“Masterpiece” is too dull a word for Park Chan-Wook’s Oldboy. Masterpiece just doesn’t cut it – though be warned, this is no sunlit stroll.
Oldboy grabs you from its opening scene, reminding you what the alternate meaning of start is – and from there, you’re on your own. Merging the sheen of effortless cool with freshly sustained twists of emotion and surprise, and mauling intensity, Oldboy confounds and awes.
Lead actor Min-Sic Choi channels subtle transformations to manifest hero Oh-Dae Su’s depths of emotion. He’s been inexplicably locked up by unknown persons for unknown reasons, sentenced to 15 years in some faux motel room with only the surreal linearity of television for company. Then he is just as casually let go, only to receive a call from his captor: He has only a few days to figure out why all of this happened, or his remaining loved ones will be killed.
The second of Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy, Oldboy combines beauty and perversion, horror and grace with unprecedented virtuosity. It’s a cinematic coup.
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