OLDBOY. (2006)
Directed by Park Chan-Wook
Park’s second instalment in his thematic ‘Vengeance’ trilogy was the one that most fully captured the imagination of the public. In it, Choi Min-Sik plays a man who is kidnapped, and then imprisoned for fifteen years without a word of explanation or justification. When he’s released, he is given five days to find his captors, and seek revenge against them. He becomes friends with a younger girl, who agrees to help him.
Park creates tension so effortlessly, and OLDBOY is dripping with it. From the ingenious set-up to the deranged and brilliant developments in the plot, this is a film that reeks with class. It’s not just that Park can set up an action scene as well as any other director, or that he imbues all of his films with a morbid sense of humour, it’s also that he manages to take a brilliant premise, and deliver upon it with an immense amount of style and panache. OLDBOY is the paciest of the trilogy, moving us quickly through our protagonist’s plight and then from one obstacle to another.
Given some of the more extreme aspects of the story, it’s little wonder that the much mooted American remake (names involved include Spielberg and Will Smith) has, so far, failed to get off the ground. I’m glad, personally, there’s no way that a studio could have made a film with so perverse a sensibility, quite as gleefully as this.
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