This is a guest first reaction/review from Jon Hudson. Find him on Twitter here.
Oldboy leaves you with its fist firmly embedded in your gut by the time the credits roll. Your mouth is left with the taste of the sticky popcorn and soda you consumed as well as your feet stuck to who knows what kind of fluids on the cinema’s floor. It’s an extraordinarily visceral film in every facet, provoking intense, emotional reactions throughout. It’s looks great and kicks ass.
Before I get into the meat of this review, I should preface this by telling you I haven’t seen the allegedly outstanding original Korean version of Oldboy. This is a good thing, as it gives me a perspective on the film not influenced by how closely it relies to the source material. So I’m not here to say if Oldboy was a suitable adaptation, because that would be silly. I’m here to tell you that as a story I’ve experienced for the first time – through the lens of Spike Lee – this is a viscerally enjoyable film.
Oldboy is beautifully shot — both in the way its shots are framed and the stark way it uses contrast. As a result, the film has an almost comic book feel to it at times, which works in its favor. The characters and plot would not seem at all out of place in a graphic novel, ala Sin City or The Watchmen. The cinematography is often extremely unsettling – whether it’s depicting the isolation of Josh Brolin’s character, Joe Doucett, in the first act, or reliving dark moments from the past, closer to the end of the film. The camera never lets the audience rest, which gives the film a sickeningly fast pace.
The violence is Tarantino-esque in parts, but these moments are used sparingly and to great effect. The brutal killings punctuate the tense, investigative tone of the film, which I think makes the impact of those those scenes’ that much more effective on the viewer than if Oldboy was a romp of non-stop murder and bloodshed. The famous fight scene from the original (the only part of the Korean version that I have seen) is re-appropriated nicely in this remake. It retains key elements while adding new ones to make the combat feel fresh.
This is not a movie to take your date to. Unless she’s like.. a really cool date. But seriously – this is a film that you’ll want to sit down and think about for a few minutes after it ends. You’ll want to hug your dog and sleep with a stuffed animal. Oldboy pulls you every which way over its 120 minutes and drags you through a wide range of emotions rivaling that of the characters’. The last film I saw that left me with such pause after it finished was American History X. Not to say Oldboy rivals that, but it takes you into similar territory emotionally.
Go see this film. Go prepared and be ready to ride the rollercoaster. Just be ready for the nausea all of its loops will give you.
Oldboy comes out in theaters on November 27.
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