Wed, 10 Jan 2007
Oldboy - ****
People always ask me why I like foreign movies. I tell them the best two reasons are usually Maribel Verdu and Penelope Cruz. Har har. But to be honest I think I like a lot of them because they can offer me no context.
By that I mean if, for example, I watch a Korean movie, I don't know enough of the Korean language to know if the speaker is speaking with a goofy accent*, I don't know enough of the setting to see continuity problems or reminders, I don't know a lot of subtleties. In a way it can be a setback (like with Japanese, not knowing if they're using the formal language when speaking to each other). But the reason I like it is that it allows me to focus on the story-telling and the raw acting and film.
*by that I mean an accent that immediately conveys information on social status, education, or setting etc. For example, if I watched a movie starring Marky Mark or Eminem - within three words I'd know I were watching a mouthbreather. More examples: anything Owen Wilson's in, any Wayan's brother movie, etc etc.
I should come back and re-visit this explanation some other time, but a good way to sum up how I feel would be to compare John Woo's Hard Boiled to John Woo's Hard Target (unless you're a Honk Kong-born New Orleans resident). While Hard Target is campy fun (a cool classic imho), Hard Boiled is considered cool. I think if it had been filmed in English, it would have been panned by critics for being campy. (If you still don't believe me, go back and watch Broken Arrow again or Paycheck and compare them to A Better Tomorrow and A Bullet in the Head). So given that, I like foreign movies for a lot of reasons (and not just an increased probability of seeing Paz Vega's boobies). And I really liked Oldboy. Before I get into it, let me just warn some of you who aren't going to read this whole review because of the movie title I'm about to compare Oldboy to --even though the story has nothing in common -- my old fave, Audition. [Mom, if you read this, don't rent either movie, you'll hate them both] Here's a summary of Oldboy: A drunk business man gets bailed out of jail by his buddy. He calls home on the payphone outside, his buddy turns around, and he's gone. He's been kidnapped. He gets thrown in some weird cell, they gas him at night to make him sleep and only let him play with the tv during certain hours [the tv's his only window to the world]. This goes on for 15 freakin' years. The guy feels cooped up (obviously) and starts 'training' in his weird cell/hotel room by punching the walls and planning an escape. Just as he's about to get out on his own, they release him. All he wants to do now is find out who the eff kidnapped him and exact revenge and get answers. THEN it gets weird.
He gets out, meets a girl, eats a live octopus, gets some clues, meets his kidnappers, tortues one of his captors in a way that's so nasty* that I almost fast-forwarded the movie, and eventually figures out why he was kidnapped.
*almost as nasty as Audition- wait, I take that back, Audition rules, this is nasty but about a 5 on the 1-10 Audition scale.
**I should add that the gross violence (or sexual themes later) are out of place. They do kind of fit into and along with the story.
I won't tell you why or any more than that (including another gross scene), but it's a clever story. The viewer kinda figures it out about two-thirds of the way through, but you still go along with it.
But the thing is- the central themes - they couldn't ever ever be made into a story in the US. Never evAr. And it's nothing earth-shattering. It's a good story, with good story-telling deivces. But we wouldn't ever do it. If we tried it'd be some goofy "art" movie like Happiness, which I think is kind of overrated as being edgy and arty.
So, not much of a review, I know. I didn't talk about the story enough. But I highly recommend it. Great acting & directing and one crazy-ass story.
By the way, the director of the movie has done a lot of good movies. I'd recommend almost all of his, but I'll try to include some of them in my end of the month dvd roundup. And the main actor's been in a lot of good Korean movies as well (like Shiri).
10 Jan 21:51 | /movies | 2 comment(s)
angie wrote:
this movie fucking ruled. and i'm sorry that mommapie may have to see that language but no other word would adequately describe how much this movie ruled!
01/11/2007 18:54:50
Kev. wrote:
Kenneth's review was good.
Angie's comment fucking ruled!
I suppose someone has a copy I can borrow?
01/12/2007 15:52:24
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