Oldboy (2003) - Thriller Revenge

Oldboy (2003) - This film has been on my "I need to watch it" list for quite a long time, having heard so many wonderful, fawning, excited and opinions of wonderment about this film that it seemed for sure when the viewing finally happened only disappointment could follow.  On IMDB this film has a 8.4 user rating so to say that it has an enthusiastic following is an understatement. So when I decided to pop it in last night I was a bit weary. I started watching the film and the English dubbing was on and it was so bad that changing to Korean with English subtitles was necessary just to begin watching. Once into the film I was amazed that this film is as good as people have been bragging about. It is an amazingly twisted story that not only is well set up and filmed but also has a dynamic that raises it above other films.
  Going in this film seems like one thing but by the end has transformed into something completely different. It has a unique structure where the viewer is set up to have a set of beliefs about the main character. Set up to be the unsympathetic character Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi) is a bit of a shitty person, a drunk and an absentee father. We meet him in a police station after being picked up for public intoxication abusive and his behavior does not immediately make him endearing. When he is bailed out by his friend No Joo-hwan (Dae-han Ji) he is an ass. While making a drunken phone call to his daughter, No Joo-hwan takes the receiver and when he turns around his drunk friend is missing. Next we get a series of scenes that make him the sympathetic character.
  Dae-su Oh has been abducted and he is next seen in a cell begging for his release. We through a sequence of scenes watch as he is kept captive for 15 years. Through cycles of grief in his captivity, to the insanity that comes with isolation to learning his wife has been murdered he is a lost soul without answers to why this is happening to him. A television his only eye into the world outside he loses his mind. His suicide attempts make you feel for his suffering, his physical training we think he only lives to get revenge on those who did this to him, his writing in his journal about all the people he wronged does nothing to get any answers to who but shows that he is a man who learns what a bad person he is. Escape is impossible and viewers have also the knowledge that his mind is also being manipulated through hypnosis. He is regularly gassed and cared for so he is alive but captive and trained to a schedule. The one thing he does that fight this control is trying to tunnel out of his cell through a hole in the wall behind his bed. When at last he removes one brick from the outer wall of his prison, enough to stick his hand out and feel rain for the first time in 15 years, the audience expectations are he is getting close to escape. He goes to sleep as the gas fills his room this time with a smile on his face. So when he wakes on a rooftop in a new suit with all his writing and personal items intact we are all on board with him being sympathetic character. We are also surprised since the buildup was all about him finally having a chance to escape so are expectations as viewers have to re-adjust.
  The story as it unfolds is Dae-su attempting to find out who it was that imprisoned him and why. We are into his story at this point and figure all that is to come is about his revenge for his incarceration. Writer Garon Tsuchiya does an excellent job at revealing the the details across the span of the film. One piece at a time small clues from his captivity are deciphered and he learns what he needs to know. Along the way we see him find love again with a much younger women, Mi-do (Hye-jeong Kang) a chef who surprisingly finds him attractive. When he finally finds out who and why and the villain (?) of the film is revealed Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu) we the audience realize that maybe we may have been cheering for the wrong person in this film. While leading us to feel that this is a film about Dae-su's vengeance we learn really this is a film about Woo-jin's revenge. The twists and turns in the final third of this film are mind boggling, after the first viewing you can see the foreshadowing in the early part of the film but on the virgin viewing it is a wonderful set of revelations. This dichotomy of characters and the cruel turns and surprising revelations make the first viewing of this film a singular wonder.
  The tatters of the end of this story are so sad, so profoundly disturbing that this viewer was left in awe at Dae-su's final decisions. Again becoming somewhat sympathetic because of the cruel event that have occurred he makes a decision which viewers can debate for hours after viewing this film.  It is not just that though, the decisions of Woo-jin after the loss of his beloved sister Lee Soo-ah are amazing. It is his vengeance against Dae-su that is the driving force of this film. It is he that was wronged and left empty that drive the events of the film. It is such a refreshing story in that in it we get established on one person as the victim of events but then realize that we don't know shit. Ultimately we can still sypathize with Dae-su but you have to love that the story challenges the viewer to understand that his is not guilt free. Refusing to spoil any of this film is important so that all of you go watch this film as it is highly recommended by this blog.

I Saw The Devil (2010) Revenge, Serial Killer

I Saw The Devil (2010) - Akmareul Boatda (original title) What a story of revenge and the price you can pay for it, or how sometimes the revenge we plan does not turn out the way we thought it would. Director Jee-woon Kim has been involved with several things this writer knows, the segment in "3 Extremes II" called "Memories", the soon to be reviewed "A Tale of Two Sisters" and this very good film. This is at its heart a revenge film with a good dose of horror and action and some unexpected twists. One of the things I liked about the directing was the use of slow motion and silence at times to portray the emotions of the moment, Jee-woon Kim does a fine job creating an unexpectedly harsh and heartfelt story. Of course the skill shown in the directors chair is complemented by a good script by new writer Hoon-jung Park. So lets get into more of the film instead of just blowing the writer and director.
This is the revenge story of Kim Soo-hyeon(Byung-hun Lee) who is happily married to the beautiful Joo-yeon (San-ha Oh). She early in the film is attacked and kidnapped from her car by serial killer Kyung-chul. Played by the incredible actor Min-sik Choi (Lady Vengeance, Oldboy) Kyung-chul is a relentlessly evil bastard with the ego and fortitude to carry this film by himself, but there was no need. Lead Byung-hun Lee as Kim is equally bad ass on the side of vengeance and is a partner equal to the task of making this film a drag out brawl between good and evil. When Joo-yeon's body is found, Kim an intelligence service agent springs into action to get his own form of justice from the perpetrator of the murder. Narrowed to four suspects by police chief Jang (Gook-hwan Jeon), father to Joo-yeon, Kim begins a harsh and violent tracking from one suspect to the next in an effort to find his wife's killer. He is a skilled agent and uses his skills to their violent fullest. When he comes across Kyung-chul's parents and son he knows enough to ask the son where his father lives. From this he soon learns the mans' occupation as a driver for an all girls school. No CORI checks in this town. Since the son knows where his father works it tells us something about that relationship. There is one anyhow and Kyung-chul has separated his need to kill from his family. Still it is the piece of information that Kim needed to track him down. When he arrives at the man's house he finds in locked drawers the remains of women, not body parts but the clothes and accessories. He knows he has found the killer. Discovering the slaughter room in the drain on the floor he find Joo-yeon's wedding ring the match for his own. It is an excellent moment in the film where he gets to grieve and commit himself to catching up to the bastard Kyung-chul.
The other half of the film follows the killer as he continues his reign of terror on the community. We see another abduction and murder. The poor woman talked into taking the ride at night after he tells her the buses have stopped. How quickly he turns on her and smashes her with a pipe. It is not just that he smashes her, he takes his time to find the pipe behind the seat, then shows it to her. He wants his victims to feel the fear before he harms them. It is part of what gets him off, his control of their emotions. When she wakes naked and violated he is preparing the guillotine he will use to cut her body up. We get a fuller picture of this guy, the nudity of the women, because he likes to rape them, the cutting instruments to cut the bodies into small pieces. When when he realizes he has been made he goes from hidden killer to psychopath in the open callously striking at anyone and everyone. As he drives his charges home he takes the last sleeping girl as a prize and goes on the run to another safe house.
Of course with Kim Soo-hyeon on his trail he is no longer safe, so even this standby house is not hidden for long. Interrupted in raping the school girl he sees Kim across the green house. The two square off with Kim weaponless and Kyung with two blades. We are already sitting with knowledge from the earlier scenes that both men are bad asses, but quickly it becomes evident who is the badder ass. Kim kicks the shit out of him, what would be the perfect final battle between the vengeful husband and the man who killed his wife. This though is a movie of twists and the first twist happens here. When Kim gets his revenge he leaves the broken armed Kyung a bloody heap in the ditch he dug to bury his latest victim. When Kyung wakes he is alone with an envelop of cash at his side. WTF?
So the movie proper begins with the realization that this is not over until Kim says it is over. He lets this bastard of a killer free to create even more terror while so he can continue to track and beat the man. It is quite an interesting turn. Can the writer and director make the killer the sympathetic character? Will the continued hunt change the vengeful Kim into the devil he is tracking and punishing? How will it end and will the plan Kim has put in place possibly work to relieve his grief? This reviewers head was spinning at this point in the movie. As regular readers know I would be the vengeful person and hold sympathies there. This film challenges the ability to hold that position and in doing so makes the film all the more compelling.
At this point you think you have this film figured out and for a while you do. There is more Kyung-chul cruelty and rampage through the countryside. Then Kim shows up and beats the living tar out of him again and you think this can not go on forever. Kyung is not the run of the mill psycho though and his abilities are more than just being evil. We learn so much more about the killer. What his motivations are and how his grandiose opinion of himself will dictate his actions. When the next twist comes the audience in Korean theaters must have been blown away. This reviewer was in awe of the shift just sitting at home. The ante continued up until the final scene. That twist turns the tables on Kim in a way I will not mention here. It is to you to go get this film and see for yourselves. When that sequence is done and there is only one movement left. How will our hero get back on top. It is a final twist worth the effort of watching this engrossing if slightly too long thriller. The acting is exception with Min-sik Choi turning in an amazing performance and Byung-hun Lee right behind him is style points. The music works well for most of the film with a few exception where it is over used in the action scenes. Because of all this I am rating this film on the high end, not only do I recommend it but I do so strongly.
Rating (8.5) 5.0 and up are recommended. Go see this movie!