Film Club Discussion: Oldboy
Tonight's NS_D Film Club entry is Park Chan-wook's 2003 film Oldboy, based on the manga by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya.
Brief Summary: Businessman Oh Dae-su is abducted off the street and confined to a mysterious hotel room for 15 years, without any knowledge of his captor's identity or motives. After he is suddenly released, Dae-su is given five days to uncover the truth about his imprisonment and seek revenge, or another tragedy will occur.
1. For those who have read the Oldboy manga, what did you think of the film as an adaptation? How do Goto, Kakinuma, and Eri compare to their film counterparts, Dae-su, Woo-jin, and Mi-do? Did the change of the antagonist's motives make the story more or less believable?
2. Mi-do says, "Very lonely people that I met... they all hallucinated ants at one time." What did you think of the movie's hallucinatory sequences? Its uses of flashbacks and depictions of memory?
4. The corridor fight scene, which was filmed in a single shot, is probably the film's most famous sequence. Thoughts on it? Is it worth the hype?
5. Oldboy starts off as a conventional revenge thriller--imprisoned man goes free, looks for revenge--but the final act twist subverts the usual revenge plot formula (Dae-su's imprisonment was itself an act of revenge). How does Oldboy compare to other revenge sagas like, say, The Count of Monte Cristo or Kill Bill?
6. And finally, that last scene. Park Chan-wook left the final shot deliberately ambiguous--did the hypnosis succeed? Has Oh Dae-su forgotten the truth or is "The Beast" still inside him? And what about poor Mi-do in all this?
Any other thoughts?
Brief Summary: Businessman Oh Dae-su is abducted off the street and confined to a mysterious hotel room for 15 years, without any knowledge of his captor's identity or motives. After he is suddenly released, Dae-su is given five days to uncover the truth about his imprisonment and seek revenge, or another tragedy will occur.
1. For those who have read the Oldboy manga, what did you think of the film as an adaptation? How do Goto, Kakinuma, and Eri compare to their film counterparts, Dae-su, Woo-jin, and Mi-do? Did the change of the antagonist's motives make the story more or less believable?
2. Mi-do says, "Very lonely people that I met... they all hallucinated ants at one time." What did you think of the movie's hallucinatory sequences? Its uses of flashbacks and depictions of memory?
4. The corridor fight scene, which was filmed in a single shot, is probably the film's most famous sequence. Thoughts on it? Is it worth the hype?
5. Oldboy starts off as a conventional revenge thriller--imprisoned man goes free, looks for revenge--but the final act twist subverts the usual revenge plot formula (Dae-su's imprisonment was itself an act of revenge). How does Oldboy compare to other revenge sagas like, say, The Count of Monte Cristo or Kill Bill?
6. And finally, that last scene. Park Chan-wook left the final shot deliberately ambiguous--did the hypnosis succeed? Has Oh Dae-su forgotten the truth or is "The Beast" still inside him? And what about poor Mi-do in all this?
Any other thoughts?