The Old Boy
After a drunken night out in Seoul, Korean businessman Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) wakes up imprisoned in a dingy room. Despite his pleas, no-one will tell Oh Dae-su who imprisoned him, or why, or for how long. In fact, his captors - who he can only see through a small food slot in his cell door - don't tell him anything. His only contact with the outside world is a TV, from which he learns that he's the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his wife.
In a concise series of sequences, director Park Chan-wook manages to capture the oppressively slow crawl of the passing years, and the bafflement, desperation, and despair of Oh Dae-su, who tries to kill himself, only to be drugged, patched up, and re-imprisoned by his captors. Painstakingly, Oh Dae-su lists everyone who might have cause to hate him, and plots his revenge. He prepares himself by taking up shadow boxing, smashing his fists into the cell wall with such fury that his knuckles are permanently disfigured. As we watch, rage, grief, time, and despair transform him from the over-indulged, belligerent but comical man of the film's opening scenes into a dangerous, embittered avenger.
Then, inexplicably, after 15 years, he's released. It soon becomes clear, however, that his tormentor hasn't finished with him yet. Oh Dae-su's release isn't the end: it's just one more manoeuvre in a revenge of medieval cruelty and Byzantine complexity. But the revenge of whom, and for what? These are the questions Oh Dae-su sets about answering.
From its Kafkaesque premise, The Old Boy, which won the 2004 Jury Prize at Cannes, is a riveting tale told with enormous style and unflagging inventiveness. Unexpected camera angles, painterly lighting and framing, and a muted colour palette combine to produce a visually arresting film. Add Park Chan-wook's vivid sense of place and character, and his canny undercutting of sometimes gruesome violence with goofy humour and you have a scintillating two hours of cinema. Go see it.
Score out of 10: 8
-- Hans Fruck
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