Oldboy

nacho libre · 27-07-2007 3:00pm #1

Wow!! watching this film was akin to reading a good book. It's rare that a film keeps me captivated like this one did. The ending was magnificent too.

BKtje · 27-07-2007 3:04pm

Indeed i totally agree with you.

Simply excellent film.

jtsuited · 27-07-2007 3:14pm

my cousin sent me this today. I'm gonna watch it later. Lookin forward to it now.

Gumbyman · 27-07-2007 3:20pm

Enjoy it! It is one of those films like The Usual Suspects or The Game where you wish you could erase the memory of the film from your mind so you could watch it again and get the thrill of the twist.

pwd · 27-07-2007 3:22pm

Oldboy is brilliant alright. Some of the best fight scenes ever.
I thought The Usual Suspects was a bit predictable. Saw it when I was a kid and guessed the twist halfway through.

Karl Hungus · 27-07-2007 4:11pm

Definetly one of my favorite films of all time. Glad you enjoyed it.

senordingdong · 27-07-2007 4:43pm

As much as I enjoyed this film, I didn't really enjoy the twist.
It was certainly a twist by all means but I found it to be a bit too twisted.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 27-07-2007 4:47pm

everyone I showed the film to picked up on the twist about five-ten minutes before it was actually revealed... naturally I told them I'd done the same, but tbh.. wasn't until an hour or two after the film ended I copped what was going on.

*shame*

jtsuited · 02-08-2007 8:17am

just literally finished watching this.
my god, what a film. incredible.

the twist is the best twist ever. god that's a stupid sounding sentence.

brilliant.

Loomis · 02-08-2007 10:03am

Gumbyman wrote:

Enjoy it! It is one of those films like The Usual Suspects or The Game where you wish you could erase the memory of the film from your mind so you could watch it again and get the thrill of the twist.

OMG I've thought that so many times about that movie! Love it. Never came across anyone else who did

What's the movie about? Why's it so good - the twist or general plot etc?

unreggd · 02-08-2007 12:25pm

amazing

Tusky · 02-08-2007 5:50pm

My favourite film.

Placebo · 02-08-2007 5:53pm

what is this oldboy ?:rolleyes:

adox · 02-08-2007 11:46pm

Really loved it too after it was recommened to me a couple of years back on another forum.

Such an incredibly powerfull film. The "twist" as with all goods films(with a twist) doesnt really hold up too much importance to me or if I`ve guessed it etc. It sort of misses the point.

spacecoyote · 03-08-2007 8:06am

Thats why it was our 1st Film Of The Week

S.M.B. · 03-08-2007 8:11am

Gumbyman wrote:

Enjoy it! It is one of those films like The Usual Suspects or The Game where you wish you could erase the memory of the film from your mind so you could watch it again and get the thrill of the twist.

How Ironic!

I think the film is just as enjoyable knowing the twist. Any film that relys on just a clever plot to entertain the viewer won't stand up to repeat viewing. Oldboy is so stylishly filmed that I could watch it all day!

Krusty_Clown · 05-08-2007 10:37am

I too really enjoyed this movie, but which twist are you referring to?
The obvious twist, or the ambiguous ending? Wasn't the closing scene left intentionally ambiguous to encourage debate?

I suppose there was a previous thread about this already.

Galvasean · 05-08-2007 12:00pm

Ending: must gouge out eyes...

johnny_ultimate · 05-08-2007 1:17pm

I did like this film, but preferred the more detatched and 'sombre' (and I use the word extremely lightly) style of Sympathy for Mr Vengance. I also was impressed by the more ambiguous morality of Mr Vengance. Anyone who liked this film owes it to themselves to check out the first part of the trilogy. I rented out Lady Vengance yesterday so will be checking it out tonight. Of what Ive seen so far, it is a very interesting trilogy altogther, and Im looking to Park's new film, which I think has the greatest title of the year: I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK.

Karl Hungus · 05-08-2007 1:32pm

S.M.B. wrote:

How Ironic!

I think the film is just as enjoyable knowing the twist. Any film that relys on just a clever plot to entertain the viewer won't stand up to repeat viewing. Oldboy is so stylishly filmed that I could watch it all day!

Agreed.

I find a lot of people (especially on this thread) are too fixated on twists. It isn't, and shouldn't be the entire focal point of a film. A lot of films that have a twist are just incredibly compelling films in their own right, just look at the likes of Se7en, Memento, The Wicker Man, and so forth. All of those have stood up to repeated viewings, as has Oldboy, and are great films, reguardless of their twists.

Krusty_Clown wrote:

I too really enjoyed this movie, but which twist are you referring to?
The obvious twist, or the ambiguous ending? Wasn't the closing scene left intentionally ambiguous to encourage debate?

I suppose there was a previous thread about this already.

I think people are mostly talking about the obvious one. The final piece seems a little too subtle for some people to notice, which is rather suprising, but I've brought it up on threads about Oldboy, and some people didn't even know what I was talking about. That's probably one of the reasons I love the film so much, as there's a lot of subtlety at play that people miss out on.

Fysh · 05-08-2007 7:42pm

As with pretty much everyone else, I highly rate Oldboy and have attempted to convert pretty much anyone I know who'll watch subtitled films.

On the Vengeance trilogy as a whole, I'm somewhat torn. I'd say that Sympathy For Mr Vengeance is another fine film, as good as Oldboy is, but with a slightly different theme : where Oldboy is about the vendetta between Oh Dae-su and his kidnapper, Sympathy For Mr Vengeance is a meditation on the desire for vengeance and its effects on a wider scale.

I need to watch Lady Vengeance again; it was a very stylish film and was definitely an intriguing watch, but it didn't feel like it came together at the end for me, unlike the other two films. Of the three films it definitely seemed to be the most visually experimental.

Oldboy

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