Oldboy

On watching this movie for second time, I felt that the director had a very refined idea of what he wanted to portray.

Although the movie might sell as a revenge-fest, (which cannot be denied either), the director clearly had so much more in mind. There was nothing noteworthy about the protagonist before he was imprisoned. His first scene shows him as drunk and out-of-control. A childhood flashback showed him as a bit of a jackass and a perve, but there was nothing particularly negative about him either. However, when something as extreme as a 15 year imprisonment was imposed on him, I don’t remember feeling sympathetic towards Oh Daesu at all.

Chan-wook Park has chiseled his character in a way that promotes him to Higher-Than-Thou.

‘AB blood types raise your hand. Go, he lost a lot of blood'

'I wrote down all the people whom I fought with, bothered, and hurt'

'Women's hands are usually warm so they can't make sushi'

Oh Daesu reeked of the presence of mind, intelligence, physical fitness, and knowledge that one would feed into a created being... knowing it possible but never expecting someone to actually follow-through on it, unless facilitated by circumstances… so true, and so well incorporated here.

This movie does not use the conventional instruments of audience torture used nowadays in movies like the Saw series. What grips you is the same anguish and horror that drives Daesu.

I often wondered if it was the the hard-hitting content (eating a live.. squid?, gums bleeding as a tooth is yanked out, incest) that beats the viewer into submission... that wrenches out that awe (vocally, on my part). Perhaps it is this that capacitates you to empathise with the extremism exhibited by the protagonist.

Chan-wook Park has also ensured that the content is not purely plot driven. He takes his time with each scene, subtly incorporating environmental objects (fish-tank, ants, the suicidal man who wants to tell his story) into a well-paced plot.

All in all, this is an awesome, well-thought-out movie that will dazzle any viewer of the genre - a definite for any Tarantino fans.