Oldboy (2003 film)

This article is about the Korean film. For the social terminology, see old boy network.

Oldboy
File:Oldboy movie.jpg
Directed by	Park Chan-wook
Written by	Hwang Jo-yun Park Chan-wook Lim Chun-hyeong Lim Joon-hyung Garon Tsuchiya
Produced by	Lim Seung-yong
Starring	Choi Min-sik Yu Ji-tae Kang Hye-jeong Ji Dae-han
Music by	Yeong-wook Jo
Distributed by	Show East
Release dates	November 21, 2003 September 2, 2004 September 29, 2004 September 14, 2004 October 15, 2004 March 25, 2005
Running time	120 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean

Oldboy (Hangul:올드보이) is a 2003 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook based on a Japanese manga of the same name, written by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya. It is the second installment of Park's "Vengeance trilogy", preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and followed by Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

The film won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and high praise from the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino, who couldn't persuade the members of the jury to give it the Palme d'Or over Fahrenheit 9/11. Critically, the movie has been well received in the United States, with an 81% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rottentomatoes.com; well known film critic Roger Ebert has claimed Oldboy to be a "powerful film". Currently, Oldboy has been voted onto the IMDb Top 250 by its users.

The American remake is currently on hold; and previously announced director Justin Lin, best known for the teen crime drama Better Luck Tomorrow, is no longer attached. Zinda, the Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Gupta, also bears a striking resemblance to Oldboy, but is not an officially sanctioned remake. Zinda is now under investigation for violation of copyright.

Tagline:

• 15 years of imprisonment... five days of vengeance.

Plot

The film begins in medias res, with the silhouette of a man holding onto a rope-like object -- a neck-tie, by which one man is dangling another off the edge of a building. The man holding the neck-tie is Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), who commands the other man to hear his story.

The movie then cuts backward to the year 1988. Dae-su is a Korean businessman with a wife and daughter. On being picked up by police for being drunk and disorderly, he has to be bailed out by his friend, Joo-Hwan. While Joo-Hwan is in a phone booth talking with Dae-su's daughter, Yeun-Hee, and his wife, Kim Ja-Hyun, Dae-su is kidnapped by unidentified people.

File:Oh Dae-su drunk Oldboy 2.jpg

An intoxicated Oh Dae-su (second from left) awaits his release from a police station.

Dae-su next appears in a private prison resembling a shabby hotel room. He has been kept there for two months with no word of who is holding him there or why. He is gassed into unconsciousness whenever he becomes violent or suicidal, or when his holders need access to the room (e.g. to maintain it; cut his hair). His only contact with the outside world is through the television, from which he learns one day that his wife has been murdered, his daughter has been sent to foster parents and that he is himself the prime suspect. This, together with his continued captivity, causes Dae-su to slide into near-madness.

Attempting to get a grip on his sanity and determine his captor, Dae-su fills several notebooks with an autobiography-prison diary, but is unable to figure out who would hate him so profoundly as to imprison him like this. He forces himself to train by shadowboxing, punching at the walls of his prison until thick calluses form on his knuckles. When one of his deliveries of fried dumplings turns out to have an extra metal chopstick, he conceals it and uses it to slowly dig a hole into one of the walls. Over the next fifteen years, he works out, follows current events on TV, and loosens enough bricks to glimpse the outside world.

Just as abruptly as he was captured, Dae-su is set free on the rooftop of a building with a new suit of clothes and his prison diaries. Adjusting to the bright afternoon light, he sees another man sitting on the edge of the building with his small dog. The first human being he has interacted with in fifteen years, Oh Dae-su is taken aback, unable to have a proper conversation with him. We learn that the man is suicidal and says to Dae-su, "Even though I'm no more than a beast, don't I, too, have the right to live?". He then attempts to jump off the edge, but Oh Dae-su grabs his neck tie, saving him from death. Dae-su tells the man to delay his death, because he wants to tell him his story, to which he utters "What?". The scene ends at the point in which the movie began.

File:Oh Dae-su speaking on the phone.jpg

Oh Dae-su speaks to his captor.

After relating his story, Oh Dae-su walks off and out of the building, ignoring the despondent man's plea to listen to his story in turn. As he is leaving the front entrance, the suicidal man lands on a car behind Dae-su, killing himself and his pet. Dae-su pauses, followed by a wide smile. "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone", he thinks to himself; a direct quotation from the first line of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's famous poem, Solitude. Throughout the movie, Oh Dae-su uses this quote as a mantra for himself whenever he faces horrible situations.

Wandering the streets of the city, Dae-su does not know what to do with his new-found freedom due to his enemies framing him as the murderer of his wife. When a gang of thugs attack him, he finds that his ten out of fifteen years of solitary training have paid off; he fends them off with only his fists. Next Dae-su stands on the street looking at fish swimming in an aquarium, when a homeless man walks up and gives him a wallet full of cash and a cellphone. He then meets Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong), a girl who works in a sushi bar; she takes pity on Dae-su after he collapses with a high fever and takes him in.

A man called Woo-jin (Yu Ji-tae) contacts Dae-su via his cellphone, and claims to be the one who imprisoned him. He offers to play a game with Dae-su: find out why all this happened to him in the next five days. If he fails, Mi-do will die. If he succeeds, Woo-jin will kill himself.

Based on the taste of the dumplings that he ate for 15 years while imprisoned, and having seen the name "Blue Dragon" on a receipt fragment once, Dae-su goes to various Chinese restaurants with "Blue Dragon" in the name in order to determine exactly which restaurant it was. When he finally finds the right one, called "Violet Blue Dragon", he follows the delivery boy on one of his calls to the prison. Once there, he finds and ties up the prison's manager and tortures him by pulling out his teeth with a claw hammer. Dae-su learns from the manager's tape recordings that Woo-jin did indeed have him locked up, but the only reason he would give is: "Oh Dae-su talks too much." The prison guards gang up on Dae-su, but he fights them all off with nothing more than his clawhammer and his bare fists (although he does get stabbed in the back).

Dae-su and Mi-do grow closer together, and one night the two of them make love while on the road. With Mi-do's help, Dae-su follows a trail that leads back to his old high school, where he discovers Woo-jin was a fellow student. One day, as it turned out, Dae-su had spied on Woo-jin and his sister, Soo-ah, and witnessed a sexual encounter. Not knowing at the time that the two were related and the scene he was witnessing was an instance of incest, Dae-su mentioned what he had seen to one of his own friends, just before transferring to a school in Seoul. Eventually, the rumor grew out of proportion until it involved Soo-ah becoming pregnant. It is not clear whether this did in fact occur, but believing it and fearing public humiliation, Soo-ah threw herself over a dam, killing herself.

File:Oh Dae-su fighting goons.jpg

Oh Dae-su single handedly takes on numerous opponents in the famous "corridor fight scene".

Dae-su confronts Woo-jin with all of this information, and suggests further that Woo-jin killed his own sister, afraid of fathering her child. Woo-jin does indeed possess a photo of Soo-ah on the dam, dated the day of her death. But Woo-jin side-steps these allegations with an even more devastating revelation. He gives Dae-su a photo album, the first picture of which is a family portrait of himself, his wife, and his daughter. The remaining photos in the album are of his daughter growing older, until in horror Dae-su discovers that his daughter is none other than Mi-do. By carefully manipulating both of their lives - secretly taking care of Mi-do from the age of 3 (probably the reason for 15 years, 3+15=18) - Dae-su's since his incarceration and Mi-do's since her father vanished - and hypnotizing each of them independently, Woo-jin was able to cause Dae-su and Mi-do to commit incest as well.

Dae-su is horrified, and begs Woo-jin not to tell Mi-do. Dae-su then gets on his hands and knees and starts to bark like a dog, eventually going so far as to cut off his own tongue so that he will never talk too much again. During this scene Woo-jin holds a handkerchief to his mouth, and it looks as if he is crying, but then it shows clearly he is laughing with smugness and struggling to hide it so he can continue to watch Dae-su torture himself. With his thirst for vengeance that was his sole reason for living finally spent, Woo-jin spares Mi-do from knowing and readies to kill himself and Dae-Su with the same bullet. He changes his mind, however, and exits the penthouse in an elevator, leaving Dae-Su alone to be tormented by a tape recording of his incestuous love-making with his own daughter.

As Woo-jin leaves, we are taken back into his guilt-ridden memory of his sister's death. He is holding Soo-ah over the dam, and she says that she has always known that Woo-jin was afraid, that she regrets nothing and asks him to let go of her. She seems at peace, and eventually he releases his grip. Back in the elevator, Woo-jin realizes that even after getting his revenge against Dae-Su, that nothing will take his pain away. The camera is focused on his open hand, which slowly closes as if around a gun, cocks an imaginary trigger -- and fires the real gun into his head in the elevator.

File:Lee Woo-jin smug.jpg

A smug Lee Woo-jin reveals his master plan to Oh Dae-su.

In an epilogue set in a wintry landscape, Dae-su goes to a hypnotist (the same one whom Woo-jin hired to hypnotize both Dae-su and Mi-do) and asks for her help to forget the secret. He writes her a letter, since he can no longer talk. The hypnotist said that she originally did not want to help him, but she was touched by his last sentence: "Even though I'm no more than a monster, don't I, too, have the right to live?". It is the same sentence Oh Dae-su heard from the suicidal man who appeared at the beginning of the movie.

The hypnotist tells Oh Dae-su to imagine himself back at Woo-jin's penthouse. She uses hypnosis to split Dae-su into two personalities: the "Monster", who remembers the secret, and the "ignorant" Dae-su, who doesn't.

When the hypnotist asks Dae-su to split into the two people, a reflection of himself appears in the window. The hypnotist tells him that the monster will walk away and for every step he takes, he will age a year and die when he reaches 70. The reflection is the "Monster" - he holds a grim expression and remains unmoved, unwilling to leave his place in Dae-su's mind. The "ignorant" Dae-su, reflected in the glass, mourns the loss of a major part of his life. The camera cuts to the cassette player which then finishes playing the music that has set the scene. Oh Dae-su is wished the best of luck, and the screen turns black.

Dae-su wakes up. The hypnotist has already gone, and he is left lying on the cold ground with a delirious feeling. He stumbles about, and finally with some hesitation he meets up with Mi-do and they embrace. The soft spoken Mi-do tells Dae-su that she loves him, and a large smile appears on his face.

Open interpretation of the ending

File:Oh Dae-su hugging Mi-do.jpg

Mi-do embraces Dae-su during the emotional denouement.

The ending is deliberately ambiguous, and the audience is left with several questions. It is unknown how much time has passed, if Dae-Su really met the hypnotist, whether he finally rid himself of the Monster, and if Mi-do knows the truth.

In an interview director Park Chan-Wook says that the ambiguous ending was intended to generate discussion; it is completely up to what each individual viewer interprets it as.

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Production

• The octopus being eaten alive was no special effect but a real animal; four were killed during the making of the movie. Actor Choi Min-sik, a Buddhist, said a prayer for each one. It should also be noted that the eating of live octopuses (called “sannakji” (산낙지) in Korean) as a delicacy is not unheard of in East Asia, although it is usually cut, not eaten whole. When asked if he felt sorry for the actor Choi Min-sik, director Park Chan-wook stated he felt more sorry for the octopus.
• The corridor fight scene took seventeen takes in three days to perfect, and contrary to popular belief, it was actually just one continuous take - there was no editing of any sort. Though the scene has often been compared visually to side scrolling beat 'em up video games, director Park Chan-wook has stated the similarity was unintentional.
• Choi Min-sik lost and gained weight for his role depending on the filming schedule, trained for six weeks and did most of his stunt work.
• Computer-generated imagery include the ant coming out of Oh Dae-su's arm (according to the making-of on the DVD the whole arm was computer-generated imagery), the ants crawling over Oh Dae-su afterwards.
• When Oh Dae-su wakes up and sees Mi-do read his diary he grabs it and jumps back into bed, bumping his head; the making-of shows the bumping was not intentional but the scene made it into the final version.
• The final scene's snowy landscape was filmed in New Zealand.
• Actor Choi Min-sik improvised most of his lines during the confrontation with Woo-jin.

Cast

• Choi Min-sik as Oh Dae-su
• Yu Ji-tae as Lee Woo-jin
• Kang Hye-jeong as Mi-do
• Ji Dae-han as No Joo-hwan, Dae-su's friend and the owner of a cybercafe
• Kim Byeong-ok as Mr. Han, bodyguard of Woo-jin
• Oh Tae-kyung as Young Dae-su
• Ahn Yeon-suk as Young Woo-jin
• Oo Il-han as Young Joo-hwan
• Oh Dal-su as Park Cheol-woong, the private prison's manager

Box office

In South Korea, the film was a big hit, gathering 3,132,000 spectators. (It ranks 5th place for the highest grossing film of 2003 and 25th in all-time national movie box-office record).

The film's North American run began on March 25, 2005 on 5 venues, where it grossed $68,957 ($13,791 per screen). It played at 28 theatres at its widest point, and grossed $707,481 before closing on December 8, 2005.

Its total global box office earnings are $14,980,005.

Awards

• 57th Cannes Film Festival
  • Won: Grand Prix of the Jury – Park Chan-wook
  • Nominated: Palme d'Or – Park Chan-wook
• Grand Bell Awards – South Korea 2004
  • Won: Best Director – Park Chan-wook
  • Won: Best Actor – Choi Min-sik
  • Won: Best Editing – Kim Sang-beom
  • Won: Best Illumination – Park Hyun-won
  • Won: Best Music – Cho Young-wuk
• Asia Pacific Film Festival 2004
  • Won: Best Director – Park Chan-wook
  • Won: Best Actor – Choi Min-sik
• 37th Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya - Sitges 2004
  • Won: Maria Award (Best Film)
  • Won: José Luis Guarner Award (Critics' Best Film)
• Bergen International Film Festival 2004
  • Won: Audience Award
• British Independent Film Awards 2004
  • Won: Best Foreign Independent Film
• European Film Awards 2004
  • Nominated: Screen International Award
• # 5 on Bravo TV's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments.

Controversy over Zinda

Oldboy producers ShowEast are investigating allegations that the Indian film Zinda is very similar to Park Chan-Wook's hit. They talked with the press, saying that the only remake rights contract they ever signed was with Universal in the US, and with no one else, including India. The company announced that after looking at the finished product they will make their decision, which might have legal ramifications.

The Virginia Tech Massacre Controversy

In April 2007, Oldboy weathered controversy in the Western press over a possible connection to the Virginia Tech Massacre. Between the shootings he committed in the residential hall and the shootings he committed in the classrooms, Seung-Hui Cho sent videos and photos of himself to the American news channel, NBC. Two of the photos drew comparisons to Oldboy promotional images: a picture of Cho holding a hammer; and one of his holding a pistol to his head. However, there is no evidence that Cho has ever watched this movie.

Trivia

• According to the released soundtrack, nearly all the music cues composed by Yeong-Wook Jo are titled after movies, many of them film noirs.
• The phrase “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone” is a quote from Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem “Solitude”.
• The portrait of a grotesque smiling face in Oh Dae-su's confinement room is based on The Man of Sorrows by James Ensor. Incidentally, Oh Dae-su's facial hair and coiffure resemble the portrait.
• Throughout the whole movie, Mi-do is actually saying "mister" in Korean to Dae-su, following the system of honorifics in Korean. However, the subtitles simply show the character's name. Similarly, Dae-Su refers to Soo-ah with a title typically reserved for one's sibling, though it may also mean a very close friend.

See also

• Cinema of Korea
• List of Korean language films
• East Asian cinema
• Old Boy (manga)
• Revenge play
• Kafkaesque
• Greek tragedy

External links

• Oldboy at IMDb
• Review at Kfccinema.com
• Oldboy at Rottentomatoes.com
• Oldboy Review
• Review of the movie @ koreanmovie.org
• A Comparison Between the Multiple DVD Editions of Oldboy
• Japanese website of the film
• Russian website of the film
• Controversy over Zinda