Oldboy!!!!

Oldboy is a South Korean film that follows the life of a man named Oh Dae-su. He is a man that is imprisoned for fifteen years without knowing the reasons why. During the film when he is finally released, he decides to figure out why he was imprisoned. While figuring this out, he falls in love with a woman who works at a sushi restaurant. Also, his captor is continuously communicating with him to lead him to new clues and to remind him that he only has a limited amount of time to figure it out. It turns out that Dae-su went to school with his captor as a boy and watched something that he was not supposed to. He saw his captor making love with his sister in the upper room of the school. It is not exactly mentioned that he spread the word to everyone, but the captor makes it seem as though the entire school found out about his and his sister’s relationship. Consequently, his sister kills herself by jumping off a bridge and the captor blames Dae-su for the entire event. The captor wanted Dae-su to suffer, and he definitely did while prisoning him, and for eternity as well; Dae-su fell in love with his daughter.

         The most obvious and pointed out theme in the movie is vengeance. The captors motive to destroy Dae-su’s life was based only on getting revenge for something that happened to him many years ago when in reality Dae-su is not even that responsible for his sisters death. Vengeance is also closely related to violence, and in this movie there is a lot of violence. There are beatings, fights, guns, and knives that make this movie a gory film. The film’s violence is made to create repulsive feelings, however, many scenes that are violent could have been a lot more graphic. For example, in Dae-su’s first fight scene on the street he beats up a group of guys but the camera cuts off after a few punches. The director uses this technique to create an emotional response in the audience without showing too much blood.

         Another theme is incest. The captor is in love with his sister and had a sexual relationship with her. He felt upset that she killed herself and he had to blame it on someone, so he blamed it on Dae-su. To make revenge on him, he got Dae-su to fall in love with his daughter, and to have sex with her. He then tapes them having sex and plays it for Dae-su once he finds out about his lover. Knowing that he had sex with his child made him feel the greatest guilt and sadness. Incest is against all morals and Dae-su understands that. The worst part is that they are in love, which makes it hard for them to separate forever because they have feelings for each other.

         Hitchcock influenced the movie Oldboy in many ways. One of the most prevalent is how Oldboy’s mise en sce`ne is dreary and heavy stylized much like Hitchcock’s films. The film uses shadows and camera angles to create a scene that is abstract and interesting. For example, while Dae-su is fighting men in an ally, the audience’s view is from the inside of the wall to see him fighting each man and seeing their profiles. The long shot is impossible to create in real life, because in real life it would be impossible to see from inside the wall. Although it is not realistic, it creates a great effect on the viewer, which is a common aspect in Hitchcock’s films as well. The shadowing in this scene is also highly exaggerated. 

         I enjoyed the film for the most part. It was interesting and fun to watch even though a few scenes were extremely graphic. The ending was unexpected, yet it was very clever. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes graphic and messed up films.