Oldboy

[Liam]

So....I just don't get it.

Not the story, I understand that.....I just don't understand why it is so popular. I mean, the film is alright, but nothing more for me.

So yeah, I was hoping might be able to tell me what I was missing, or at least why they thought it was as good as people have suggested.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Good question.

The acting is rather groovy. The direction is groovy. The camera work is groovy. Eating a live octopus is groovy. The hammer fight scene is groovy. The weird storyline twists are weird but groovy. The plot is tasty.

It's hard cos one person's Godfather 2 is another person's Freddie Got Fingered.

[Liam]

My problem I think is that I was coming in with high expectations, and I was maybe always onto a loser because of it. If I didn't have the expectations, than maybe I would have viewed it higher. I'unno.

[TheRyno]

I hope that's not a knock against Freddy Got Fingered. That movie is awesome.

I thought Oldboy was pretty good. But then I saw Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and thought it was a much better crafted movie, even if it got off to a slow start. If you're looking to get into the rest of Park's "Vengeance Trilogy", Sympathy is awesome, Oldboy is good, Lady Vengeance is disappointing.

[Liam]

Is Oldboy the first of the films?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I never saw the fuss about Goodfellas.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Is Oldboy the first of the films?

It's the second.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the first.

[TheRyno]

Yeah, it's the second, but don't feel like you missed anything by not seeing the others. The films don't have any recurring characters or plotlines, it's just different people dealing with revenge. Kinda like how the Romero "living dead" films are just different people dealing with zombies.

[stokeriño]

I've only seen the film once. What I mainly remember was that fight scene, sideways down a corridor, filmed with one continuous shot. Epic.

[Katsuya]

Lady Vengeance is the most disturbing in many ways, I think, if simply for that scene where she's showing the parents the video of the girl being hanged by the teacher...which is just...kind of sick. And the prison rape is just...eeew. Personally, I think that all three are equally good, although Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is all kinds of awesome, even if the first 20 minutes or so are kind of slow.