One of my favorite movies is Oldboy (2003), a gripping, authentic, and well-crafted movie. The staging, the music, the characters, and at the latest from the last half hour until the credits roll, my mouth just stays open. Everything just meshes together, which gave me the feeling relatively early on in the film that I was watching a very special movie that you can't compare to other films. It simply conveys a unique atmosphere, beyond the majestic story.
The first time I saw it, I wasn't blown away, just kind of like whatever. When I watched it for the second time, however, I really started to notice how well it's made, in addition to liking it more. Every shot is bursting with background detail, and a great amount of attention is on the production design (the theme of a certain color in a scene was restrained, yet perfectly balanced). The actors really gave it all, especially the 2 male leads who really blew me away. The music is a varied mix of beautiful classical music and some pretty cool techno. The screenplay is brilliant; the characters are developed very well, and extremely complex, and the plot is not only ingenious but the payoff and twists are 1000x better than any Shyamalan movie.
The basic story is that a man named Oh Dae-Su is kidnapped and held captive for 18 years and then released. He has no idea who or why this is being done to him. While in captivity he readies himself for the day when he gets out and takes revenge on those who imprisoned him and to find out why he was imprisoned.
My critique is how this movie normalizes rape, which is very very dangerous if the film was made or watched nowadays.
This movie easily gets 5 golden rascals
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