Cinema Study

Old Boy by Park Chan-wook is a movie which provoked controversial reaction and many negative feedbacks. Originally movie is based on the eight-volume manga- comics book under the same name. It follows the tradition of some other Korean action movies adopted from the comics. Many critics believe that the movie is a bright example of modernism. The plot, music and settings give reasons to attribute film to modernist art. The movie is a second one from the trilogy dedicated to the theme of revenge. As states the director, Park Chan-wook, the film was an attempt to explore the theme of revenge and its impact on human life. The plot of the story is cruel and twisted. Oh Dae-su, the protagonist of the story is captured and placed in improvised prison cell. He spends 15 years in small room without even knowing the reasons of his imprisonment. Soon after the capture he finds out that his wife is murdered and his small daughter is kidnapped. He makes a promise to revenge but it takes him fifteen years to make this promise true. The director of the movie creates illusory and unreal world in order to explore the theme of revenge and effect it has on human lives. The authors of the movie put much effort in order to create unrealistic setting in the movie. "With its beautiful visual style, endless unpredictability, bold use of colour filters, and a main character who sports one of the most impressive shocks of hair since ‘Eraserhead', ‘Oldboy' is a tour-de-force of vibrant filmmaking from start to finish, manipulating the viewer like a master hypnotist" (Fernandez, Zeitchik, 119).

The author of the movie insists on the universal character of the theme he investigates. Special devices are used in the movie in order to break the line between the world of reality and imaginary world. Flattered mise-en-scene, which reduces and changes the distance between the cameras and objects, special manner of shooting and unreal colors perfectly serve to this purpose.