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The sequence of the box, opened slowly, which reveals the entire meaning of Oh-Dae Su's harrowing, poetic, and grim imprisonment, is something unique. Everything unfolds in a poignant, moving silence. It's the Climax, the Nirvana of the antagonist, Jin. But it's also the catharsis for the viewer, who realizes the true poetry of this story.
It's 1988, and Oh-Dae Su, a father and husband, is kidnapped while making a call to his daughter from a phone booth. Locked in a cell for 15 years, without knowing why, Dae Su attempts suicide several times. But when he learns of his wife's murder, he vows revenge on his captor. Finally, after 15 years, he is released, and the hunt begins.
No doubt about it, Park Chan Wook is brilliant.
Splendid sequences, a fight shot in two dimensions (remember the old side-scrolling video games?), teeth being pulled, and heartrending screams, but also poetry and love. This is Old Boy.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and you cry alone.
It's the battle between two totally different personalities. Lion against gazelle and vice versa. From furious avenger to gentle dog, and you can't help but be moved. The closer you get to the end, the more you realize that everything we've seen is turned upside down and twisted. And the story takes on its own meaning. No longer a tasty action-splatter movie, but a poetic hymn to one of the most uncomfortable themes that can be addressed in a film.
There's something sinister in Oh-Dae Su's grin while holding the hammer. It's his darkest side, the vengeful one, which, summoned as if from the underworld, emerges and explodes. While it satisfies him, paradoxically it will condemn him to redemption and isolation from the world.
Everything is where it needs to be. Nothing excessive, or rhetorical.
And this is beautiful.
Sweet melodies accompany the viewer on this journey into each of our personal hells. Into our skeletons in the closet. Into our most hidden pleasures.
The box opens before us in all its disturbing beauty, and we can do nothing but apologize.
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By Stronko
"If you laugh, the world laughs with you; if you cry, you cry alone."
A STRONG film and desperately closed in on itself that speaks to us of loneliness and madness in an obsessive and desperate manner.
