seems to me that Park Chan-wook suddenly wants to distance us from feeling like a part of the story. He does so, for instance, by swiftly presenting us a somewhat objective point of view (e.g. a birds-view/perspective). These overviews or sometimes accompanied by Oh Dae-su’s narrating. In a blink of an eye we are no more silent observers next to the characters in the plot, yet find ourselves being outside of the happening listening to Oh Dae-su’s life story. In a way I think the change of perspectives enables Park Chan-wook to play with the audience - keeping us close for the captivating tension, but also sparing us from too much violence and disgust.
I understand why Oldboy is part of this week's monster series now. Although the movie does not show any scenes with an image of a monster we associate the word with, the movie indeed has a monster, Oh Daesu.
ReplyDeleteWhile he is imprisoned, there is a scene where we see an ant come out of his skin and crawl on his arm. Later, ants start crawling all over his face and body while the camera spins around the room. Shadows are projected onto the wall to present a kind of chaotic scene. I feel that this is the transformation of Daesu into a monster because he couldn't take the news of the death of his wife who was 'killed' by himself. The fast forward cuts of his time during the imprisonment shows him turning further into a monster. His hair is bushier and he is training to build up his strength. When he finally cuts a hole in the wall and he reaches out for the rain water, his stature and the angle of the camera makes him look more animalistic than human.
Also, in the end of the movie when The truth was revealed to Daesu, there is a split moment when his face and Woojin's face overlap and it seems like they are the same person. I feel that this scene has the meaning that Daesu is just a monster that Woojin created. Woojin is just making Daesu experience the same thing that he had to go through during the relationship with his sister.
I think making movie “old boy” was very challenge for Korean Movie industry because general story of this movie is about committing incest between brother and sister, and father and daughter. I know that movie director usually does not prefer to use this kind of theme because it’s too risky; however, Park Chan Wook, movie director gave a shot and succeeded. The most impressive part of the movie was actor’s performance, especially Choi Min Sick who performed Oh Dae Soo role. He understood the character completely and performed really well.
ReplyDeleteThe movie is about Lee Woo Jin loved his sister; however, she killed herself due to other people’s stereotype against their relationship. He was so furious that he decided to revenge to Oh Dae Soo, main instigator of the problem, in same way how he suffered.
Majority of audiences thought that the main point of this movie is focused on committing incest; however, I thought director wanted to teach us that having trivial conversation about somebody to others without concerning the person directly involved would give incurable scar. However, I can understand Oh Dae Soo’s situation because at that time he was young and had lack of empathy or indulgent.
The movie Oldboy is one of the most disturbing, yet expertly crafted movies I have ever seen. The protagonist, Daesu, is the heart of the movie. His character is complex, dark, and compelling. Daesu’s personal quest to cover the reason of his 15-year imprisonment drives the movie to explore the darkest limits of the human condition. The sadistic, brutal nature of humanity is portrayed throughout the movie, but two aspects of the film stood out to me the most. I was impressed with the fight scene in Daesu’s former prison and the bright, vivid color of blood in the film.
ReplyDeleteThe fight scene is an impressive continuous take, but several aspects of that scene struck me as interesting. First of all, Daesu is pitted against a multitude of men. The prison employees are all younger and more typical rough-housers, with tattoos and clubs. Daesu is still clad in a suit, wielding a solitary hammer. The fight is messy; Daesu is stabbed in the back and appears to be badly injured, yet by the end of the scene rises triumphant from the mess of men, the solitary victor. The shot is wide, allowing the viewer to absorb the absurdity of the scene, at least ten or more men attacking a lone older man. This scene echoes Daesu’s earlier voiceover, where he noted that he would be absolutely alone in his quest. Daesu’s battle against the world is expertly portrayed in a single scene.
Additionally, I noted the bright, vivid color of blood in the film. Daesu is bloody or injured for much of the film, marking him as separate from other characters. This was particularly evident after the prolonged battle in the prison, as he staggers down city streets in broad daylight, soaked with blood. Even though it’s evident that he is injured, no one approaches him until a good Samaritan (who is later revealed to be Daesu’s torturer and prison warden) puts him in a taxi and sends him home. The color scheme in the movie is generally cool, monochromatic tones--blue, black, and grey. The notable exception is the unnaturally vivid blood that is constant splashed throughout the film. Blood represents pain, violence, and human tragedy. Daesu has survived much bloodshed, and the unexplained tragedies that he alone suffered are the core of this movie.
Old Boy, directed by Park Chan-wook, is definitely a violent and odd movie. It came to a stage where it was very uncomfortable to watch the movie. The general story of the movie is about Lee Woo Jin making a revenge to Oh Dae Soo for gossiping about Lee Woo Jin and his sister. Lee Woo Jin commits a suicide because the rumor about her and her brother loving each other was spread. Therefore, Lee Woo Jin decides to make a revenge on Oh Dae Soo. Lee Woo Jin locks Oh Dae Soo for 15 years and hypnotizes Oh Dae Soo and his daughter to love each other. I guess I can understand why Lee Woo Jin was so mad at Oh Dae Soo but they were young back then and I think that the revenge was to cruel. To be honest, I feel like both characters are kind of psychopath. I have watched the movie once when I was young. This was my second time watching it. At the end of the movie, I wandered if Lee Woo Jin hypnotized Oh Dae Soo and his daughter, then it is not real love. Would it have been too late for him to be just a father not a lover? Also, when Oh Dae Soo met up with his best friend, his best friend must have known where about his daughter.
ReplyDeleteThe body is a messenger of truth and emotions, displayed in a raw form that is so vivid throughout the film Oldboy. Director Park Chan Wook utilizes violence to highlight the themes that are prevalent in this cinematic masterpiece. A key component that is widely represented in Oldboy is the body, especially the mouth, where Oh Dae Su wreaks vengeance through removing one’s teeth or seeking the truth by sampling various dumplings. Choi Min Sik enters this role in an intense method, even physically consuming a live octopus, once again demonstrating the body aspect of the film. Amidst the violent fashion in Oldboy, there is a colorful touch in certain scenes, where the lighting is brightened, especially between Oh Dae Su and Mido. Although a brutal thriller, Oldboy’s score is melancholic at times, underlying the romantic subplot between Dae Su and Mido. A bleak atmosphere, the dark setting is consistent for the reminder that Dae Su is still imprisoned in the basement. Even in an outdoor environment, the audience feels trapped by the mystery surrounding Oh Dae Su’s complex tale.
ReplyDeleteCharacter development is such a key component in explaining the plotline, such as Oh Dae Su’s boorish behavior in the beginning to a concentrated character bent on revenge. As the audience is attempting to solve the puzzle behind Oh Dae Su’s imprisonment, there is a monster personality evolving within Oh Dae Su, exemplified through his torture methods and the self mutilation. Another key character is the primary antagonist, Woo Jin, who is behind Dae Su’s pain, where initially he is shown as a charismatic figure but later there is an ambiguous understanding to his terrible acts. He displays a sudden surge of anger when his painful past is brought up, such as the scene where he brutally murders Dae Su’s friend. He also bears a symbolic mark in his body, where a scar covers his pacemaker and represents the inevitable death he faces. Although the film shows violence and sexuality at an explicit term, there is an array of depth and symbolism in Oldboy.
Old Boy directed by Park Chan-wook, is a fictional mystery thriller which captivates audiences with its unpredictable twists and cynical revenge plots. One component Park plays with during the film is time. This is definitely a major factor pertaining to all the precise timing the plot works with. Throughout his life the main character Oh Dae-su has caused much deceit, this is shown not only through the main conflict of the story, but was also admitted by himself. The whole concept of revenge in this film is portrayed through twists which were not expected. Lee Woo-jin's whole plot scheme of revenge is definitely not a common one. Lee puts Oh Dae-su in a situation very similar to the one he was caught in, in the past in which the main conflict originated from. With the situation of the original rumour being incest happening with Lee Woo-jin and his sister, Lee places Oh Dae-su and his own daughter Mi-do, in a situation in which there is no other way for them to not fall in love with each other. Lee Woo-jin even says it himself, that making two individuals fall in love is a much harder task especially when it comes to hypnosis. This situation was specifically hard to believe, due to it being between a father and daughter. It was one of the many twists the audience was exposed to when watching this film.
ReplyDeleteIn the end Lee Woo-jin received the result he wanted, but through this he relived his own sisters suicide which backfired and ended up killing himself as well. With Oh Dae-su's revenge on Lee Woo-jin for locking him up for exactly fifteen years, he didn't get complete satisfaction although Lee did die. The fact of the matter is, Lee executed his revenge so cynically that it not only affected Oh Dae-su's life, but Mi-do's as well. When Oh Dae-su begged the hypnosis to make him forget the secret of his daughter, it left the audience with an open ended ending. This is proven by the ending when Mi-do comes to embrace Dae-su, at first he has a look of happiness after the hypnosis supposedly 'cured' him, but it quickly changes to a look of pain, showing the fatalities of revenge on both sides of the spectrum.
Revenge and truth, these are easily reoccurring themes in “OldBoy” and the two concepts that fuel this intricate dance of characters we see played out. Revenge as a driving force for a human’s existence legitimacy is questioned. What happens to a life once revenge has been filled? By Woojin’s suicide in the end, we see that a life fueled by revenge is an empty one once that goal has been reached. The truth as a tool to heal and to hurt is showcased. Both in the way that Oh Daesu desperately seeks for the truth of his imprisonment, giving him a purpose, but once he discovers the real truth of his “prison” he wishes he had never learned it in the first place. I think a particularly powerful line in the movie that sums this up is Daesu’s line, “revenge is good for your health, but pain will find you again.”
ReplyDeleteI think a scene I found particularly powerful in “Oldboy” is when Daesu is leaving the building of his 15-year imprisonment, after fighting off hordes of thugs. We see him staggering and covered in blood. He thinks to himself that he has truly become a monster at this moment. I immediately thought this scene to be a baptism of sorts, one in which Daesu has committed his first real act of violence on his road of revenge, and can no longer go back to who he was before. I think this self-accusation of being a monster is Daesu committing himself fully to seeking revenge and truth no matter what he needs to do to achieve these.
Overall I thought “OldBoy” was a very powerful and thought provoking movie. I think it is one that truly captivates its audience from start to finish both in terms of style and content.
Old Boy
ReplyDeleteWatching the movie, it motivated me to think upon the definition of revenge. I finally could not decide who is more malicious or cold-blooded, but that Daesu and Woojin are just the same old boys starting back from High School class mates. Revenge is displayed in so many ways in the film – through violence, letters, background music, and eyes. Panning the whole hallway, where Daesu has been imprisoned and where he fist fought with the bandit-looking guys symbolized the endurance of Daesu and very small triumph of his revenge. Once Daesu has pulled off 15 teeth of the head of bandits, this could have helped Daesu to catch up with his hardship and loneliness. The mind of Daesu was explained in one of classic music as background. I believe this effect served as an explanation of a hypnotized guy has kept a clear and refined mindset for his revenge.
Copious scenes with brutality, obscenity, and violence have settled in for Korean Cinema and rivalry of two famous actors have promoted to have those characteristics as a distinctive Korean film.
It is worth discussing about the plot and theme of the movie. As a motif of incest, the revenge have started and ended the lives of two old boys. It is not why Woojin imprisoned Daesu, but it is a question of why he released Daesu. Woojin started his real revenge as Daesu thought he has started his just after he got off the mysterious room. Then as the story goes, it has gotten harder to decide whose fault it is whether to: spoiling the secret of Woojin and his sister or imprisoning and releasing Daesu and have a relationship with his daughter. Reasonably it is unrealistic and so it is more powerful to focus on the definition of revenge rather than the contents. But personally, I think director Park has put Daesu as more mercy-deserving character than Woojin. Because of his inability to manage himself and his lack of duty to be a responsible father and a husband, as well as his unfit body, disheveled hair, and silly looking smile bought him pity. Furthermore, his lack of information about his new world after 15 years of no social activity made him to seem more innocent, and indiscriminating troubles built Daesu as more heroic one rather than monster.
Overall, for Woojin 15 years of imprisonment cannot compromise the loss of Woojin’s sister, and the death of a lunatic who put him for 15 years did not satisfy Daesu, because they both desired for something more that draws radical and insane revenges.
Like Director Bong Jun Ho, Director Park Chan Wook establishes various genres, including mystery, drama, and comedy, in one film and delivers a story that carries multiple messages. Overall, the movie is concentrated on punishment and vengeance of Oh Dae-Su, a man who gets locked up in a prison for 15 years for reasons he doesn’t understand. With dark palettes and intense, often loud non-diegetic sound, the general mood and score of the film correspond to such theme of the movie. However, Director Park Chan-Wook also tells a story of a dramatic relationship between characters Oh Dae-Su and Mido, using contrasting color palettes of red/ purple and green. The crimson colors are used to depict Mido as she often wears red clothes throughout the film, whereas green portrays Oh Dae-Su since many of the scenes in which he appears have greenish yellow overtone/ background. These complementary colors not only emphasize the discomforting mood of the film, but also signify the forbidden love between Mido and Oh Dae-Su. At times, the film includes some comical scenes which may seem abrupt and disruptive. However, I believe they merely evoke laughter from the audience and show the director’s unique, witty signature which can be seen in many of his other works such as Sympathy for Mr. Vengence and JSA: Joint Security Area.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the director’s innovative touch can be seen in the camera work. Conventionally, most fighting scenes are broken into several short takes from different angles to create a more fast-paced and exciting mood. But, in filming the hallway fighting scene in which Oh Dae-Su goes back to the prison to obtain more information about the mysterious captor, Director Park decides to take one long, uninterrupted take. As a result of his choice of camera work, the scene looks more sluggish compared to traditional action scenes, but it effectively emphasizes the solitude of Oh Dae-Su as he arduously fights innumerable enemies alone. Also, the camera movement in the scene in which Oh Dae-Su reminisce about his high school memories is notable. On the contrary to the fighting scene where the director deliberately created a slow-paced mood, in this scene, he takes short, crisp shots following the footsteps of young Oh Dae-Su to heighten the viewers’ emotions until the moment in which the truth about Lee Woo-Jin is revealed.
Billy Vang
ReplyDeleteOldboy, a 2003 mystery thriller film directed my Park, Chan-Wook, has got to be one of the most mind twisting movies I have ever seen. Not because it is under the genre mystery, but because director Park managed to mesmerize me (I want to say the audience too) from beginning to end of the film. By incorporating the camera’s movement as part of the film, Park gives the audience a more realistic perspective; as if we were in it. A scene I can recall is the one when Oh Daesu, main character, goes into a flashback of when he followed Lee Woojin and accidentally caught Lee and his sister incestuous relationship. The camera unsteadily followed Daesu’s chasing movement and at times, we were seeing things in his perspective. I felt captive along Oh Daesu in his strive to uncover the reason of his 15 years unexplained imprisonment. There many other scenes where this happens that I wish I could recall more, however another point I like touch upon is the visuals of Oldboy. Throughout the film, scenes, cuts, and longshot takes were strong and intensively captivating that the audience cannot intend to miss. When a character is showing some sort of emotion, the camera zooms in so we can see the facial expression of the characters. Longshot of intense fighting /torture/love scenes created an atmosphere where the audience kept being sucked into. And with this, Park manages to both heighten the climax and seclude major twist of the story from the audience till the end. I have to admit I didn’t catch on that Mido is Daesu’s daughter until the very end.
Frankly, my first impression of the film 30 minutes in is that Oldboy is just going to be one of those revenge films where a person commits a hideous crime to another and then it ignites this emotion of hatred and anger inside someone strong enough to seek revenge. I did not expect such a disturbing twist at the end.
While watching the movie, “Old Boy,” I thought the movie contains a meaning of how a person becomes a monster throughout the process of revenging. In the movie, there are two main characters, Dae Su and Woo Jin, who try to revenge to each other, without realizing that they are destroying themselves. To revenge, they both commit a sin, which completely ruins their own lives. I thought this movie teaches us about how a small thing could cause a huge results, just like how Dae Su’s forgettable memory of Woo Jin and Soo Ah’s story cause Dae Su to get imprisoned for 15 years and to commit a sin with his own daughter. Toward the end of the movie, I thought Woo Jin and Dae Su show interesting relationship with each other. Before Woo Jin kills himself, he tells everything to Dae Su about what he did and gives shock to Dae Su. He made Dae Su to commit the same sin and made him to feel the same suffering. I thought Woo Jin created another monster just like himself before he dies. Through the revenging process, Woo Jin made Dae Su to become just like him, who commits same crime, spends his life for revenging, and feels similar anger. The characters were very interesting in the movie.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I thought the colors and patterns shown in the scenes are pretty interesting. Overall, the color tone of the movie is very gloomy and dark. Not only room that Dae Su was imprisoned, but also Woo Jin’s luxury house seems very gloomy. I thought it creates the mood of the movie more mysterious and dark since the main theme of the movie is about revenging. Also, I thought the purple umbrella and boxes helped Woo Jin to be shown as more mysterious character. Generally, the color purple has mysterious and some kinds of solitude feelings. I thought it represents Woo Jin’s situation and emotions of feeling loneliness and anger toward Dae Su after losing his sister. Even though the movie was really violent to watch, it was really great movie that contain lots of interesting elements.
The film Oldboy illustrates revenge between two men. In this movie, there are a lot of intense elementary included such as near relationship. This is very sensitive topic to Asia culture as well as European culture. Then, why does Park, Chan-Wook make a decision to put this sensitive topic into movie? The reason is there has to be special cause that lock in one guy 15 years by alone with prohibiting conversation with society. In addition at the last scene, Dae-Su cuts his tongue by himself to protect Mido and it is kind of similar situation that one Greek novel "Oidipus". Oidipus also has near relationship with his mother, eventually gets punished that pull out his eyes by himself.
ReplyDeleteOldboy also illustrates narcissism in the movie. The scene that when Woo-Jin makes love with his sister, she keeps looking her face with mirror and taking a picture by herself. Finally, She commits suicide and puts her body to the river and there is also similar Greek character "Narcissus" who has narcissism and die same way as Woo-Jin's sister. Oldboy has a lot of action scene and shocking story. It may makes audience uncomfortable for the movie, but Chan-Wook, Park solves this problem by inserting humor into the movie. The color and music is pretty important in the Oldboy. I see a lot of purple color in the movie. The color purple has meaning that death and satisfaction. At the beginning scene when Dae-Su got kidnapped, his umbrella was purple and at the last scene the box color also was purple. Music always follow with this movie. When Dae-su and Mido has common sense for lonely and Dae-Su just gout out of the room, music is coming that feel like showing pain of Dae-su.
Park Chan-Wook directed the complex revenge story of Old Boy. The cinematography of the film gave the atmosphere a dim gloomy feeling. During the captivity of Oh Dae Su, the lighting through out the whole film has a grayish yellow tint. This tint gives the impression of a dark and sinister environment. This lighting affect helps the set the background for the character’s emotion to really show. This lighting can be seen in the scenes where Oh Dae Su is held captive in an isolated room. There is not much lighting in the room, making it feel more uncomfortable and not a welcoming place to live. Also, the setting of the prison had not much lighting making the place seem like a dirty and dangerous place. The movie starts out on comedic terms with the old Oh Dae Su living his regular life. This gives the impression of a happy environment. As the movie goes on, the dark cinematography matches the changing personality of Oh Dae Su as he is being consumed with revenge and darkness. He starts to turn into a monster, which he claims in the movie that he is uncertain that he can go back to his old cheerful self. As he looks into the past of Wool-Jin, Oh Dae Su’s old personality is shown as a jokester. From this, it is possible to see the change of Oh Dae Su’s cheerful personality to the inhumane person he became.
ReplyDeleteRevenge is the reoccurring theme that happens throughout the film. The main concept of revenge can be explained through Oh Dae Su and Wool-Jin’s relationship. The revenge starts out with Wool-Jin’s anger from the death of his dear sister. Oh Dae Su was responsible for the revealing of Wool-Jin and his sister’s scandalous relationship. Therefore, Wool-Jin blames Oh Dae Su and tries to heal from his sister’s death by seeking revenge on Oh Dae Su. Wool-Jin seeks revenge by placing a similar but twisted misfortune on Oh Dae Su. After Oh Dae Su is captured and manipulated, he then seeks revenge for the person who kept him captive, which is Wool-Jin. The main point of this movie is that revenge is a never-ending cycle that is fueled by anger and misfortune. If there is a person responsible for one’s suffering, then revenge becomes the only solution to heal the anger and pain. That’s what both Oh Dae Su and Wool-Jin try to pursue which ends badly for both.
Korean film, “Oldboy” as a whole is very violent, with some wince-inducing moments that may be too much for sensitive viewers, especially the infamous live squid eating scene. The movie really does unravel the secrets of the human mind and the evil that goes behind the mind. It is about unravelling these secrets and seeing how evil they are – and what people are willing to do to hide secrets or to reveal them. It is also about revenge, morality and romance. A nod here to the sound and the look of the movie, the use of stylised colour adds greatly to the surreal experience again making the violence seem more visceral than it actually is.
ReplyDeleteAfter I watched this movie, I thought that I have not to talk about others and keep my mouth close. This is a movie that leaves a big impression on me.
Within the movie, Old Boy, there are some very interesting and imaginative transitions, shots, and storytelling methods that make for a very engrossing cinematic experience. The first transition that really stood out to me was one of the first flashback moments in which a train comes out of the background to reveal a surreal moment when Mido sees a human sized ant sitting on the subway. What was very intriguing about this shot was how it came out of the background without being jarring, which is seen throughout the movie. Another example would be near the end of the film when Woo-Jin has a flashback to his sister’s death right before he commits suicide. We see him holding another person’s hand which transitions us into what is going through the characters mind at that moment. It is a really unique storytelling method; the most intense example of this would be the series of scenes in which Dae-Su is searching his old high school which melds the past and the present as if in a chase scene. By the end of the chase the audience has transitioned into a first person perspective in the memory; as high school Dae-Su witnessing the scene as a peeping tom through the hole in the window. Another interesting thing is how the all the flashbacks scenes are shot with a yellowish almost sepia tone quality to help differentiate the audience differentiate between reality and memory.
ReplyDeleteWhile the cinematography was amazing and really imaginative, the story itself did not seem to hold up quite nearly as well. The motivation of Woo-jin just seemed so extremely misplaced, but more importantly is that his whole scheme felt so contrived to the point of almost ruining the movie. The two main problems with the plan was the idea that just through hypnotism, he could orchestrate the entire father daughter incestual relationship, and that he has unlimited resources in which to enact his revenge. While I understand why these are in place -if they were not we would not even have a movie- they are not justified by the world they are in enough to let the audience sufficiently suspend their disbelief. For example in the movie, Cure, the idea of hypnotism is sufficiently grounded in that movie because of the dark mysterious almost supernatural undercurrents seen in that world. But Old Boy’s setting does not provide this context to which Woo-jin’s scheme can go perfectly to plan through hypnotism or necessarily explain his omnipotent/omnipresent resources and influence.
Overall, the scenes from the movie are largely dominated by red. Many crucial sources are also related to red, tongue, blood (as in family, or revenge), love and eroticism. Even in the first scene, after Oh Daesu was kidnapped, the arrow that has 'x' in the middle was reddish instead of white, which is the usual color of the arrow signs in Korea. It must have implied that the movie's flow, whatever the characters lead it to the end is wrong. Also, time, or the sound of time ticking has been described quite important in the movie. Calendar showing the pass of days raised the tensed mood in the movie, however, more than that, all these time related items emphasize the inner wound that was never been able to be healed. At the same time, it was very interesting how the movie drew the time passing through the news. When all these major events happened, he was never been able to be a part of the events, or the world. It could also have delivered a message saying that the world flows well without Oh Daesu, he is not really a big part of the world. However, he must have been a big part of Lee Woojin's life. Cutting one's tongue is a sign of atonement for this, at the same time, a safe cushion keeping him from telling Mido the truth, or maybe an implication of bearing the big burden to himself so that both can live.
ReplyDeleteThere is an original comic that the movie was based on, and looking at the differences, it is quite impressing. First of all, the time Oh Daesu was trapped in that room, was different because of the statute of limitations in Korea. Also, the reason for the revenge was also different but this change is due to more of a persuasive and dramatic flow for the movie. Incest is considered a big sin especially in Korea, maybe due to Korea's conservative position, and thus, it is possible to lead a person to suicide. I think when the sister of Woojin's died, Woojin's human part died as well. The only remaining part, the beast that lives only for the revenge, has been created, and he is taking away Oh Daesu's human part as well by taking away everything he had. Apart from the original, the movie keeps saying something about 'living today,' and it plays a crucial role in the movie as Oh Daesu believes in that even if someone is worse than an animal, they still have right to live. That is the reason why he decided to live with Mido after forgetting everything. He couldn't have survived near Mido carrying the knowledge of the relation between them. Many critiques say that Oldboy has a lot of cross-overs with Greek Mythology, especially Oedipus. However, this movie has given a different conclusion from the myth where physical or social death was the remedy, by letting Oh Daesu to live, just like what he said in the police office in the first scene, live day by day somehow taking care of it.
Old Boy is a powerful film, not only because of what the movie depicts, but also because of the effective usage on the film movement and setting throughout the film. The movie opens as the audience see little glimpse of Oh Dae-su’s life, being drunk and causing small troubles through fistfights. The next we see Oh Dae-su, being left alone in the dark prison, without knowing the reason why he is left alone in the place. Then, the next scene appears a psychiatrist, telling Oh Dae-su that he is thrown out to the nature. This flow of space movement from the dim, shady jail room to a bright, free land suggests that Oh Dae-su is finally free. The setting of the nature was useful since it has a representational idea of freedom. Without giving us obvious scenes, such as Oh Dae-su directly coming out from the jail, the choice of the setting has much expressive value. The setting of the nature appears once again at the end of the film, where we spot Oh Dae-su and psychiatrist sitting outside the forest. This scene shifts from Woo Jin’s office, where all the dirty fights and were revealed. The end of the scene portrays Oh Dae-su, whom is informing his story to psychiatrist in the cold snow. Not only through his actions, but the cold, empty space illustrates how Oh Dae-su feels, as he feels harmed, lonely, and weak. Although the nature does clearly tell that Oh Dae-Su is once again “free” from knowing the secrets, the aura of the place sends a message that Oh Dae-su is weakened by the truths. Park Chanwook’s choice on the nature sets has created the film more powerful, stylistically improvising Oh Dae –Su’s point of views.
ReplyDeleteEunice Won.
The movie 'Oldboy' was a masterpiece. Even though I already saw the movie before, it did not bored me at all. The camera's movement and sound effect, acting of actors, change of scene etc. were really well organized and they lured me again. For example, the scene that Dae-su Oh realized his wife was killed by someone pretending him, was made up with ants crawling on Dae-su's body made by computer effects, camera's circling around the Dae-su Oh and sound of strong wind. They were in one scene to show how much Dae-su Oh was frustrated, was in extreme grief and how Dae-su Oh started to become mad at the one who captured him in private prison. The scene was powerful enough to make anyone to sympathize to his pursue for revenge including me. And this film never give up to bring this harmony until the end of movie. Of course the movie makes people to feel uneasy as the movie emphasizes cruel and pornographic moments for the movie's theme; men's extreme revenge because of love. However, if you can find that many people's death in Macbeth, one tragedy of Shakespeare, was necessary for the tragedy, then you would understand this movie, Oldboy also needed cruel and pornographic moments.
ReplyDeleteThe movie 'old boy' has a twisted plot, in my perspective, somehow it contains nasty stories such as having affairs with family members, mentally and physically. The fact that this movie is praised by people is that it shows the opposite social norm in South Korea, since Korea is considered as a conservative country. This movie has not only the theme of vengeance, but also the turn-around at the end. It shows how one's word could screw thing up so badly of others, but also its own. Moreover, the movie demonstrates that human being can be so cruel and violent to approach a goal, a revenge, beyond the limitation. Additionally, Old Boy shows a loneliness ruins people, furthermore, a human can hide its own desire and let go of oneself to protect a loving one.
ReplyDeleteOverall, Old Boy creates mysterious atmosphere with a color, red, and a music. The music played not only in the background but also Ji Tae Yu sings in the movie.
The cinematography of the film, in many ways, brings out the plot really well. One memorable scene for me was at Sangnook high school where Oh Daesu tried to trace his past. The characters switched between the young and old Daesu, and the old Daesu was chasing the younger version of himself. Strangely enough, he could not remember anything, it was as if it was the first time he had seen Woo Jin and Soo Ah. This emphasises Woo Jin's hatred for Dae Su as he was unaware that his actions would have caused Soo Ah's death.
ReplyDeleteThe scene where Dae Su and Woo Jin's faces were aligned on the screen brought out the theme of monstrosity in the plot very well. Woo Jin seemed to be the monster at first, seeking revenge by plotting the demise of Dae Su for 15 years, creating a monster in Dae Su. Dae Su, however, gradually becomes a bigger monster by wanting revenge so much that he lost himself
Ryan Chang
ReplyDeleteOldboy is a film that is widely regarded as one of the biggest cult classics from Korea. Through the scope of national cinema, the film evokes much pride from Koreans, won international acclaim, and even has a Hollywood remake being released later this year. However, the film itself is based off a Japanese manga, so although it contributes to Korean national cinema, the original material is not Korean. Nevertheless, it is one of the most well-known Korean films, and has showed international audiences that Korean national cinema can be top quality.
The cinematography in the film is, in my opinion, outstanding. Park Chan-wook's very gritty style and camera techniques help make the film as great as it is. The long shot that includes the hallway fight, for instance, is one of the best fight scenes I have ever seen, and the way the camera views the hallway as a whole and moves back and forth help make that fight as intense as it is. Other scenes I enjoyed included the one where Oh Daesu is in the police station and the montage of his imprisonment with the recent events shown on the TV. Those two scenes' use of rapid shots and takes were very effective. The different uses of cinematography definitely, in my opinion, helped make the film what it is.
Steven (Seung Tae) Kim
ReplyDeleteOldboy is one of those movies where the viewer watches the movie feeling like they're in a sleepy, and dream-like state. The movie's tone is very atmospheric and surreal, sort of reflecting Oh Dae Su's state of mind. The gloomy shots and surrealistic style of filming is in a way Oh Dae Su's perspective and how he sees the rest of the world after being held prisoner for so long.
Dae Su's behavior and the way he sees everything sort of accurately reflects anybody's actions after suddenly being reintroduced to the outside world after more than a decade. His mixture of confusion, bitterness, anger, and absolute desire for answers really accentuates Oh Dae Su's role as this stranger in this world. It's almost as if he is this otherworldly creature who's a complete misfit and completely doesn't fit in to his current time period he's in.
This "stranger in a strange land" aspect, and the fact that Oh Dae Su has literally nothing in the world that he's in, and everything that ever shaped who Oh Dae Su is got left behind 15 years ago further fuels Oh Dae Su's desire to find answers because that's the only thing he has to live for now.
With a screaming of a guy, locked in the hotel room for fifteen years, the movie opens the first scene. Directed by Park Chan-wook, the movie, “Old boy”, mainly focuses on people’s revenge, and how that vicious cycle continues. The main character witnessed a girl’s affair accidently when he was in high school year. Without knowing how this conversation would cause huge problem later, he talked to his friend about what he saw. This trivial chat which Dea-su considered as a trivial thing made a horrible ending to one’s life and even put himself in a danger of ruining his whole life. As the captor’s purpose of capturing Dae-su is revealed, the director shows how trifling rumor can cause harms to other people awfully, and the terrible consequences of revenge. The captor, one of victims of rumor, committed terrible sins, including murder, and contributes his whole life for revenge. However, at the end of the movie, he realizes how meaningless it was and commits suicide. As the tone and the color are gloomy all the time in the movie, whether in the captor’s luxurious room or in the hotel room, the movie’s dark and depressed moods are highlighted well. Moreover, as there are many eye-shots at the end, it makes easier for audience to be assimilated into characters’ feeling. Personally, I would consider these two men as monsters who become blinds for revenge regardless other people’s pain and burden that they have to carry.
ReplyDeleteThis may be a bit of a stretch, but I want to present a different interpretation of the film, Old Boy. Perhaps the two main characters, Oh Dae-Su and Woo-Jin, are actually the same person: Woo-Jin being the actual living being, and the other, Dae-Su, an incarnation of Woo-Jin's mind as a human. Let me explain. I am suggesting that Woo-Jin's incest and his sister's death did in fact happen, and that he now suffers from guilt and trauma from the fact. This agonizing guilt-ridden monster inside his head is portrayed through the character Dae-Su: Woo-Jin captures and locks Dae-Su into solitary confinement, thus theoretically burying the problem into the back of Woo-Jin's mind. The film, what would be normally seen as a revenge film, then becomes the story of a sinner who tries but fails to fight off the wild,sinning, guilt-ridden beast inside of him. The very first scene is that of Dae-Su (or maybe his name isn't Dae-Su as the scene cuts right before he reveals his name) holding onto who I believe is the real Woo-Jin and preventing his suicide. And for some odd reason he is holding a white dog as he tries to kill himself. The white companion parallels the white-haired side kick that sticks by the "imaginary" Woo-Jin. it seems plausible that the suicidal man in the first scene and the man who calls himself Woo-Jin are connected in some way. In addition, the scene in which Woo-Jin and Dae-su first meet, Woo-Jin, as he is being choked, tells Dae-Su something along the lines of "You're strong. You are indeed the monster that I created". This also further supports this wayward interpretation of this movie.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, at the end of the film (the part that we didn't get to see in class), the hypnotist having been asked for help by Dae-Su, tells him that he will split in into two people. One is the monster who knows the truth, and the other oblivious to his traumatic past. After she rings her bell, the monster will walk away, age 70 years, and die a peaceful death, possibly implying that Woo-Jin's painful memory will once and for all be buried and forgotten in the course of time.
All in all, this is kind of a far feched idea but that very first scene in the film was just so strange and random... there had to be a reason director Park Chan-Wook placed that scene at the very beginning of the film.
My father used to told me that "Guys should becareful three ends, First one you should worry about is end of your hand. Do not sign it in contract without reading carefully. Next, becareful with your tongue, words you spoke can never be returned or canceled. And lastly, the most important one is end of your dick." I was able to check at least two of them through this movie.
ReplyDeleteThis movie is mainly about the revenge which ends with feeling the fulfility of life after everything is done. But actually, I believes it is cruel and immature revenge. All the action scenes waere violent with many blood.
Factor that I really like about this movie is how they film this movie. The way how they display the story line is showing not only situation of Daesu ,but also the situation of Woojin. So that audience were easy to understand what is going on between two main characters. Usually, in the movie which is searching for clues, it doesn't show what is also going on with the criminal. However 'Old boy' showed how does Woojin reacts with Daesu which increased the curiousity of audience. It helped me to understand this movie easily.
The film Old Boy is surely one of the best films made in Korea. Its complexity and combination of various genres within the movie were more than enough to praise. Also the director Park Chan Wook's attempt to convey philosophical messages throughout the movie was astonishing.But for many of ordinary viewers, who do not pay as much attention to the messages, were also able to enjoy Old Boy because for the combination of action and thriller. Park Chan Wook purposely made movie to be complicated and tangled. The process of solving the mystery of 15 years in prison maximizes the tension among the viewers. Gradually revealing the secret captivates and foster audience's curiosity.
ReplyDeleteBeside the plot line, the development of characters were also amazing. Oh Dae Su the main character of the movie clearly conveyed how people should be careful of what they say. On the other hand, Woo Jin's revenge displayed how revenge does not solve anything.
Overall, it was great movie that every mature viewers could enjoy. It was a movie that people should watch more than twice to fully understand the meaning.
The film "Old Boy" is merely of vengeance. The plotline consists of revenge of one man that ultimately ruins another man's life. There are many symbolisms that help carry on the message that the director Park Chan Wook is trying to convey to the audience. Bodily disfiguration, hallucination, existential paradox are all parts of the film that bring on the overall theme. Oh Dae Su, the protagonist of the movie, was captivated in an unknown room for an unknown reason for 15 years. Just by knowing this fact, it does seem very questionable - which creates the curiosity of the viewers further becoming a catalyst for the audience to keep on watching the film. The protagonist's main goal was to find who did this, and for what reason. The grasping factors can be how Park makes "vengeance" as some sort of a game and a choice. It can be seen sort of comical of keeping a man for 15 years without knowing why, and this may be the start of the game where the main character has to first endure in a single room, and figure out why he is trapped for such a long time. It does gradually build up intensity to a point where the game's conclusion is made with a choice. Woo-jin, who created this scheme of keeping Oh Dae Su, shows his remote control to him, which Woo-jin's life relies on a single button.
ReplyDeleteBody parts are crucial in this film. When Oh Dae Su is captivated, the only live, reliable factor is himself, or his body. He tried to suicide several times by making cut on his wrist - there are numerous scenes in the beginning showing blood on his wrist with him fainted. Not only this, but Oh Dae Su also seeks revenge on a man by pulling his teeth out with a hammer. From this, we can tell that mouth, as communication, is an important idea in the film. Ultimately, Oh Dae Su was captivated because of his "mouth", how he told his friend a secret about a sight with Woo-jin and his sister. Furthermore, hallucination is another portion of the film where Park Chan Wook hints the audience that Oh Dae Su was psychologically damaged for the fact that he is lost to why he is in the room. There is a scene where ants come out from Oh Dae Su's arm and spreads all over his body. It is later explained by Mido, his lover/daughter, that hallucination of ants show some kind of loneliness and that he has nowhere to go.
Woo-jin, seeks revenge on Oh Dae Su, who he thinks ruined the relationship with his sister and made her die. Therefore, Woo-jin creates a similar situation with Dae Su's own daughter by making them fall in love with each other. In Old Boy, there is this never ending revenge cycle that make the two characters' only option for anger is revenge.
The film Old boy by Park chan-wook is a successful Korean movie which won so many world movie awards. Sometimes it is very odd and brutal to watch, but at the same time, it has its own power that audience cannot stop watching. There is interesting and unique style of storytelling and essential parts like ant and the background music which made the movie flourish. It is pretty straightforward to understand what this movie wants to tell about, but it also really delivers it in extreme way. Main theme like revenge, which is dominantly spoken from the main characters like Oh dae-su and Woo-jin, is importantly grown up in each character. Especially for Dae-su who curves the years in prison on his hand was one of my shocking scenes that I could not imagine. His sorrow, pitiful, and evil mind is grown up in the prison for fifteen years while the sadistic, brutal nature of humanity is portrayed.
ReplyDeleteWhile the movie was amazing and really imaginative, the motivation of Woojin to revenge daesu was not quite understandable, but it is important to grasp the idea that he erased daesu’s memory and made him to find out what he had done. The two main problems with the plan was the idea that just through hypnotism, he could orchestrate the entire father daughter relationship, and that he has unlimited resources in which to enact his revenge.
Firstly, my first thought that came into my mind when the professor told us that we are going to watch Old Boy, it was "ugh.. I have watched it so many times!". However, because it has been so many years I forgot some important details what happened in the movie. It was interesting to figure out the mysteries in the movie every time watching it. As genre of Old Boy is mysterious thriller, it is another fun to try to figure out the mysteries that the director put in the movie. Although it seems pretty extreme how Woo-Jin makes Dae-Su a monster in order to avenge against Dae-su. The director Park Chan-wook's cinematography was very exceptional. His camera and focusing works helped me a lot to understand what is going on and which details are important to catch. Also, the movie portrays how an evilly made monster would be extremely hard to change and go back to Dae-su he used to be before he has been imprisoned for 15 years.
ReplyDeletesuyon shin
ReplyDeleteBasically Old Boy is a revenge story about Oh Dae Soo and Lee Woo Jin. Oh Dea Soo was just an ordinary person who did not seem to have any special thing in his life. One day, without any notice, Oh Dae Soo disappear from nowhere; he was captured by people who were employed by one anonymous person. Oh Dae Soo had to live in a very poor isolated cell for 20 years ever since he got captured without knowing any reason. He was released 20 years later and his dramatic story began. He started to search for the hints why he was captured from unknown person. While he was looking for the employer, he met a girl and eventually fell in love. At the very end, he found out that whole his life in the cell was drawn out from one guy named Lee Woo Jin who wanted to destroy Dae Soo’s life. Once, Lee Woo Jin had a loved one few decades ago when both of the guys were students; however, the girl he loved was his only sister. Dae Soo was very talkative and wild in his adolescence and when he found out that Woo Jin and his sister’s love story, because of his gossip the rumor had been spread out and eventually that rumor led the sister to suicide herself. Because of his sister’s tragic death, Lee Woo Jin decided himself to live for revenge to Dae Soo.
I have seen the movie once before and it was very shocking but kind of make sense. It is somewhat understandable that living for a revenge. The whole movie had a very gloomy and mysterious atmosphere. Two things that I impressed about were one pitiful gossip could affect one’s life and how the tragic events could be done by revenge.
The film ‘Old Boy’ deals with revenge through out the film. Lee Woo Jin thought of revenge when his hatred was at maximum, which was when her sister committed suicide. I think it was wrong for Woo Jin to blame everything on Oh Dae Su because Woo Jin’s action with his sister at the school wasn’t morally right and Woo Jin’s revenge completely ruined Oh Dae Su’s life. I think Woo Jin just concentrated thinking of revenge that he couldn’t think about what he has done wrong.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the film, the hypnotist helped Oh Dae Su to erase his memory. When the hypnotist asked Oh Dae Su to will split into two, one who knows the past and the other who doesn’t know his past, his reflection appears in the window. I think it is possible that when Oh Dae Su who walks away from the window, it is Lee Woo Jin’s memory that is being removed after the revenge.
The title of this movie is “Old Boy”. I was kind of wondering that how it related to the whole story. I figured out that it meant to be an alumnus. This story was based on revenge and incest. The one sentence came into my head was 아무리 짐승같은 놈이라도 인간답게 살 권리가 있는 것 아닌가요?. Originally, Incest was considered as a taboo furthermore a sin. However, this sentence made me thinking of a human condition. No matter how badly people experienced a tragic affair, they could overcome the difficulties well if they truly wanted happiness.
ReplyDeleteI felt this movie was expressed a salvation inside of a violence. In the last scene of the movie, Yi Woojin looked back on the past after avenged on Oh Daesu for the death of his sister. He redeemed his sister through the violence about Oh Daesu and he redeemed himself through the violence about suicide. The vicious cycle of the violence what our society had that still occurs today.