The first Oldboy was a runaway success. An exceedingly dark film from Korean director Chan-wook Park, it enthralled critical audiences worldwide. It was nominated for the Palme D'or and actually walked away with the Grand Jury's Prize.
It is impressive. It's a film that provokes visceral reactions in many but also a deep aftertaste of unsettlement, a feeling that you're not quite sure what you've just seen and why. It also has two moments in particular I'll always remember, courtesy of the talented Min-sik Choi: seeing a live octupus devoured on film and the final shot where man becomes a twisted painting.
Now, as with other products of Korean cinema, it's been adapted (some would say pillaged) for an American audience. While the announcement of Spike Lee as director was met with surprise, the end product is of higher than average caliber for these kinds of remakes.
Oldboy is about Joe Doucett (played by Josh Brolin), an alcoholic and deadbeat dad concerned solely with making money and numbing himself. One day, inexplicably, he wakes up from a drunken binge to find himself imprisoned inside a hotel room. He is fed the same food every day, gets a few public access channels on television, and gets gassed to sleep at the same time every night. For 15 years.
Just as randomly, he wakes up in a box in a field. His head has been shaved, he has a new suit, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. His kidnapper, the mysterious Chucky (Michael Imperioli), makes contact"”and the hunt for revenge is on.
There are a few important changes. Gone are my two favorite shots from the original. The original incestuous motivation of the villain has been amplified to a disturbing extreme. The ending has been changed for a less nihilist, broader market.
Most pleasantly, the plot confusions of the original have been erased"”thankfully the remake doesn't lean on hypnotism/mirage as the original did, a device tired enough to demand extreme attention if there is to be any hope of a successful Inception-like payoff.
But whether you would consider money and time spent watching Oldboy spent well, pretty much depends on your stomach for and opinions on visceral graphic depictions of controversial acts. Clockwork Orange is a good bell-weather test here. If you thought the extreme depictions of rape added to the "questions" the film raised about justice, then you might enjoy Oldboy. If you thought they were a tasteless distraction from ultimate questions better answered by films like True Grit, go ahead and skip Oldboy. It's not for you.
I don't want to take more of a stand than that with this film"”some critics have labeled it Shakespearean; some friends of mine have said it's the most offensive and disgusting film they've ever seen. I think it takes more thought and words than we have space for here today to make a justified answer to that clash of values.
However, I will say what I do find troubling about the twist in Oldboy"”it tricks the audience into hating themselves. It shows explicit acts of sexual pleasure between attractive partners, which trigger a release of dopamine in the brain. Then it reveals that those sexual acts are actually of an abhorrent, criminal nature"”so the audience members are unavoidably disgusted with themselves, forcing them to identify with the characters on screen. I'll at least say that it's wrong to do this without showing some redemption at the end that bestows an amount of grace on the feelings of the audience commensurate with the amount of disgust they were forced to feel earlier. And Oldboy doesn't do that.
I don't know enough to fully answer these questions. But I will say: proceed with caution.
