Old Boy

[cranefly]

Chan-wook Park is now on my radar.
The basic premise of Old Boy -- and I'm not giving anything away that isn't obvious from trailers -- is that someone is held in a room for many years, then released. He doesn't know who held him, or why -- or why he was finally released.

I thought this might be a one-note film, something like Pi, which, though well-made, was ultimately boring and had a completely unlikeable protagonist. But Old Boy just kept mutating, was full of surprises both big and small, and even though some of the characters were reprehensible, they each had a side to them that I grew to respect. Some very quirky scenes, a few over the top, and some convincing street fighting done in long continuous shots.

A masterful film. I was blown away by it.
It won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004. I can see why.

I'll have to check out more of his work.

--cranefly

P.S. I seem to recall someone reviewing this on the old forum. I'm not certain it was this positive. But I was very impressed.

[thatguy]

I poked around and there isn't really much already posted on the forum about these movies. There was a quote posted that someone may pickup the first one for a remake. And then a response to my post when I said I was going to watch this next. I finished the first two last week and the third movie last night. They are all completely different in story and feel. The only common thread is (obviously) the revenge theme (and a few actors reappear).

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
This is pretty violent, though not to the level of Ishi. Pretty much everybody dies. It's a lot like a Shakespeare play or a greek tragedy.

Oldboy
Wow...OMG...wow. I went into this with no preconceptions whatsoever. I would call that a masterpiece. Amazing movie. If you haven't seen it yet, go rent it now.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Much different tone than the first two movies. Almost pretty. Beautiful soundtrack (made me think of Kubrick). The vengeance sequence was almost...no, was, comical.

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Old Boy was showcased at a DOOM gathering years ago. We were all impressed.

[Drunk Monk]

Wasn't it ED that turned us on to Park Chan-wook at some DOOM gathering? I guess we have to forgive all the necrophiliac defecation and dwarf flicks he tortured us with for that.

I was inspired by tg's post:

So Emily Wells has a song on the soundtrack for the new Park Chan Wook/Nicole Kidman movie "Stoker". Here's the trailer for the poster (?): [youtube]f_CZnSB-yLI[/youtube]

I hadn't seen Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Part 1 of the Park's Vengeance trilogy (OB is part 2). Hollywood remakes are being discussed for both part 2 and 3 (Lady Vengeance).

It was inspired filmmaking for sure, but damn...what a fucked up tale. Nevertheless, I love Park's way of moving a camera to tell a story. I was completely engaged all the way through. The characters were all reprehensible, yet sympathetic on some level. The story arcs wove together into a noteworthy quilt of depravity. It lacked the amazing fight scene of OB, but not the bloodiness by any means. No sword fights but some gritty knifings, mondo bat bashing and a satisfying arterial spray. No Bollywood numbers either, although there is a good Korean political ditty.

Korea looks dismal. I don't think I ever want to go there.

[Drunk Monk]

This is my least favorite of the trilogy. It's still good, but not as over-the-top as the previous two. Park's eye for crazy Korean architecture is still very impressive. He loves to flip the camera upside down for the characters POV. He also has best sense of the beat down; Where most directors would end a fight, Park will keep kicking the fallen when they're down, more like real fights.

LV has no sword fights or Bollywood numbers, but one really good hallucinatory dream sequence early on - had there been more of those, I would have been so into this flick. There's also some good women in prison segments. ED & LB might remember the great MQ6 women-in-prison triple-feature drinking game. I cannot remember what the three films were, but we all snuck in tall beer cans and drank whenever a cliche arose - stuff like the alpha lesbian, the nooB rape, the doomed love affair. For the second feature, we drank twice and the third, we drank 3x. Needless to say, we were all schnockered early into the second feature. Given that authority, I'd add that LV is one of the best women-in-prison flicks ever.

Thematically, the Vengeance trilogy all involved kidnapping and parent-child relationships, which as a parent really get under my skin. I'm trying to imagine a Vengeance trilogy marathon, but I don't think I could do it.

[thatguy]

My fav scene from LV was the families donning their rain coats and lining up for their turns. It seemed almost like a Python skit or something...

--tg

PS: There's already a thread for the Vengenace Trilogy:

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[Drunk Monk]

Maybe the subforum mod can make a little move here to adjust.

I agree on that raincoat scene being good, but my fav still goes to that dream sequence. The dog/sled/victim was uber cool.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm in a Park zone so I netflixed another...

I'm a Cyborg and that's Okay was disappointing, especially after Lady Vengeance as there are some familiar incarceration themes, but it's not as gritty, not as Park. It's goofy and quirky, all good fun in the looney bin, a story arc that drives me nuts (pun intended) as I've been in looney bins (as an observer - I know what you all thought but remember that I got my degree in Psych and nothing could have better prepared me for what I do now...Nothing!) Looney bins are much more Cuckoo's Nest than King of Hearts. So that wasn't working for me at all. I was hoping for more hallucinatory scenes, and while there were a few reality-line-blurring ones, nothing that satisfying, save any of the scenes when the cyborg's fingers turned into machine guns. The worst part was that the story just ends without much closure, almost like a French flick.

This may have got me into a no-Park zone for a while. I'm debating about Priest, which is also netflixable, but I'm so not into vampire flicks. That's way down there, beneath zombie and superhero flicks (although I'll make an exception for superhero flicks with Scarlett Johanssen).

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Just read in last week's Entertainment Weekly, that Spike Lee was thinking of doing a version of Oldboy.

And now after checking IMDB, I am alerted to the fact it stars Josh Brolin and Sam Jackson.

Oldboy on IMDB

[Drunk Monk]

Come over to the KFM forum sometime: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41961&page=5">http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/s ... 961&page=5</a><!-- m -->

You don't know the power of eating a live octopus!

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Too much flame over there for my delicate sensibilities.

[Drunk Monk]

...and by rough I mean we sit on our asses and constantly post crap about shit.

Actually, our media forum is pretty mellow by comparison. There are some people who will come on a dis a flick, but seriously, how much of a flame war can you make out of movie opinions?

You know, upon reflection, I must recant what I said about Lady Vengeance above. That one actually wound up sticking with me more than Sympathy in that disturbed Park Chan Wook sort of way, and in the long run, I've decided I liked it much better.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Yep, tQ is still away and this was leaving Netflix Streaming, so I decided to watch it for my Sunday night's entertainment.

I'm going to say this film was less than overwhelming. For some reason, it was dubbed rather than sub-titled. This always makes for a bad film going experience for me. Especially towards the end where things were completely out of whack.

And I didn't buy into the vengeance scenario once everything became clear. There was a lot of waiting around on the villains part before he put his plan into action. It just came across as small for such a terrible revenge. But I do hand it to him for putting into place the long game.

I did like the fight scene. But it bothered me that a few scenes later, he was very easily captured by the same guys he just beat up. I did like the Escher-Hitchcock stairs nod at the school. There were a lot of good twists. And the revenge was really good if you buy into it.

I can't imagine what this story is going to be like in Spike Lee's hands.

[Drunk Monk]

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HAMMER! HAMMER!

[cranefly]

I am soooo tempted to go see this remake. I really liked the original, and was totally blown away by its surprise ending.

It would be worth the price of admission just to be surprised like that again.