Oldboy is a South-Korean action thriller film made in 2003, co-written and directed by Park Chan-wook. The movie follows a man named Oh Dae-Su who’s been kidnapped, and imprisoned in a room for 15 years. After he is released, he goes on a revenge story to find the person who did this to him followed along with a companion, Mi-do.
Throughout the entire movie, he does anything he possibly can to get to the kidnapper whether it be to fight a hallway full of men, or violently interrogate people to get information out of them.
As the movie progresses, Oh Dae-su and Mi-do slowly fall in love with each other, doing anything they can to help each other. They soon discover the man who did all of this, Lee Woo-jin. Finding out that he did something so unforgivable, he set his entire life plan to make Oh Dae-su suffer. Oh Dae-su has trouble trying to remember what he did to him, until he goes back to their old school and finds the revelation of what happened.
He confronts Lee Woo-jin at his skyscraper where Lee Woo-jin dissects his master plan, explaining that everything Oh Dae-su did was precisely planned and predicted. Eventually revealing the great plot twist of the movie. This drives Oh Dae-Su mad, surrendering to Lee Woo-jin, making him the victor.
This movie shows very dark topics. The darkest piece of symbolism is in the very beginning of the movie, where Oh Dae-su is at the police station for drunken activity. It’s his daughter’s birthday and has a gift which is a pair of angel wings. This comes into play into the movie later which connects the dots of a very disturbing twist. The overall theme of the movie is that revenge doesn’t leave no satisfaction, fate is all controlling, and to face the consequences of your actions. All of these result in a devastating film that really makes you think. Many people consider this one of the best Korean movies, even one of the best movies in general. There are little to no nit-picks I have about this movie because it really is flawless. The only two complaints I could think of is the pacing feels slow, and some of the events that happen and are explained seem a little too wacky.
All in all, Oldboy culminates in a lightning-in-a-bottle psychological journey that discovers the vulnerability of humans, and how fate and decisions can change your life forever.
