At a screening for “Oldboy,” the action-adventure movie by director Park Chan-wook that is being re-released in recognition of its 20-year anniversary, a p.r. rep for a New York City-based film production and distribution company, NEON, took to the stage and welcomed the crowd. After saying a few obligatory words, she finished with a cautionary remark: “Good luck.”The audience didn’t need luck: It was primed for the evening’s entertainment. A raising of hands established that the majority of attendees were familiar with the film and eager for it to start; my unscientific survey determined that most were either sporting diapers or being conceived during the year of the movie’s initial release. “Oldboy” is, then, a relatively new find for these cineastes and, from the general response, a formative one.Mr. Chan-wook has gained quite the profile since 2003. Last year’s “Decision to Leave” racked up an enviable amount of adulatory press and not a few awards from a variety of international organizations. Although it’s tempting to peg the picture’s good fortunes to the interest in Korean cinema following the Oscar-ratified success of Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” (2020), Mr. Chan-wook has long been earning his auteur cred with off-the-beaten-path films such as “Stoker,” “Snowpiercer,” and “The Handmaiden.”Yet “Oldboy” is, I guess, special. It’s based on a Japanese manga of the same name and is part of a trilogy of films whose other titles, “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” (2002) and “Lady Vengeance” (2005), give an indication of their thematic commonalities. “Oldboy” is centered on the ordeals of Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik), a man who, from all appearances, is a productive member of the middle class but, let’s admit it, drinks a bit much.When we initially encounter our protagonist, he is, in fact, drunk as a skunk and awaiting arraignment at the local police station. Dae-Su is loud, abusive, and obnoxious, disrupting not only the cops but his fellow arrestees. After he’s bailed out by an old school chum, the two men stop at a telephone booth to call Dae-Su’s daughter on her 4th birthday. After promising to be home shortly, Dae-Su seemingly vanishes into thin air. The next we see of him he’s ensconced in a down-at-the-heels motel room that is, in actuality, a privately held prison.That’s where Dae-Su is held for the next 15 years. He’s never provided with a rationale for his incarceration. Dae-Su does, though, have a television at his disposal, and so sees news broadcast reports that he’s the chief suspect in his wife’s murder. We later learn that his daughter has been adopted by a Scandinavian couple. Dae-Su attempts suicide, but is doctored by his keepers and kept alive for reasons that are, for the moment, unexplained. He subsequently trains himself to shadow box and starts digging a tunnel through the brickwork behind his bed.He gets pretty far, but the work is for naught as one day Dae-Su is forcibly sedated, stuffed in a suitcase, and left on the rooftop of a highrise. By hook, crook, and circumstances too elaborate to enumerate here, Dae-Su finds himself in a restaurant where he meets Mido (Kang Hye-jung), a young sushi chef sympathetic to his cause. They team up to uncover just who Dae-Su’s former jailer might be and why he continues to terrorize them both.The narrative is considerably more wild than the above description. “Oldboy” is as funny as it is violent, and Mr. Chan-Wook proves nimble in keeping a balance between the two modes. And, boy, can he choreograph: The vaunted fight scene between Dae-Su and an abundance of thugs is as hyperbolic as a Warner Brothers cartoon, as epic as a frieze from a Greek temple, and deserving of its rep. Speaking of antiquity, the plot also traverses antecedents found in classical dramaturgy. Here is a director who enjoys extremes and has the temerity to, you know, go there. Few films come to mind that are as unremittingly cinematic as this one. Storywise, though, Mr. Chan-Wook and fellow screenwriters Hwang Jo-yun and Lim Jun-hyung don’t altogether succeed in making us suspend our disbelief — yes, even for a film as over-the-top as this one. When the rationale behind the skullduggeries Dae-Su has suffered is shown, we can’t help but be impressed by its cleverness and unmoved by its machinations. “Oldboy” is an oddly amoral morality tale, a rollicking entertainment that is burdened more by pulp sensationalism than powered by the higher tangencies of art.
