Oldboy (2003)

"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone." 

Going through Netflix the other day, I remembered my friend told me to watch an action movie called Oldboy that he had really liked. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. 

Oldboy is an Korean thriller film directed by Park Chan-wook. Oh Dae-su, the main character, is locked in a room for 15 years without knowing why. With no human contact and only a TV, Oh nearly goes mad. When he is released, he meets a woman and instantly falls in love with her. Oh is then told that he has four days to figure out why he was imprisoned or else the woman he just met will be killed.

I enjoyed this movie because it broke down this one character and took him to the deepest place inside of him that he could go, and then pulled the character down even further. Before his imprisonment, Oh Dae-su was a husband, a father, and a drunk. He often got into quarrels with his neighbors because of his drunkenness and was a rowdy, obnoxious individual. But once he is imprisoned, you get to him evolve to be a wiser more reserved character. The room he is stays the exact same way for his whole stay in the movie and if I had been stuck in the room for that long, I'm sure that I too would have gone insane.

The acting in the movie is decent but the directing is really what kept me watching the movie. Although the movie is a thriller, it is a pretty funny movie too. There is a lot of comic relief because the movie is a fairly intense movie. Oh trying to fit back into society is humorous at times.

The fighting scenes in the movie are not quite believable, but they are extremely entertaining and they flow well. Not to mention the directing is very good. There is one fighting scene where Oh Dae-su is fighting around forty people and the entire fight scene is filmed from the side in one shot.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie and was never bored while watching Oh's quest to find the man who imprisoned him. The deconstruction of the character was very entertaining and I loved the way that it was directed. I would definitely recommend this movie to those who love foreign films or thrillers.

Overall Rating: 9/10

"Even though I'm no more than a monster, don't I too have the right to live?"