'Oldboy' Keeps Feeling Younger
Like eating a live octopus that wriggles and wraps its tentacles around your face as you chew, viewing Park Chan-Wook’s Oldboy is an uncomfortable delicacy. This August, the visceral tale of revenge has been rereleased to American audiences, making over $1 million at the box office—surpassing the cumulative gross of its original 2003 theatrical run. So why, 20 years later, are people lining up to sold-out showings of the film?
The action thriller—which follows a wrongfully imprisoned man on a revenge mission against his captors—is a cult classic amongst cinephiles of the highest order, from Roger Ebert to Quentin Tarantino. Over the past two decades, Oldboy has cultivated a loyal group of fans who deem it one of the most fucked-up movies ever made. Oldboy loyalists even warn newcomers to go into the film with no prior knowledge of the film in order not to ruin its plot twists. But the film is so much more than its most violent scenes, sinful fight sequences, and shocking ending. Rewatching Oldboy in 2023 doesn’t feel like revisiting a relic of its time. In our all too censored and sexless modern movie landscape, Park Chan-Wook’s masterpiece—with its extraordinarily intentional use of explicit imagery—is suddenly a refreshing watch.
Earlier this month, I ended up seeing Oldboy's it twice within the same week—against the recommendations of my friends, who feared for my emotional well-being. But unlike the film's lead character, Oh Dae-Su, I have no regrets. When I sat down at Alamo Drafthouse for my first screening, I saw Park Chan-Wook's prerecorded introduction for the rerelease. He warned of extreme violence and nudity, and cautioned octopi lovers to brace themselves. As a sign-off, he said that we shouldn’t be afraid to laugh, because the film was meant to be funny.
Oldboy has many refrains, one of which our protagonist repeats himself many times in order to hold on to his sanity, “Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.” So laugh I did, as Oh Dae-Su—played by Choi Min-Sik, a veteran of South Korean cinema—is imprisoned for 15 years, then released unceremoniously one day on a rooftop near where he was first abducted. One of the most striking images from the film is a close-up of Oh’s face as he stares at a painting of James Ensor's "The Man of Sorrows." He emulates the expression of the face in the painting, contorting his lips and eyes into a look of laughter and anguish that captures the absurdity of his pain.
Shortly thereafter, we follow Oh Dae-Su’s dogged pursuit of Lee Woo-Jin, the person who captured him. What ensues is a dazzling onslaught of violence— teeth pulled out by hammers, literal backstabbing and dismemberment. But if the fight scenes and the infamous moment when Dae-Su eats a live octopus are what you take away from the film? You’ve missed what makes Oldboy a timeless epic.
On my second rewatch—days later at another sold-out showing at the IFC Center—the plot’s secret revelations were still fresh in my mind. So I chose to focus on my fellow audience members, spying on their experience of the movie. People laughed, screamed, gagged, and gasped. It was an orchestra of reactions. By the time that Dae-Su may finally gets his revenge on Lee Woo-Jin, the emotions that the film had been masterfully conducting reached a climax. Along with Dae-Su, we realize that we weren’t watching his revenge tale. Oldboy is actually a story about Lee Woo-Jin’s wrath—showing his desire to inflict the same wound he suffered when his sister committed suicide and ended their love affair. After the loss of his sister, terrorizing Dae-Su gave his life meaning. With his vengeance fulfilled, his will to live ceased as well. Dae-Su is left alone to confront an unimaginable reality: he had sex with and is in love with his own daughter.
So you can understand why Oldboy may make a sane person turn their head away to avoid witnessing incest, suicide, and torture. But in today's sex-scene discourse—where many feel that they range from tasteless to pointless—Park’s Oldboy is a transgressive piece of art that forces viewers to grapple with the horrors and ugly truths of life. Sure, we can sanitize the bloody violence and graphic sex from our movies, but that's erasing the texture of real life.
Oldboy may be a film about extremes, but it bluntly conveys the full spectrum of humanity. It depicts feelings that are unfiltered, murky, and sometimes disgusting. But in the end, whether it's your first or fifth viewing of Oldboy, its journey is so raw that you'll ask yourself why these things happen. The answer may be more familiar than we’d like to think.
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