{"id":2515,"date":"2021-06-01T15:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T21:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=2515"},"modified":"2021-05-27T21:46:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T03:46:47","slug":"movie-oldboy-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/01\/movie-oldboy-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Oldboy (2003)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/6\/67\/Oldboykoreanposter.jpg\/220px-Oldboykoreanposter.jpg\" alt=\"Oldboy\" width=\"220\" height=\"313\" \/>Oldboy<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2003<br \/>Rating: R<br \/>Length: 120 minutes \/ 2.00 hours<\/p>\n<p>Some storylines are so timeless; they can&#8217;t help to be made into something modern\u2014thus becoming timeless in the process. <em>Oldboy<\/em> (2003) can easily draw comparisons to <em>The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em> in its structure but adds depth and layers to a wild ride that unfortunately could not be even closely matched in its American remake in 2013. As it stands, <em>Oldboy<\/em> is one of the pillars that shows how culturally significant South Korean cinema has been and how its predecessors like <a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/03\/movie-parasite-2019\/\"><em>Parasite<\/em><\/a> (2019) and <em>Minari<\/em> (2020) stood on its shoulders to achieve greatness.<\/p>\n<p><em>Oldboy<\/em> is a lot like <em>Memento<\/em> (2000) in that it demands a second viewing, often right after reaching the end credits. Many of the plot&#8217;s twists and turns readjust the viewer&#8217;s understanding of previous events\u2014to the point where you&#8217;ll have to watch it again with this new knowledge fresh in your mind, thus opening up a whole new experience to the film. Revenge is piled upon revenge, but the motivation of these characters is always clear, even if it is uncomfortable at times. <em>Oldboy<\/em> certainly doesn&#8217;t pull its punches when it comes to sex or violence, but don&#8217;t let that distract you from the engaging story.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, I would hope that anyone who likes well-done action sequences will take the time to watch this movie. Without spoiling it, I can honestly say there is a moment with a hammer that is as hilarious as it is disturbing. And sure, it might be a bit over-the-top at times, but what action film doesn&#8217;t land in this pitfall and still manage to entertain? Either way, by the end of the movie, both the characters and the audience are ultimately changed by what they just learned and saw, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>One of the best South Korean action films ever made, I give <em>Oldboy<\/em> 5.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><strong>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>This movie is contained in the book, <a href=\"http:\/\/author.benjamin-m-weilert.com\/published-works\/#CinemaConnections\"><em>Cinema Connections: a never-ending &#8220;6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon&#8221;<\/em><\/a> and is connected to <em>The Boondock Saints<\/em> (1999) and <em>The Housemaid<\/em> (1960)<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1821\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OldboyYear: 2003Rating: RLength: 120 minutes \/ 2.00 hours Some storylines are so timeless; they can&#8217;t help to be made into something modern\u2014thus becoming timeless in the process. Oldboy (2003) can easily draw comparisons to The Count of Monte Cristo in its structure but adds depth and layers to a wild ride that unfortunately could not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,51,382,2],"tags":[41,18,2718,13,2267,2717,8,872,2716],"class_list":["post-2515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21","category-5-0-stars","category-foreign","category-movie","tag-41","tag-action","tag-hammer","tag-movie","tag-oldboy","tag-revenge","tag-review","tag-south-korea","tag-the-count-of-monte-cristo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2688,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions\/2688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}