OldBoy

Mr. Park’s most recent opus, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, was a magnificent venture – a rampage of oh-so-Korean tragi-absurdity, beautifully subverted revenge fantasy and completely diseased fancy. It was always going to be a hard act to follow, let alone top. Yet once in a very long while – and only if you’ve been a very obedient, diligent sort of film critic – you find your just reward in a film that lunges off the screen, affects some kind of primal, Come To Daddy howl, slavers all over your face and leaves you stumbling into the daylight gasping for air and several stiff gins. In this manner, along lunges Park’s Tarantino-approved, Cannes conquering OldBoy, a dazzling blast of macabre fuselage from South Korea.
The darkly Kafka-esque premise sees Oh Dae Su (Choi), a young Korean family man, kidnapped and incarcerated. He has no idea who his captors are, or indeed, what his crime is. After 15 years, with only television for company, he’s released and given three days to discover who has condemned him to such a fate. Reduced to a primitive state, a monster by his own admission, he seeks retribution of medieval proportions.
A gloriously expressionistic venture, OldBoy’s perpetually moving camera and grungy aesthetic offset the maniacally jagged atmosphere of claustrophobia perfectly. Though not without sensationally sadistic moments – a live octopus getting its head bitten off, a fight-scene from Tyler Durden’s hottest, wettest dream, a flinch-worthy sex scene – OldBoy is never less than Shakespearean in grandeur or intent.
The downward spiral of feverish Hitchcockian tension, weasly Polanskian menace and sickly comical Miike-style barbarity is greatly enhanced by a towering performance from Mr. Choi. He storms around like a smacked-up Charles Bronson in need of his next fix, as painted by Hieronymus Bosch.
Apparently, Tarantino had his heart set on OldBoy taking the Palme D’Or (many have speculated about what must have been an interesting chit-chat with fellow jury member Tilda Swinton) and it’s easy to see why. If there’s a film out there that panders in a more geisha-like fashion to the great man’s tastes I’d like to see it. No, please, I really would.

To read Tara Brady's interview with OldBoy director Chan Wook Park click here.