Review: Old Boy

Drunken fool named Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-shik) wakes up after a night of drunken idiocy to find himself locked up in a room/prison, for reasons and by persons unknown. Fifteen years later he is released, and spends every waking moment trying to work out who the sonofabitch behind this is, and why. Kang Hye-Jeong plays the pretty Mido, a young chef who takes Oh Dae-Su in.

 

Overrated, but occasionally exciting and confronting 2003 Park Chan-Wook (“Joint Security Area”, “Thirst”, “The Handmaiden”) crime-revenge story from South Korea is too slow and uninvolving to work entirely, though the twist is one of the most morbid and disturbing things I’ve ever seen. As for the live octopus consumption…I didn’t see what the fuss was about. Yeah, it seemed unappetising with all the crawling about, and no one should be consuming a live ‘anything’ in my view, but it was a pretty darn small octopus and not that gross. Based on reputation I was thinking he was going to be forcibly fed the octopus through his anal passage or something. I dunno, maybe seafood lovers can tell me why that’s supposed to be so disgusting. I found a teeth-pulling and ‘tongue’ scene far more disgusting. Was it because it’s animal cruelty? That’s my guess at any rate, but I can’t say for sure.

 

I just frankly didn’t give a crap about the main character, he was a louse to begin with and not exactly a beacon of light the rest of the time (I much preferred the film’s heavy, Yu Ji-tae). Great fight scene in a hallway, but this ultimately seemed much ado about nothing.

 

Rating: C+

 

 

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