movie review oldboy

Extremely Grotesque: Park Chan-wook on Oldboy

In the 20 years since it was first released, Park Chan-wook 's "Oldboy" has lost none of its ability to provoke and enthrall, none of its potency as a work of art that deploys graphic violence and equally visceral style to probe the depths of human nature.  

The masterpiece that propelled South Korean cinema onto a world stage and solidified Park's status as one of its most ferociously original auteurs, "Oldboy" won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, with jury president Quentin Tarantino personally advocating on the film's behalf. A critical and commercial success, the film shocked stateside audiences with its savage beauty and delirious,  psychological dimension; in his four-star review , Roger Ebert called "Oldboy" a "powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare."

Adapted from Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi 's manga, Park's neo-noir saga centers on Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a man kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years by a mysterious tormentor, only to be released one day without explanation. Desperate to discover the identity and motivation of the man who stole his life, Dae-su embarks on a path of revenge that leads him into a strange and terrible maze of conspiracy. 

Tumbling out of a red suitcase onto a rooftop garden, devouring a live octopus at a sushi bar, and facing down a hallway of thugs with the help of a claw-tooth hammer in one legendary sequence after another, Dae-su's odyssey plunges him through Seoul's seedy underworld and eventually nears a revelatory, annihilative confrontation. As it does, Park—with his transcendent visual style and obsessive eye for detail—masterfully orchestrates the story's twisting descent into a tragedy of mythic proportions. 

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of its original South Korean release, Neon is re-releasing "Oldboy" in theaters, starting August 16; the film was originally distributed in the U.S. by Tartan Films USA. To mark the occasion, Park personally supervised a digital restoration and remastering of the film in 4K HDR. 

Ahead of "Oldboy" returning to theaters, Park told RogerEbert.com about his involvement in the restoration and remastering process, how growing up in Seoul under the rule of dictator Chun Doo-hwan informed his artistic interests, and which line of dialogue he considers "the key" to unlocking the long-abiding mystery of "Oldboy."

This interview has been edited and condensed.

In restoring and remastering "Oldboy," which you made 20 years ago, were you trying to stay true to the film's original intent—and to who you were when you made it—or did the film transform as you returned to it from a different perspective at this stage of your life and career?

Although 20 years may not be a very long time in the lifespan of a work of art, it can be seen as such because "Oldboy" is from an era where movies were shot and screened on film. There's nothing that was specially added to this remastered version. All I did was strive to relive the days when movies were screened on film and try to create the most pristine version possible. We would have corrected the color digitally in the present but, back then, we developed the film using the bleach bypass method. In other words, we physically treated the film negatives. The results aren't as vivid and crisp as movies of today because of this, despite the fact it was a remastering. It's very grainy with high contrast and low saturation. This doesn't align with my aesthetic sensibilities as of today. However, this is in itself a record of that particular era. 

I wanted to ask about two scenes in particular: the scene where Choi Min-sik's Oh Dae-su eats a live octopus, and the corridor fight scene in which Oh Dae-su wields a hammer against a group of attackers. What do you remember most strongly about filming both of those sequences? In revisiting "Oldboy," has your relationship to those scenes changed at all; do you perceive them differently?

The response from international audiences that took me aback the most was regarding the live octopus scene. From the start, I had a very clear idea as to what food Dae-su, who has not had contact with any living entity for 15 years, would want to eat first. He would furiously gnaw on a wriggling mass of life and swallow it. This idea is where Dae-su's line, "I'm going to chew it all down," came from. 

The food that applies to this concept, as a Korean, is obviously live octopus. But I hadn't thought about how non-Korean audiences would react. It ended up being an extremely grotesque scene. There are actually many Koreans who can't stomach live octopus. And even if you do eat it, you would never eat it whole like in the film. It is likely a very dangerous act. You can even choke to death. There was even a real murder case where someone killed their lover in this manner. I really hope there aren't any Americans who think Koreans would just put a large, live octopus in their mouths. 

What entertains me most about the hallway scene now is the bald, shirtless thug with the potbelly. That's Mr. Heo Myeong Haeng. He might have been just one of dozens of stuntmen back then, but in the past 20 years, he has become Korea's leading stunt coordinator and a film director in his own right with two features under his belt. He made the hallway scene in "Oldboy" twice as exciting with his unmatched performance, for which he deserves all the credit. 

Choi Min-sik's performance in "Oldboy" is more impressive to me every time I revisit the film. Can you discuss what drew you to him as an actor and any favorite memory of working with him on this film? 

He was already a top-class actor in Korea before shooting "Oldboy." He was the pillar of the industry, alongside Song Kang-ho, with whom he was always compared. If Song Kang-ho is ice and modern, Choi Min-sik is fire and classical. He is in appearance a hero but seems like a jokester at the same time. He's not a calculating personality. He is a passionate person who will charge forward, come hell or high water, if he thinks something is right. This means he is that pure. 

I wanted to ask about the colors of "Oldboy," its sickly greens and fluorescent purples, its splashes of red. What was your approach to the color correction process for this restoration, given the film's strong contrasts and low saturation levels?

I was unrestrained in my usage of bold colors during the shooting stage. I was able to make this decision because we had done plenty of tests using bleach bypass during pre-production. If the subject is already faint in color, then there's the possibility it'll appear almost monotone after bleach bypass. If you put bold primary colors through bleach bypass, you get this strange and unfamiliar tone. I tried very hard to preserve this effect while remastering the film. 

While vengeance and its futility are major themes in your work, and extreme violence one way those ideas are expressed in "Oldboy," the film also explores the possibility of catharsis and redemption. Looking back, why were these ideas important to you when you made "Oldboy"?

It's likely because of my friends, seniors, and juniors who rose up and fought the military dictatorship while we were in college. I was weak and a coward and so couldn't actively fight, and the brave ended up being the ones sacrificed to this intense violence. That was when I became interested in themes such as guilt, vengeance, and redemption. 

"Oldboy" features many allusions to classical mythology, from the name Oh Dae-su reminding the audiences of Oedipus, to Lee Woo-jin, played by Yoo Ji-tae, assuming a Yoga pose as if he's a religious deity. Why was this mythological quality important to the story you wanted to tell? 

Revenge is a very classical and mythological story subject. So is incest. 

Because I'd already dealt with the division of the Korean peninsula in "Joint Security Area (JSA)" and class conflict within South Korea in "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," I didn't want to handle yet another timely social issue in my next work. I wanted to tell a story that was more foundational, primordial, and universal. And I wanted to go romanticist, rather than realistic. I wanted to tell a story about fate. 

You began collaborating with screenwriter Chung Seo-kyung after "Oldboy," and you have continued working together for 20 years. How has it felt to revisit "Oldboy," which was made before that collaboration, and did Chung have any effect on the restoration and remaster?

After making "JSA," "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," and "Oldboy" back-to-back, I began to repent, having only created stories that pushed women to the periphery. She was who I recruited as a result. As you are aware, the films and series I've made since are all centered around women. Even the works that she is not involved in. That's how much of an influence she has had on me. However, because "Oldboy" is a pre-Chung work, she did not participate in the remastering. 

One of the most enduring lines of dialogue in "Oldboy" comes from Lee Woo-jin, who says, "You can't find the right answer if you ask the wrong questions." This idea is important in many of your films, and so I wanted to close this interview by asking about the influence "Oldboy" has had on you as a filmmaker. How has it influenced the questions that you wish to ask through your filmmaking, or led you toward certain answers?

That's correct — that line of dialogue is the key. If anyone were to regard "Oldboy" as holding some important place in the history of mystery stories, it'd be because of that line. This was not a mystery that could be solved by obsessing over the question, "Why was I imprisoned?" It's only when you change the question to, "Why was I released when I could have been imprisoned for life?" that you can reach the thought, "Then, why was I released after exactly 15 years?" and, "What takes 15 years to achieve?" before ultimately coming to the conclusion that's how long it takes for Mi-do, [played by Kang Hye-jung ,] to become an adult. 

Life is the same. How many enigmas stay unsolved because we are asking the wrong question? When the answer is hard to figure out, let us try changing the question and asking anew. 

"Oldboy" returns to theaters in a new 4K restoration and remaster, via Neon, on August 16.

Isaac Feldberg

Isaac Feldberg is an entertainment journalist currently based in Chicago, who’s been writing professionally for nine years and hopes to stay at it for a few more.

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A Still-Shocking Masterpiece Worth Catching in Theaters

Twenty years on, Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy has lost none of its ability to jar viewers.

This article contains spoilers for the ending of Oldboy .

Many movies with notorious twist endings—such as The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects —face a steep challenge on rewatch. The impact of the finale evaporates, or is at least blunted, by the viewer’s knowledge of what’s coming. A second viewing is largely an exercise in detecting the bread crumbs leading to the big surprise. When a rerelease of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy was announced for this summer, I wondered if it would suffer from the same limitations. Oldboy has one of the nastiest gut-punch cinematic conclusions I’ve ever seen. Twenty years on, would that be sustainable?

Back in the early aughts, when word of Oldboy first started to spread among American cineastes, Korean cinema was a few years into a flourishing renaissance led partly by Park, Bong Joon-ho, and Kim Ki-duk. Still, few projects had genuinely crossed over to the United States—Park’s prior film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance played on a grand total of six screens in North America. Oldboy gained a little more steam, partly because of its success at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where a jury headed by Quentin Tarantino gave it the Grand Prix (the runner-up prize) and critics breathlessly noted its unusual intensity.

For young buffs like myself, Oldboy was best known as the movie where a man eats a live octopus on screen, or maybe the one where a man fights a hallway full of people armed only with a hammer. Its supposed extremity was the draw, a true jolt of excitement given that 2000s Hollywood was already starting to lean away from more challenging material as the superhero-franchise revival was beginning to take root. Indeed, all of Oldboy ’s gnarliest moments feel just as visceral now. But if shock value was the only thing propelling this movie, it wouldn’t be a widely heralded masterpiece rolling out in cinemas nationwide 20 years after its release.

Oldboy follows the businessman Oh Dae-su (played by Choi Min-sik), a drunken sot who is mysteriously kidnapped one day and held captive in a hotel room for 15 years, a psychological torture chamber where he learns he’s been framed for the murder of his wife. Just as mysteriously, he is suddenly released back into the real world, where he quickly embarks on a vengeful journey to find his captors and discover the reason for his imprisonment. He learns that his daughter was given up for adoption, and he forms an alliance with a chef named Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), who seems almost inexplicably drawn to his wildness; they eventually become intimate, and together find the source of Dae-su’s woes: the wealthy and insane Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae).

Read: Decision to Leave is this century’s first great erotic thriller

The film’s plot often feels neither here nor there—Dae-su, sporting a tangle of wiry hair and a permanent thousand-yard stare, is such a compelling and bizarre character that it barely matters who he’s after. Oldboy is mostly absorbing because of the intense anguish radiating off the screen at all times; Park’s ability to effectively communicate obsession, and put the audience in the head of someone who has almost entirely lost touch with his sense of self, feels unparalleled to this day. Oldboy was the middle entry in a loose Vengeance Trilogy , bookended by 2002’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and 2005’s Lady Vengeance , but the only element all three share is the sense of total discombobulation that accompanies a revenge quest, and the crooked line these paths always follow.

Much of Park’s early career saw him playing the role of provocateur. The Vengeance Trilogy is steeped in extreme violence, often breaching taboos avoided by U.S. and European cinema (in his movies, children are frequently in peril). Park’s breakout film, Joint Security Area , about a forbidden friendship between North and South Korean soldiers at the country’s border, dared to depict its North Korean characters with humanity; his 2009 vampire drama, Thirst , was the first mainstream Korean film to feature male full-frontal nudity. Of late, his work has blended provocation with more baroque storytelling and design elements; the period drama The Handmaiden and the cop thriller Decision to Leave both drew wide critical plaudits.

I love both of those recent films, but rewatching Oldboy in a theater is a good reminder of just how bluntly distressing Park’s movies used to be. So many of the “extreme” works of that era—the Saw films, Eli Roth’s Hostel —feel dated on rewatch. But there’s a core element of emotional realism that accentuates Park’s brutal narrative beats, leaving us to ponder something more than a bloody body. Part of Oldboy ’s resonance is due to the movie’s final, most devastating twist: the late revelation that Mi-do is Dae-su’s daughter, and that Woo-jin arranged their meeting and affair as revenge for Dae-su inadvertently exposing Woo-jin’s incestuous attachment to his own sister when they were in school together long ago.

It’s a laborious but somehow believable bit of Greek tragedy, a piece of information so mind-rending that Dae-su essentially begs for death upon learning it. It also makes the rewatch feel a thousand times more tragic, once the viewer knows how cursed Dae-su and Mi-do’s journey is from the start. The knowledge transforms an exciting if ruthless odyssey into something cruelly terrifying. Very few current movies can offer an experience like that, and it gives the rerelease a real power that’s worth tracking down in theaters.

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Oldboy Reviews

The messy, imperfect and chaotic nature of the action belies the precise choreography and consideration behind it.

Full Review | Dec 11, 2023

Oldboy is flashy, but there’s a moral and social disconnect between showing off Park’s undeniable chops and Choi Min-sik’s wild-haired, wild-eyed, poignant descent into madness.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2023

There’s a core element of emotional realism that accentuates Park’s brutal narrative beats, leaving us to ponder something more than a bloody body.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2023

It’s hard to think of any movie that's come out since (outside Park’s own oeuvre, at least) that so directly challenges audience’s expectations about revenge stories, and the value we expect them to carry.

Full Review | Aug 19, 2023

A wildly entertaining, twisted, gripping and exhilarating ride that deserves to be among the timeless crime thriller classics like <i>Seven</i>. See it on the largest screen possible. Be sure to skip the dumbed-down, forgettable remake by Spike Lee.

Given its highly stylish presentation, the unfolding mystery, several notable sequences, and a tremendous all-in lead performance from Choi Min-sik, it’s easy to see why the film has stood the test of time.

Full Review | Aug 18, 2023

When [Oh Dae-su] pieces it all together and finally sees himself reflected back, it is too much for him to bear. As he then tries to forget, the final shot of his shattered smile turning to silent laughter ensures we never will.

Full Review | Aug 17, 2023

There’s something viscerally uncomfortable about seeing what torment does to [Oh Dae-su] and what he becomes in the process.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2023

One of the most electrifying films you'll ever see.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 15, 2023

Visceral storytelling, told with rich visuals, impassioned style, and poetic purpose.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 20, 2022

All of that being said, I did get through the film. [But] I had big issues with it as I was watching it...

Full Review | Mar 29, 2021

Hailed as one of the top ten movies in the history of Asian cinema, it's hard to suggest Oldboy should not be on that list.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 14, 2021

Culminates in such outlandish morbidity that it's difficult to admire as a competent whole.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 9, 2020

A powerful and smart ode to tragedy, Park's film manages to provoke you, dishearten you, and thrill you.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2020

Oldboy still stands up as a modern revenge masterpiece, full of extreme violence and brutal shocks but with heart and a story that draws you in and keeps you invested with every twist and turn.

Full Review | Oct 13, 2019

Still holds up as a true tour de force that is just as fresh and hard-hitting in 2019 as it was upon its release 16 years ago.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Oct 4, 2019

Oldboy is so much more than an action film; it takes the viewer on a journey through a life destroyed, rebuilt and abolished once more. It teaches us lessons about consequences from our actions, the need to get revenge and find truth...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 10, 2019

Oldboy has more to offer than action and violence - it's an imaginative tale of guilt and revenge, with a shocking climax that will live long in the memory.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 5, 2019

When it was first released back in 2003 Park Chan-wook's Oldboy hit audiences like a hammer. Forget Spike Lee's 2013 US remake with Josh Brolin, this South Korean film is the only version of Oldboy that needs to be seen.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 3, 2019

Bold, brutal, bloody and brilliant

Full Review | Jul 31, 2019

'Oldboy' Is a Revenge Movie Done Right

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‘Wicked’ Massively Changes Nessarose (And We’re So Glad)

This once-overlooked classic western is one of john ford's best movies, in this friday the 13th sequel, jason voorhees accidentally broke his only rule, the big picture.

• Oldboy , directed by Park Chan-wook, introduced the world to South Korean cinema and remains a critically acclaimed masterpiece beloved by film fans.
• The film's highly stylized visuals and iconic hallway fight scene have had a significant influence on modern cinema, particularly big-budget action films.
• Beyond its surface level of violence and revenge, Oldboy delves into deeper themes of guilt, morality, and the destructive nature of vengeance, challenging the viewer's expectations and prompting self-reflection.

20 years ago, the world at large was introduced to the wonderful world of South Korean cinema through Park Chan-wook 's masterpiece of vengeance, Oldboy . A classic from the moment it was released, Oldboy opened the door for South Korean cinema in the west, being critically acclaimed, winning the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and largely beloved by film fans from all disciplines. Yet, the film has a second layer lurking beneath it. On the surface, Oldboy is a highly stylized, beautifully choreographed film full of blood and gore. The iconic hallway fight scene is easily one of the most influential pieces of cinema of the 21st century. All the big budget, one-take fight scenes you see in Marvel movies and the like owe Park Chan-Wook a fat check. When you dive past the aesthetics of the film, and into what it's really trying to say, another world is opened up.

How Park Chan-wook Became a Filmmaker

One of the keys in understanding Park's work is his background. Rather than coming from a pure filmmaking background, he initially studied philosophy, then went on to be a film critic . This is actually a fairly common path for many filmmakers. Most notably, Paul Schrader , Olivier Assayas , and many directors of the French New Wave all started out writing about film rather than making it. This leads to an approach to filmmaking that is heavily focused on subtext. The images these directors present to us are not to be taken literally, but rather gesture to what is left unsaid by the film. With Oldboy, that can be a little bit tricky. A lot of the film is incredibly visually appealing, with very compelling action, set design, and costuming. Sure, there are some scenes that are incredibly disturbing, particularly the octopus scene, but beyond that the film has a very straightforward premise.

A man was imprisoned for 15 years, for no reason, and now he is out, and seeking vengeance against his captors. Oh Dae-Su, played by Choi Min-sik , operates in the standard trappings of a revenge film protagonist. He is cool and removed, hunting for those who did him wrong, armed with 15 years of training for this very moment. It is very easy to see why Oldboy can be viewed as college film student fodder by many people. Incredibly violent, cosigned by Quentin Tarantino , and a third act that is just one of the most insane, disturbing things you've ever seen, Oldboy is a film that on the first watch, you are so engrossed on the surface that you never really get to dive any deeper into it.

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On a second watch, things start to become more apparent. Once you know the twist, cracks start to appear in the first read you had on the film. Oh Dae-Su is explicitly depicted as an uncaring, awful person in every scene of the film. You root for him because you're supposed to. That's how a revenge film works. The one seeking vengeance will always be the hero. But what is vengeance really? What do you gain from it? Not emancipation from your past. Nothing is ever cleansed. This is not an uncommon idea in cinema, The Searchers by John Ford discussed similar themes in 1956. Park Chan-wook may be the modern expert on the subject, having made a whole trilogy on his ideas on vengeance, but filmmakers like Tarantino, and Christopher Nolan have all set out to make their own version of a revenge film. What makes Oldboy stand out is the potent mix of slick visuals with ruthless criticism of the genre it portrays so well. Revenge does nothing but destroy everyone in its wake in this film. Park himself would argue that his films are not even about revenge, rather "They are merely the transferring of a guilty conscience. My films are stories of people who place the blame for their actions on others because they refuse to take on the blame themselves. Therefore, rather than movies purporting to be of revenge, it would be more accurate to see my films as ones stressing morality, with guilty consciences as the core subject matter."

'Oldboy' Destroys Revenge Films

When a director portrays something on-screen, the gut reaction for most people is to think "If this is being portrayed, they must think it is right.". To condemn something, it must be condemned explicitly, not only by the filmmaker, but by the film itself. When you're finished watching, the film has told you what to think, or at least that is what you would expect. The same is expected of criticism, that you can read it, and you now understand the film in its totality. Oldboy rejects these notions. When you watch it, you aren't told how to feel. You may feel pushed in a certain way, but Park is aware of that. The seduction inherent to cinema will always push you to root for Oh Dae-Su, so he pushes back. When you get to that third act, you don't want to see him win anymore. You just want the film to be over. There is no happiness in revenge. And if there is no happiness, why do we clamor to watch it. Why are we all obsessed with seeing bloody violence on-screen, so someone can right a wrong? When you leave the theater, you may just think "Damn that's crazy," but that isn't what sticks with you the most. The horror of Oldboy is not the content itself, but that you have to watch it. You have to sit with these characters, watch them suffer, and think "Why do I want that so bad?" What do we get from watching the cinematic equivalent of a car crashing into a wall for 2 hours? The pleasure of watching the violence goes hand in hand with the inevitable horror of watching what is has reaped for everyone involved.

Oldboy is a masterpiece, made by one of the true modern masters in Park Chan-wook. His entire filmography is filled with fascinating films, beyond just the "Vengeance Trilogy" , a thematic trilogy comprised of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance , Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance . His most recent outing in Decision to Leave is just as razor sharp as ever, full of masterful filmmaking, deep analysis of film history, as well as self reflection on his own films. South Korean cinema has exploded in recent years, due to the sensation Bong Joon-ho 's Parasite was, but it has a rich cinematic history ready to be explored. Oldboy is not only the perfect film to start your journey on, but one to return to again and again. A beautiful revenge film that destroys the idea of watching one in the first place, Oldboy is an essential piece of cinema. Not just revenge films or South Korean films, it is an absolutely necessary watch for anyone remotely interested in cinema. With a remaster being released into theaters on August 16, go support your local repertory cinema and see one of the best films ever made.

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