The film begins with a bedraggled and seemingly crazed man holding a puppy-carrying man off the side of a building by his tie. The aforementioned man turns out to be Oh Dae-Su (Min-sik Choi), the unwitting star of the film. We go back 15 years previous to see a drunken Oh Dae-Su sat in a police ... Read review
Taken without reason. Imprisoned for 15 years. Released without reason. 5 days to seek the ... more
truth... One day in 1988 ordinary white collar worker Oh Dae-soo (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped and incarcerated in a private makeshift prison cell dressed up lik...
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Taken without reason. Imprisoned for 15 years. Released without reason. 5 days to seek the ... more
truth... One day in 1988 ordinary white collar worker Oh Dae-soo (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped and incarcerated in a private makeshift prison cell dressed up li...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
A man is inexplicably kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years and his wife is brutally ... more
murdered. On his release, he is given a wallet full of money and a mobile phone. A stranger calls and asks him to try and figure out why he was imprisoned. A girl appe...
Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002): A deaf mute worker saves all his money for his sister ... more
who requires a kidney transplant. He has the wrong blood type to be able to donate one of his kidneys so he arranges a trade with a group of organ dealers: one of his kidneys and 10 million won in return for their finding a kidney for his sister. They renege but a legitimate kidney becomes available for transplant. Unfortunately he no longer has the 10 million won required for the hospital to perform the operation. He and his girlfriend a terrorist seeking to change how the poor are treated in Korea kidnap his former boss's daughter. But events spiral quickly out of control... Oldboy (2003): Taken without reason. Imprisoned for 15 years. Released without reason. 5 days to seek the truth... One day in 1988 ordinary white collar worker Oh Dae-soo (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped and incarcerated in a private makeshift prison cell dressed up like a cheap hotel room. With only a TV for company Dae-soo makes numerous attempts to escape and to commit suicide but they all end up in failure. All the while Dae-soo asks himself what made a man hate him so much enough to imprison him in solitary confinement with no explanation. While suffering from his near-madness Dae-soo becomes shocked when he watches the news and hears that his beloved wife was brutally murdered. At this very moment Dae-soo swears to take revenge on the man who destroyed his happy life. 15 years on and without a word of warning Dae-soo is released. Given a new set of clothes a mobile phone and the attentions of curious sushi waitress Mido Dae-soo begins to track down his enemy only to find he may be the pawn in a much bigger game which is only just beginning. Taunting Dae-soo the culprit gives him just 5 days to catch and kill his captor or Mido will die... Based on Japanese manga of the same name by Minegishi Nobuaki and Tsuchiya Garon winner of the Jury Grand Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and winner of 5 Grand Bell awards in Korea (including Best Film for Park Chan-wook and Best Actor for Choi Min-sik) Old Boy is a masterfully inventive revenge thriller complete with blackly comedic moments. Lady Vengeance (2005): The cinematic flair and narrative surprises that marked Park Chan-Wook's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy continue in this third and concluding part of the director's thematically-linked trilogy of revenge. Intense and inventive the film follows the progress of beautiful impassive Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young-Ae) after she's released from prison having served 13 years for the kidnap and murder of a young boy. Once on the outside she hooks up with some former cellmates a preacher who thinks she's an angel the detective who originally arrested her and the daughter she gave up for adoption gathering around her all the people needed to carry out an elaborate plan of revenge. Her target is kindergarten teacher Mr. Baek (Oldboy star Choi Min-Sik) while her weapon(s)-of-choice are unexpected and highly personal. This is striking and ghoulishly entertaining stuff a highwire act poised between horror tragedy comedy and exploitation. With the aid of Oldboy Director of Photography Jeong Joeng-Hun who employs some neat tricks and brings a vibrant beauty to the dark proceedings Park ensures there's never a dull moment.
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Action/Adventure - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring:Jack Ging, Marla Heasley, Lance Legault, Melinda Culea, Mr T, Dwight Schultz, Dirk Benedict, George Peppard, Carl Franklin
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Advantages: Enthralling, shocking, makes Korean cinema worth looking at Disadvantages: Could be too disturbing for some people, very gory in places
The film begins with a bedraggled and seemingly crazed man holding a puppy-carrying man off the side of a building by his tie. The aforementioned man turns out to be Oh Dae-Su (Min-sik Choi), the unwitting star of the film. We go back 15 years previous to see a drunken Oh Dae-Su sat in a police station having caused some trouble by virtue of the fact that he "Talks to much". Collected by his friend, they begin the journey home by calling ... ...they are alright. While his friend chat's on the phone Oh Dae-Su vanishes.
Assumed dead or a fugitive by his family and the authorities, Oh Dae-Su is actually incarcerated in a windowless room with a TV to keep him company. He doesn't know why he's been put there or how long he'll remain. He is kept for 15 years until he wakes to find himself lying in a suitcase on the roof of a building with another man holding a puppy, which brings ... more
The film begins with a bedraggled and seemingly crazed man holding a puppy-carrying man off the side of a building by his tie. The aforementioned man turns out to be Oh Dae-Su (Min-sik Choi), the unwitting star of the film. We go back 15 years previous to see a drunken Oh Dae-Su sat in a police station having caused some trouble by virtue of the fact that he "Talks to much". Collected by his friend, they begin the journey home by calling Oh Dae-Su's wife from a payphone to tell her that they are alright. While his friend chat's on the phone Oh Dae-Su vanishes.
Assumed dead or a fugitive by his family and the authorities, Oh Dae-Su is actually incarcerated in a windowless room with a TV to keep him company. He doesn't know why he's been put there or how long he'll remain. He is kept for 15 years until he wakes to find himself lying in a suitcase on the roof of a building with another man holding a puppy, which brings us up to present day and the initial scene of the film. It is now up to the hero of the piece, assisted by Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu) who helps him when he passes out in the restaurant she works in, to find out whom he was imprisoned by and why as well as trying to find his daughter.
Chan-wook Park both writes and directs this film, which is violent from the outset along with one or two (valid) erotic scenes, and it's slick in a way that Quentin Tarantino just wishes he could do. The director seems to have realised some of his mistakes made in his 2002 film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which was mainly over-reaching the plot, and used it to craft a superb film. The violence is graphic but realistic with none of the fantastical feats and sound effects that fill our cinema screens currently – the lead character is clearly doing everything he can within his own ability, which makes his survival of a virtual siege at one point in the film even more believable.
I find Korean cinema to be much more gritty and realistic than most of the usual far-eastern output and this film is a perfect example of that. It features scenes such as removing teeth with a claw-tooth hammer, live squid eating, and a seat-squirming tongue removal scene. There is also a very sweet romance between the lead and the girl assisting him throughout the film. There are enough twists and turns in the film to keep you guessing right up until the final moments of the film and even then you're just so numbed by it that you only remember to close your mouth once the penultimate scene fades. The subtitles are a bit painful on the eye at first though you soon get used to it.
A special mention must go to Yeong-wook Jo who scored the film although there are a couple of interesting uses of Vivaldi as background music too...
An enjoyable film and totally different to anything that I've seen for a long time but it's not for the squeamish or for children and has an 18 certificate.
Advantages: Superbly directed, great acting Disadvantages: Very violent
...I loved every minute of Oldboy and this review will hopefully explain why.
Min-Shik Choi plays the main character, Oh Dae-su. His performance is exceptional. From the very first shot of him in a police station waiting room until the credits roll at the end, I was mesmerized by his performance. The script, particularly during his time in prison, is rather sparse, so we have to rely on Choi to understand the pain and confusion that he is feeling. ... ...here is great. Oldboy is a thriller more than anything else. Wanting to know what Dae-su's crime was kept me totally intrigued and even once we found out, I wanted to know how (or if) he was going to extricate himself. I think what sets this film apart from the average Hollywood blockbuster is that it is never conventional. However, you think the film is going to go, you will be wrong. Even towards the end when I thought that I had got it more or ...
sunmeilan 29.09.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Oldboy (DVD)
...his captor. Oldboy is an intense, vivid film that assaults the senses and looks to provoke strong reactions in its audience. Its shocking plot, which escalates towards a sublimely constructed twist in the tail, and the sharply rendered visuals the director creates, add up to a film high on drama and impact. Asian cinema - Korean especially - has something of a reputation for brutal depictions of violence and conflict, and Oldboy is no exception in ... ...The performances in Oldboy are excellent across the board, with Choi Min-sik putting in a turn that drives the film and makes it what it is; his character is one who reaches to the limits of emotions, stretching the role and demanding plenty of the actor. Choi, though, is up to the challenge, and portrays a tortured, driven figure who inspires sympathy and revulsion in equal measures. Around him, the supporting cast play their parts with equal skill, ...
Puggers 07.04.2009 (31.03.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Oldboy (DVD)
Advantages: First-class acting, brilliant screenplay, awesome score & plenty of engaging plot twists Disadvantages: Like any foreign-language film, some of the screenplay's brilliance might be lost in translation
...much unflinching consistency, but in Oldboy the filmmaker saturates every inch of celluloid with the residue of human suffering.
Oh Daesu first introduces himself whilst sitting in a police station one rainy night. The name, he explains, means “getting along with people”, but Oh Daesu can’t seem to get along with anyone today – eventually forced to leave the station in the company of an apologetic friend, Oh Daesu’s problems only get worse. Whilst ... ...of Oh Daesu’s fate…
Oldboy made a lot of noise when it was screened at Cannes 2004, eventually winning the Jury Prize (deservedly so, I might add) and later bewitching critics and audiences worldwide with its distinctive imagery, unforgettable score and flawless acting. Everything about this film has been fine-tuned in order to project the protagonist’s suffering onto the audience, drawing the viewer deeper and deeper into Oh Daesu’s fractured dimension, ...
broken_chords 13.02.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Oldboy (DVD)
Advantages: Very slick, fast, provocative protagonist, very good acting and cinematography Disadvantages: A bit too long
When Park Chan-wook was directing this film, I'm sure he had no idea this film would have massive successes in the international market in 2003 (outside of S.Korea). The first film in the vengeance trilogy, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance did not reach out to many cinemas outside of S.Korea so he had no expectations that this film would even go beyond the first's successes. But this film appealed to the mainstream of beyond Korea and exposed the entire ... ...This character in this immense film Oh Dae-Su,superbly acted by Choi Min-sik, is wrongly imprisoned for seemingly no reason. We see him quite drunk in the beginning of the film, going out with his friend, and he rings his daughter, who we assume is just a by-product and had no relevance to the plot we were about to watch unfold. It was a stormy dark night when he is kidnapped, dumped into this room. It does not seem like a prison, it is like a regular ...
Annallon 30.08.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Oldboy (DVD)
Advantages: A thriller that really keeps you wondering until the final moments Disadvantages: Overlong and subtitled (if you don't like 'em)
Once again Asian cinema hits us with another very original take on an old age theme… Revenge. Comparing Old Boy to the two recent American visitations on the theme, ‘The Punisher’ and ‘Man On Fire’, you realise how predictable and safe American mainstream movies have become (and I say this as someone who quite liked ‘The Punisher’!). Park Chanwook (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance), the director and one of the screenplay writers, has turned the whole dynamic ... ...a man searching for a violent revenge, also manages to instil a real liking for the main characters Oh Dae-Su and Mido. Considering Oh Dae-Su is, or should be, an extremely dislikeable man this takes some doing.
As befits an Asian import the plot for ‘Old Boy’ is suitably bizarre and it comes down to this:-
Oh Dae-Su, a Korean businessman, has just finished a night on the town drunk and at a local police station. After being picked up by a friend ...
Ailran 04.11.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Oldboy (DVD)
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Advantages: Superb acting by the leads Disadvantages: Many will find the story and violence difficult to stomach
quite similar to that of the Korean film Oldboy and if you've seen that and enjoyed it, this might seem like a poor relative (or you might even enjoy this in a different way). Zinda is a dark film, shot in monotones in various place, to give it an even darker feel.
To reiterate, I haven't seen the original of this film, Oldboy. Having spoken to several people who have seen it though, I know that the plot has been changed somewhat to suit the sensibilities of the Indian cinema-going audience. I was offered the chance to watch the DVD of Oldboy, but I declined, as having found Zinda somewhat disturbing, the differences in plot that I discovered made me certain that I would not be able to stomach Oldboy.
Zinda is not your typical Bollywood film in that there are no song and dance routines (thank God). Any hint of frivolity like that ...
anonymili 15.04.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Zinda (DVD)
Advantages: Watchable, sometimes scary Disadvantages: Weak plot
and Oldboy, will be fairly disappointed by this film. However, if you are new to the genre, you'll probably enjoy it. Recommended.
The DVD is available from play.com for £6.99.
Classification: 18. Bearing in mind the gory shots of body parts, this is definitely right.
Running time: 1 hour and 42 minutes ...
Exclusive Interview With Mark Salisbury, Director Commentary, Cinematographer Commentary, Cast Commentary, Film Critic Kim Yong Jin Commentary, Original Theatrical Trailer, UK Theatrical Trailer, 2 Making Of Documentaries, 9 Deleted Scenes With Optional Commentary, Cannes Film Festival Gala Premiere Footage, Memory Of Old Boy Short Film, Scene selection, Deleted Scenes, Sympathy For Mr Vengeance Trailer
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DTS ES 6.1 Surround Korean Dolby Digital EX 6.1 Surround Korean, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Korean
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Magnificent... Don't miss it (Daily Telegraph, )
A tense, no holds barred, knuckle gnawing roller coaster ride... Truly astonishing (The Times Eye, )
DVD Description
A man who is held captive for fifteen years and whose wife is murdered is released suddenly and given money. He is asked to discover why he was held prisoner. If he finds the answer his kidnapper will kill himself. Korean dialogue with English subtitles.
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