The rest would slowly enter the American psyche through video and DVD rentals houses. Its no surprise that Quentin Tarantino, after his education of B-films and imports, would find inspiration in the unusual, violent stories and incorporate the styles into his own work. Reservoir Dogs takes a ten-minute section of the film City On Fire, and expands it into ninety minutes.
As a result, filmmakers often turn to such foreign influences when looking to create something “new” in terms of look, style, or influence, but rarely story. American remakes often fail, as the context of the storytelling is fundamentally different. One notable exception is Scorcese’s Departed, a direct remake of Infernal Affairs using Boston in place of Hong Kong.
The worst thing that could befall the South Korean thriller Old Boy is to have it remade as a sloppy, American film that takes license to “improve things that aint broke”. Spike Lee is about to release his take on a film that, although understandable within the context of Asian culture, might find difficulty reaching an American audience. What he has done remains to be seen, but I took it as a great reason to revisit this South Korean Classic.
Loosely based on a Japanese Manga (comic book), the film may be best known to American audiences as the "movie with the guy with a Hammer" who fights off a dozen assailants in a narrow hallway. The film, much like that iconic shot, draws style from its source, with a Manga-like texture in the photography and the violence .
Businessman Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped the night of his daughter’s birthday after spending hours in a police lockup as an unruly drunk. Just after being released, he is swiftly taken and locked up in a small apartment. During the 15 years of this unorthodox imprisonment, he loses his mind, is regularly gassed with hypnotic and sedative gasses, and, in spite of multiple attempts to take his own life, is stitched up and returned to his solitary existence.
During the early years, while watching television he learns that his wife was found murdered, and Oh Dae-Su was the prime suspect, with his (stolen) blood and fingerprints found at he scene. For the rest of his imprisonment, he vows to find out who killed his family, breaking his body against the cold, hard, cinderblock wall as he practices fighting.
After 15 years, he is drugged and hypnotized, waking up in a trunk on the grassy rooftop of a building, in new clothes and a wallet. Almost impulsively, he looks for a place to eat and remembers a sushi artist, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jun) from one of the televisions shows he followed during his imprisonment. In front of her, he receives a phone call from his tormentor, only to learn he is being surveilled as part of a “game.“ Angered, he makes an unusual sushi order, and does an even more unusual thing with it before passing out cold on the counter.
Nursed back to health as Mi-do’s charge, the two form an unlikely alliance between a man and a woman half his age. But together they slowly piece together his past, following the consistencies of his secret imprisonment to learn its whereabouts. Wielding a hammer, he visits his former prison, only learning he was held because he “talked too loosely'; he is forced to fight his way out in the earlier mentioned battle, notable for it's deliberate style and uncut camera through the entirety of the skirmish.
It is readily apparent that the mysterious tormentor has some means to put together such an elaborate plan. With Mi-do at his side, they work to discover the truth about the mysterious man. In time, he revels himself to Oh Dae-Su, with the cat-and-mouse reaching epic levels of gamesmanship.
This film is all about revenge. Oh Dae-Su is imprisoned and then released into a game as vengeance. He spends the film seeking his own vengeance upon his captor, only to learn, far too late, and far beyond redemption, that through his own search, an even worse vengeance was being meted out; one planned out meticulously for half a lifetime.
The intricacies of this convoluted plot come together in the end. There is a scene early during Oh Dae-Su’s imprisonment when he learned “when you cry, you cry alone. But when you laugh, the world laughs with you.” As the film’s last scene ends, it sure seems like he is trying his best to force a smile under Mi-do’s embrace.
This is, simply, a violent film, and not in the typical violence of an American thriller. It is not made for a western audience, but rather an Asian one with an appeal to those cultures. But the violence serves this story of revenge -- in this case for a thoughtless remark.
But wrapped within Old Boy's violence are brilliant plot twists, character-driven motivations, and nightmarish scenarios that might be too sophisticated, in some ways, for a broader audience. Its the well done combination of all these elements that make this one of the epic South Korean films, even if it is at times beyond the reason of an American film-goer. So it will be interesting to see how Spike Lee treats this material. In the meantime, check out Old Boy for some of the best filmmaking from the other side of the Pacific.
Rating: 7 of 10 Raw Octopii
Pain Level: 2-3
Medication: 200 mg gabapentin, 10 mg oxycodone
IF YOU DARE, WATCH OLDBOY ON NETFLIX BY CLICKING HERE
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