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DVD Oldboy (Three-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition)
In the realm of revenge thrillers, you'd be hard pressed to find more ultra-violent vengeance and psycho thrills than in the creepy story of Oldboy. This Korean import made a pop splash at the Cannes Film Festival and during its limited theatrical run thanks to the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who raved about it and its visionary director, Chan-wook Park, to anyone who would listen. It's easy to see why QT fell in love with the grindhouse attitude, fast-paced action, violent imagery, and icy-black humor, but it's a disservice to think of Oldboy as another Tarantino homage or knockoff. The darkly existential undercurrent in the themes that Oldboy traces over its life-long narrative arc is much more complex and deeply disturbing than anything of its kind. The movie's tagline is, "15 years of imprisonment... 5 days of vengeance." The imprisonee is Oh Dae-Su, an ordinary Joe who is snatched off a Seoul street corner and locked away in a dank, windowless fleabag hotel room for the aforementioned 15 years. Just as abruptly he is released, and thus the five days begin. Why did this happen to Oh Dae-Su? Ah, but that would be telling, and in fact we don't know ourselves until the final wrenching scenes.
Oldboy breaks into a classic three-act saga, the first of which details the hallucinatory period of imprisonment in which Oh Dae-Su wades from mild insanity to outright psychosis in the hands of unseen yet attentive captors. Act 2 is the revenge, when an entirely different tone takes over and Oh Dae-Su moves with single-minded purpose and clarity. It's this section that has gained the most notoriety, primarily for the claw-hammer dentistry scene, the one-man-army tracking shot, and the wriggling octopus that Oh Dae-Su consumes in a sushi bar (he's been dead so long he simply needs life back inside him in any way possible). In act 3, answers finally start to emerge and the sinister atmosphere grows even more profound--not without a healthy dose of extra bloodletting, of course. Oldboy is an undeniably poetic masterpiece of tension, fury, and dynamic craft. Ultimately, its epic cycle of tragedy is of the sort that mankind has been inflicting upon itself for all time. Some of the images may be gruesome, but all converge into a kind of beauty. It's in the telling of this lurid tale that these details become one and the memories of pain ultimately heal. --Ted Fry
Review(s): DVD Oldboy (Three-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition)
why must everyone emulate tarantino?
it almost seems like critics have to slop his name over anything to get pulp fiction fans to rave about it. next your gonna hear someone passing by you saying to someone "oldboy, yeah, its directed by tarantino"...
yeah, just like how he directed hero & hostel, right?
alright rant aside. this film is one of the best films to currently be coming out of the east. i believe it is one of the best(and one of the more original) revenge thrillers out there. the story is amazingly sinister, the settings are both beautiful & grim, and the acting is top quality, especially the lead of Dae Su, i cant recall the actor's name at the moment, but he created a truly colorful, yet cursed character who really grows onto you through the film's progression, all the way to it's disturbing finale.
one thing i'll give tarantino credit for is his appreciation of films like these as well as the tons of others you probably wont ever see. i just dont understand why people must emulate "his" movie interest, oh well i guess that just makes people feel more "original" *rolls eyes*
i also recommend checking out takashi miike's black society trilogy or the infamous ichi the killer if your into the gritty underworld of asian cinema.
The Ultimate Revenge Masterpiece from South Korea!
South Korea has been making some outstanding movies these last couple of years, but unfortunately not many people have given enough credit to these remarkable movies.
The director Chan-wook Park showed what he was capable of doing in South Korea with his first smash hit movie Joint Security Area.
After that he went into a complete different territory with the very dark, but excellent thriller Sympathy for Mr Vengeance.
Due to it's dark theme Sympathy failed to attract the repeated success of Joint Security Area.
Did that stop Chan-wook Park from making more movies?
Absolutely not!
Chan-Wook Park is back with a Vengeance himself giving us the Ultimate Revenge Masterpiece Oldboy!
I wish I can comment more on this movie, but doing that could be a threat in spoiling this amazing experience in cinematic history!
Instead I will focus my review on the acting and direction of the movie. As many are aware now, the movie revolves around a man imprisoned in an apartment for 15 years. The motive of the movie is revenge. But the most important answer to all this revenge is WHY????
This movie will litterly have you nailed to your seat. Yes, it's very violent, I would say graphic as in the likes of Last house on the left, though NEVER exploited in that sense. This movie is all brains!
The direction is the first thing that will have you in awe. From the first 15mins of the movie, you will see how masterfully this movie is shot. In a split screen scene you will actually feel what this man has missed in those 15 years imprisoned in this apartment. His anger for his imprisonment, the complete mess in his look and clothes are all truly convincing by Choi Min-shik who has appeared in two other big Korean movies which are Failan and the award winning movie at Cannes last year Chihwaseon.
As I have already mentioned the violence is very graphic and will probably be rated in the USA NC17. Which is understandable. But do not let that cursed rating put you off. This movie is bound to have you talking and discussing for days if not for months. Just be very well prepared for the final shocking twist!
Well done Chan-wook Park you have showed the world what a truly excellent film director you are. Oldboy gets a well deserved 10/10
This Oldboy's Life
I'm surprised to see that no one else has written about this collector's edition DVD package because it's so cool that it needs to be spoken about in some form or other. It comes in a metal box which is exactly the same dimensions as the box that the HBO series "Band of Brothers" came in. There's that which is already pretty nice but inside is where you find the real treasure. The film comes in a three disc set, each one in an individual slipcase with one of the three main characters in the film on the cover. The presentationof the film is on par with, if not above the quality of the previous Tartan video release in terms of picture and sound. This set has a 6.1 DTS mix which is nice, clear and loud. The picture is very nice as it should be, since this film is beautifully shot. There are plenty of bonus features like commentary and featurettes but the third disc has the best supplementary feature which is a production diary from the entire shoot. I think this is one of the shining examples of a behind the scenes documentary done right as it really shows you what goes in to making a film and how much hard work it can be. It's lengthy, it's detailed and thankfully, it has English subtitles because I don't speak a lick of Korean. Just for this documentary alone, this set is worth picking up.
Finally, you get not only a 35mm film strip encased in a nice cardboard sleeve, you get a miniaturized graphic novel of the original similarly titled Japanese Manga that the film was based off of. If you've seen the special edition of Sin City that came with the Hard Goodbye graphic novel, it's just like that except its printed in reverse and you have to read it from back cover to front like you would with an actual Japanese book! (Don't worry, the language is in English so you can still read it)
This is easily one of the best recommendations I can make. If you love the movie, this is a no-brainer. If you know someone else who loves this movie, this would make a great gift. Either way, this is one of the coolest all around DVD packages I've ever picked up and believe me, I've picked up plenty.
Related DVD's Oldboy (Three-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition)
After watching Park's film _Oldboy_ the night before, I decided to also watch his earlier film _Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance_ as well. Unlike _Oldboy_, I had heard very little concerning _Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance_, but considering the exhaustively emotional experience of watching the newer film, I definitely wanted to check out Park's earlier work. I must say that I found this film to be more disturbing than Park's blockbuster.
The film opens with a quite touching scene in which a letter sent by the death-mute Ryu is read at a radio station. The letter states how much Ryu appreciates the sacrifices his sister has made for him throughout his life and now, because his sister needs a kidney transplant, it is time for him to repay her kindness.
If you want the full sledgehammer-to-the-stomach effect of Audition, stop reading this review now. Just watch it and take the consequences. At first glance, Takashi Miike's jack in the box of a movie works like a romantic comedy: amiable widower Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) decides it's time to find a new wife, and a friend suggests holding a fake audition to find the right girl. It soon becomes clear that there is something wrong with Aoyama's choice. This is no ordinary Fatal Attraction-style thriller, however; Audition slowly and carefully builds into a wrenching exploration of both deep male fears and the stereotype of the cute, submissive Japanese woman. Audition is by no means an easy movie to watch--even hardcore horror fans may have trouble--but it... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ryo Ishibashi - Eihi Shiina Director(s): Takashi Miike DVD Release Date: Released the 23 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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No computer graphic can ever surpass what a real human body can do--and what the body can do is on spectacular display in Ong-Bak, a Thai action movie starring the lithe and flexible Tony Jaa. When the head is stolen from a holy statue in Jaa's rural village, he goes to Bangkok to get it back. Of course, it just so happens that the thief is connected to a bar where criminal big shots gamble over bare-knuckle brawls, and Jaa is--despite his virtuous efforts--drawn into the game. But that's only the beginning; a chase through the city streets rivals the ingenious acrobatics of Jackie Chan, with Jaa leaping between panes of glass, over a bicycle in motion, and through a wreath of barbed wire. Jaa's fighting prowess has been compared to Bruce Lee, Jet Li, and just about every other... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tony Jaa - Petchtai Wongkamlao Director(s): Prachya Pinkaew DVD Release Date: Released the 30 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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As its title suggests, Layer Cake is a crime thriller that cuts into several levels of its treacherous criminal underworld. The title is actually one character's definition of the drug-trade hierarchy, but it's also an apt metaphor for the separate layers of deception, death, and betrayal experienced by the film's unnamed protagonist, a cocaine traffic middle-man played with smooth appeal by Daniel Craig (rumored at the time of this film's release to be on the short list for consideration as the next James Bond). Listed in the credits only as "XXXX," the character is trapped into doing a favor for his volatile boss, only to have tables turned by his boss's boss (Michael Gambon) in a twisting plot involving a stolen shipment of Ecstasy, a missing girl, duplicitous dealers,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Matthew Vaughn DVD Release Date: Released the 23 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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