[joshaube]

OldBoy;
Another great installment in the Vengeance trilogy from Chan-wook Park. And similiar to his prior film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, you really don't know who you want to sympathize with in the end. It was a confusing film, more-so then Sympathy, so below I have included my analysis on what happened. Don't read it if you don't want to, and if you think something else then please share. This is just what I got out of it.

// ANALYTICAL SPOILED MILK
Woo-Jin had sex with his sister, Oh-Daesu witnessed this and started to spread a rumour. Thwe rumour was similiar to something like Lee Soo-ah was now pregnant with both a son and a nephew. She wasn't really, but Lee Soo-ah herself began to believe this so her stomach began to swell and her period stopped occuring. She had a "phantom pregnancy" - not a real one. She didn't commit suicide because she wanted to rumour to end - but rather because she really did beleive she was pregnant and felt the worry of her brother. She did it for him, more then anyone.

Oh-Daesu was captured on his daughter's third birthday and held for 15 years. Woo-Jin started secretly raising Oh-Daesu's daughter as we are told in the film. He was held for 15 years so the ages would be appropriate. Both of them were hypnotized so they would meet and react accordingly, and eventually fall in love. The girl's name was Mido, and she was Oh-Daesu's daughter. Neither of them knew this... at the time. They had sex.

So while it was technically a crime that Woo-Jin and his sister had a relationship, both of them were fine with it until Oh-Daesu started the rumour. And now Oh-Daesu is not innocent either since he had slept with his daughter, equally upsetting. Neither can be "innocent", yet you can feel sympathy for both of them.

I believe what was in the box where Mido was located - which was never opened - was another pho album similiar to what Oh-Daesu had saw and the photos that revealed that Mido was indeed his daughter.

The ending I felt to be a very significant part of the movie. People say it should have ended with Woo-Jin shooting himself in the head, because the following scenes were too "Feel-good". I could not disagree more.

In the end he asks a hypnotist to clear the "monster" inside of him. She warns him it could go wrong. He says he is aware of that fact, and she continues. She splits his self into two - Oh-Daesu who does not know the secret, and the Monster, who keeps the secret. The secret that Mido was his daughter. The Monster is told to walk away, and in 70 steps he will die. We are shown him walking away, but not taking the full 70 steps. Oh-Daesu wakes up later, a distance from the table he was once sitting at with the hypnostist. A young girl runs up to him, crying. He smiles bleakly as they embrace.

<i>Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.</i>

The girl asks if he was with anyone, and the camera pans down a sequence of footsteps to the table in the distance. I believe the Oh-Daesu we see now is actually the Monster. Based on the footsteps, his attitude, and the smile.

This isn't a happy ending.

// EXPIRATION DATE

Throughout the beginning and middle, I was thinking to myself "I enjoyed Mr. Sympathy a whole lot more." But once it came time for the ending, and the reveal with a sequence of twists, that prior thought was ripped in half. I'd say the two films now lay on the same level - in two different sections. They are both similiar films, but also very different. I can't say which I enjoyed more, so I'll just say... both were superb.

Nothing else needs to be mentioned.


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Fair-Haired Child was my favourite Masters of Horror episode in the series. I haven't seen Imprint yet though, and I believe as well it could be the best of the series and most likely is.