OLDBOY: Mesmerizing! review

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OLDBOY presents an issue some people will find disturbing, sprinkled with some equally graphic violence. Cinematically the film is rich, emotionally intense and layered with serious undertone, writes Gaurav Singh

It was one of those times when a good friend and I were indulging in a week long session of drinking, eating and watching films, when I had the pleasure of watching OLDBOY. We had bought a bunch of pirated films and among them was this gem of a film.(‘¦ok. I'll cut the crap and get down to business!)

On the face of it OLDBOY is an 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' revenge story‘¦but look closer and you realize that the film has deeper layers which may not be immediately apparent to the casual moviegoer.

How would you like to carefully plan and execute your revenge on somebody? Oh Dae su disappears from outside a phone booth when he is about to go home with a present for his daughter's birthday. He is imprisoned in a one-room cell for the next 15 years. He tries to maintain his sanity by watching TV endlessly, boxing against the wall, and plotting a means to escape. One morning he is drugged and finds himself out in the open, in the blinding sunlight. And that is just the beginning of the revenge.

"I am sort of a scholar, and my major is you- an expert on Oh Dae Su"

Oh De Su is being studied while in captivity and in time he becomes a 'monster' (that his enemy wants him to become) from the careless brat he was. He wants to find out why he was subjected to this senseless punishment. And he wants to punish the person who did this to him.

Out from the prison we follow him in finding out the reason behind what happened to him.

It is roughly at this point that the film stops being a revenge drama and starts operating as a morality play, reminiscent of those Greek dramas and Shakespearean tragedies where a fundamental flaw in the protagonist proves to be his undoing. Oh Dae Su also had such a fundamental flaw, we eventually learn. He spoke too much.

The film presents an issue some people will find disturbing, sprinkled with some equally graphic violence. Cinematically the film is rich, emotionally intense and layered with serious undertones throughout. The director is able to make huge chronological jumps and the lighting and sound is treated as brilliantly. Mesmerizing!

Oh Dae Su has an enemy who is as sensitive as he is ruthless. He is unforgiving: "Be it a grain of sand or rock, in water they sink as the same".

But he can also identify with the pain he is inflicting on Oh Dae Su, as once he has felt the pain himself.

And in the end he is leaving us with one question:

"Even if love is incestuous does it cease to be love?"

And thus Oh Dae Su gets his freedom when he says "Even though I am no worst than a beast, don't I have the right to live?"

After SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, OLDBOY shows a great difference in the direction of Chan-wook Park and now I'm dying to get my hands on LADY VENGEANCE.

(The bollywood copy of OLDBOY is not even worth mentioning here. All the director could make a bad copy of was sets, lighting style and camera angles.)