Oldboy - 2003
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Most of us know this phrase. But, I wonder how many of us have reflected on its meaning. In actuality, it flies in the face of a concept we're far more familiar with, namely cold-blooded vengeance. It suggests, if you will, a waiting time. An incubation period before lashing out to avenge pain or loss, a time when you can torment the one in the wrong. When they must wait in fear for the unexpected. When violence can loom over their shoulder like a specter, and they can jump at the shadows. Vengeance, after the "time between," is all the sweeter.
OIdboy, this masterwork from Park Chan-wook, comes about as close as is earthly possible to embodying the phrase above. In it, we meet a man, Oh Dae Su, who has been imprisoned for he knows not what for the span of 15 years. One moment he is stumbling drunkenly out of a streetside phone booth. The next he vanishes into thin air. When he awakens, he is locked in a kind of minimalist hotel room, fed meals on trays through a slot in the bottom of his door, and regularly knocked out by gasses (allowing his captor to clean and groom him, and perform other sordid hypnotizing activities on his mind).
Naturally, when he is finally set free all those years later, he goes looking for his captor. Oh, I forgot to mention something. Oldboy is stylistically MASTERFUL. While being imprisoned, Oh Dae Su eventually tires of the monotonous daytime television fare available on screen and begins to strengthen his body. Soon he is lean and determined. Thus, when he gets out, he puts his fist, feet, and his weapon of choice (a claw hammer) to good use. He begins to unravel the mystery, beating up goons by the dozens, enlisting the help of an old friend with internet cafe connections, and slowly falling for a young lady who serves sushi. All of this is shot in this incredibly kinetic way, against a very seedy palette of colors, in a kind of modern dystopian city.
Once the two men become locked in a battle of wits, clues and details begin to emerge. The captor's motives, while still obtuse, begin to slowly come into focus. Oh Dae Su is put on a timeline for discovering the truth, and this leads him back to the days of his youth. What is noted so clearly above all is the two leads' obsession with vengeance. They are both, quite clearly, out for blood. In this way, Oldboy melds the new urban rhythms of South Korea with an older lineage of martial arts films. It is delightfully demented, and as captivating as it is unhinged.
Unhinged, you say? Well, how could that be? Well, my friends, at some point we come to the end of this whole affair. And what awaits our protagonist is one of the five most devastating reveals in cinema history. It is shocking, horrifying, and really...just wrong. In showing this journey, Chan-wook illustrates for us the depths that humans will sink to for revenge, the utter futility of grudges and unforgiveness, and the monstrosities which regular human beings are capable of in the face of inexplicable despair. Sound more like a sign that says "Keep Out!" than an invitation to engage? Fair enough. Live your truth. But I tell you, there are unique treasures to behold here.
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