November 5, 2024 • 54 mins
Some on the production team have called this our most disturbing episode of Movie Smash. We discuss 2003's Oldboy directed by Park Chan-wook and staring Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong. The film is a story of revenge and the cost of getting exactly what you want.
Hosts: Christopher Roberts and Fergel Amayo
Guest Host: Ryan Estrada
Edited By: Christopher Roberts
Produced By: Off Panel Creations, LLC
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
and ends with this adorable murder scene.
(00:04):
And I was like, okay, so this is gonna be a fun comedy.
Curious to see how this goes.
You have nine months to get overweight and look like you rolled out of a dumpster.
I want to eat something alive.
They're garbage people because they made a decision to do garbage terrible things.
Hello and welcome to movies.
MULTIPLE SCREAMS
MUSIC
(00:29):
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash, the show where we dive head first in the
comic book movies outside the MCU.
If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us.
If you've been here before, you know the drill.
Each episode, we're going to smash a movie who sourced materials from a graphic novel or a comic.
Is it worth revisiting?
Should it be forgotten?
Let's find out.
This is Movie Smash.
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Roberts.
I'm the founder of all panel creations.
(00:50):
With me today, I have Fergal Amayo.
Fergal Amayo, owner of Gotham Knight Comics, where we believe that your nerd is the way.
We want you to get that nerd on through our ability to give you the best and most amazing experience
and quite frankly, tell those stories in comics.
And I am interested to see what happens when we imprison ourselves in our minds.
(01:12):
And our guest host today is Ryan Estrada.
Hi, I am Ryan.
I make comics myself and hopefully one day I'll have a movie of my comics that you'll be talking about on the show.
But I make many, many things, including the Eisner nominated graphic novel band Book Club, the new book No Rules Tonight, and the Student Ambassador series.
I also am coming to you from Busan, South Korea, not too far from where our boy Odessu ate that octopus.
(01:40):
Is there a train coming from Busan, by the way, just out of curiosity?
Zombies coming into Busan?
Well, to be clear, in the movie Train to Busan, Busan was the safe zone, so we're good.
That's good.
Our movie today is 2003's Old Boy starring, and I am going to just be butchering names today.
Ryan, correct me if you have a better pronunciation for them.
(02:02):
I assume you do.
Garan.
You want me to say it first?
Well, Taemin Sik is the lead actor.
Struck by.
Pak Chanuk.
Odessu. Long time no see. Imprisoned for 15 years. Losing your wife and child.
(02:23):
Seeking revenge is the greatest cure for someone who got hurt. What happens after you've revenged yourself? What will you do?
I can't end it like that.
You actually picked this movie for us. Why did you pick Old Boy?
Well, I mean, I live here in South Korea and I have, like I said, I live near where they shot large portions of the film.
(02:48):
And, you know, I love Korean cinema. When I came here, it was like discovering a whole new history of film, that there's so many amazing films made here.
For a lot of people, Old Boy is the movie that they know.
People think this is the best Korean movie. It's not the best Korean movie. It's not even the best Korean vengeance movie.
It's not even the best Pak Chanuk movie. That's JSA. And it's not even the best movie in its own trilogy. That's Lady Vengeance.
(03:11):
It is a movie that's very important to the history of Korean film. It influenced a lot of films to come after it.
And it's what a lot of people know about. And of course, it is based on a comic book.
Although I don't want to break the format of your show. Technically, Old Boy is the only comic book movie that exists within the MCU.
When The Winter Soldier came out, there's a scene at the beginning where Rikap makes a list of things that he needs to catch up on after he's been imprisoned in ice.
(03:39):
I do remember the block.
It was different for every country. They would put local things. Of course, nobody knew that when watching the movie for the first time.
So in South Korea, the movie that he needed to catch up on was Old Boy. And so this movie does exist within the MCU.
But that actually made it a horror movie in Korea because not knowing that was just to pander to the locals, I saw that.
And I'm like, they're making a big deal about the fact he hasn't seen Old Boy.
(04:01):
And then there's him becoming romantically interested in Carter. And I'm like, oh, no, oh, no.
Are they setting up something where he doesn't know that this is the daughter of the woman he used to date?
That was not what they were doing. But I was terrified the whole film.
That would be an interesting twist for the MCU. I don't think they would ever go there.
(04:21):
Speaking of the manga, are either you familiar with that original manga or have you read it?
Because I haven't. So I'm not, as you all know, and hopefully our audience knows me by now, I'm not a big manga guy.
I've read some manga. And obviously I'm a Kira fan. There are certain stories that I do enjoy.
And they're like Dragon Ball and different things like that. But no, I had not read that.
(04:42):
I'm familiar with the artist. I know he's had some good work and he's done phenomenally well.
And this book was nominated for an Icer and I do track those. That's why. Congratulations, Ryan.
Those are hard things to get and to be at the pinnacle of your genre. So that's phenomenal.
But no, I hadn't read the book up until this point.
I have the first volume. I decided to start reading it. I read the first volume.
(05:06):
I decided I was going to try and read through it all. And through the first volume, it's 210 pages, 10 chapters.
And it covers about 10 minutes of the movie. I'm like, this is way too slow.
I don't know if I can read this whole thing. Like, it's very, very slow.
But what's wild is what I read in the first volume is like exactly like the movie, like beat for beat.
(05:30):
Like a specific 10 minute stretch of the movie.
Although from what I understand, it just, again, stretched out much, much longer.
But from my understanding, after that, toward the end, it's completely different.
Basically anything you remember from the movie, all the memorable moments, all the memorable plot twists do not come from the movie.
They come from Pak Chanuk's Weird Mind. So I've started it and read volume one.
(05:56):
There are 79 chapters in that. 79 chapters over eight collected volumes. It's a long series.
Yeah, I read that too. That this movie is essentially almost lifted directly from the manga,
except for the big twist that everyone remembers. That was added after the fact.
That was not part of the actual manga. But beyond that, I don't know much about it.
(06:19):
So was this your, obviously, Ryan, this is probably not your first viewing, but Fergal, was this your first viewing of this movie?
So no, it's my first time seeing the Korean version of this story, but I did see the Josh Brolin story.
So the Old Boy 2013 remake. Interesting movie.
But I'm going to tell you, I can see why that movie, the first one I saw didn't really make sense.
(06:40):
And I can see why this movie was, I'm not a subtitle guy.
I don't do a lot of subtitle movies just because time is fast. And sometimes I just don't want to read a movie.
I want to see a movie. This movie is one of those rare, interesting movies where his facial expressions,
I could not read it and still figure out this guy is just, it was surprisingly good.
(07:03):
I first moved to Korea in 2002. So I saw this movie when it came out, when I was kind of discovering Korean cinema.
And yeah, it was a big inflection point for, like I said, it changed Korean cinema in that it did so well overseas that everyone's like,
well, I guess vengeance movies is what we do now. It became like what superhero movies are in America,
(07:24):
where it's like now we have to all make vengeance movies. And like you mentioned that the manga was, or manga is actually a lot less violent.
Nobody dies until the end in the manga and there's a lot less violence.
Bak Chan-wook really just wanted to dig into vengeance and how messy it gets. And that's why he made it so extreme.
And that was kind of, you know, not that it hadn't been done before, but it was kind of such a big thing in Korea that it completely changed how people made movies.
(07:49):
And I can see why. It's a crazy ass movie. It's just completely crazy how they pulled this thing together.
It kind of reminds me of the Japanese horror movie craze that we had for a while where they just did really well in the States and then they started pumping out a ton of them.
This is the first time I saw this movie. I saw it first thing this morning actually to get ready for the show.
And I've had friends telling me for a while now, you need to see this movie. So it was, I came into it with the hype level being through the roof.
(08:15):
So when you saw the movie, were you disappointed? Were you hyped up? Did it catch you? Was it like the lions on a 47-9 victory over the Cowboys?
What was it? Did it meet your expectations?
We will get to that and I'll save it for that part.
Before we jump into it, Fergal, do you have any sort of history of the manga itself for us?
Well, it was originally ran, and again, I'm going to butcher a name, Guran Tushiai.
(08:41):
And again, if I butcher it, and then Nubaku Minagishi was the illustrator.
It really was a dark horse run from 96 to 98. It's the original run, eight volumes.
And it won an Eisner Award. It's really well loved manga. It's one of the, again, it's one of the...
The creator has done several other books beyond this, but this was one of his, kind of like everybody has that big one book.
(09:06):
I think this really was one of his big young books because it was remade, not just American, but there's an unauthorized Hindi remake of this movie as well.
So if this is your first time joining us, just a heads up. We'll be discussing a plot of this 20-year-old movie.
And with that, discuss certain elements of the story that might be considered spoilers, especially the end. And consider yourself warned.
So Ryan, why don't you... Can you walk us through the story of this movie a little bit? Can you tell us what happens?
(09:30):
Curious to see how this goes.
So yeah, so this is the story of Odeh Su, a drunken man who wakes up in a hotel room that he cannot get out of and finds himself locked up for 10 years and then suddenly released.
And he has to investigate who locked him up, why they locked him up, and why they let him out.
(09:51):
And then investigation takes him to some dark, weird places where he discovers some things he does not want to know.
That's a pretty good sense of what it was. It took me a while to figure out what the whole movie was about.
It's funny you said 10 years, so maybe that's a translation problem because in the movie they kept saying 15.
I might be confusing it with the book.
Well, I thought the American... So this is where it gets a little confusing. The old boy of 2013 is 20 years. So in this one, they reference 15 years because the inflection for him happened at year 11.
(10:19):
Yeah, it's 15 here because his daughter was three years old when he went into the prison. So when he comes out, she's 18.
So let me jump in. We've sort of hit some of the characters here. Why don't we start with... Was it Dae-shae-hoo?
Odeh Su, which is... Odeh Su is a reference to Odysseus from the Odyssey.
No, it's not Odysseus. It was the guy who marries his mother.
(10:42):
Oedipus?
Oedipus, that's who it is. It's actually... I think it's a play on Epidus.
Interesting.
Nonetheless, how do you feel as a character, as an actor, how he portrayed that role?
I thought he was brilliant. I actually... This is one of these... Again, because it was a written movie, sort of like when we... So, Ryan, we did Cemetery Man.
Well, Cemetery Man, you couldn't turn away because it was so... They didn't shoot any two movie to make sense. Each scene did not make sense after the other.
(11:10):
So you had to kind of follow along. You were just completely lost. This movie is that written word all the way through. Probably not in South Korea, but here it is.
And I was mad impressed with how he portrayed all of that dynamic kind of crazy through how he became monster and vengeance. It was good. He was good.
I say it was probably better than the remake that was America. I'm definitely going to say that.
(11:36):
Yeah, Chaiman Chik is an amazing actor. He's a big star here. And the way he embodied this character, it's wild to start a character with it.
Like, start a movie with your main character being such an irredeemable dick, like just such a jerk.
And then you're like, oh, well, he's going to learn a lesson and get better. And no, he's going to get so much worse in every way.
But he is able to still make this character someone that you want to follow.
(12:00):
And the way the character is introduced and styled is interesting, too, because he looks like absolute garbage.
Like, if you look at the manga, there's a whole plot line about how since he was locked up, he decided to do nothing but exercise and get into shape.
And he comes out looking really ripped and hot, whereas in the movie, he just looks like he rolled out of a dumpster.
(12:21):
And that also really influenced Korean cinema going forward, because nowadays it's like you look at an American movie and they're like, oh, I just cast a big movie.
I'm going to spend like, you know, nine months getting super into shape and ripped.
And then you see them between movies like with a big dad bod and like gruffy hair.
Where in Korea, it's the opposite, where it's like I go to the I just got out of the Busan Film Festival.
(12:43):
I meet all these actors. I've met Chaiman Chik. I've met the director of the film.
I've met Song Kang Ho, all these actors, and they are all like the most beautiful people on Earth.
And every time they're casting a movie, the director is like, you have nine months to get overweight and look like you rolled out of a dumpster because we want you to look like absolute garbage.
(13:04):
It gave him the John Wick strength. That was interesting because I read some information about how that guy, and I don't even want to try to slaughter his name, Chaim In-Suk.
When he, you know, he did all of his own stunts, a majority of his own stunts, and there was very little CGI or other influence added to this movie.
Maybe the ants, a few other very minor things, the knife and a lot of that.
(13:26):
So it's sort of like that believable superhero guy. He's powered so much by vengeance and anger.
Because remember, he was in that room and there was not, I mean, there was a lot of dudes.
He took out a lot of dudes and, you know, stuff should have took him down. He kept going.
So that was powered by strength, but just not, you know, Chris Evans or Thor, you know, Chris Evans or, you know, one of these other guys and other Chris Emsworth strength.
(13:49):
It was like John Wick strength, not huge, but you wouldn't want to screw with him.
In Korean cinema, there's a really, there's a thing about, I love the fight scenes in Korean movies because they're not choreographed in the way that they would choreograph in America.
In America, they choreograph these fight scenes like dances, and they're doing very distinct movements with a lot of training.
In Korean movies, they really try and make it look like this is what an out of shape middle aged dude would do if he needed to fight.
(14:16):
There's a lot, you know, in the hammer, in that famous hammer scene, he's running through swinging a hammer. He's not doing like amazing moves.
And that kind of, in other movies, you see people like fall on their butts in the middle of the fight because they're just so mad.
Like it just, it always feels so real. And that's what makes that hammer scene so powerful is that he's not doing like with John Wick, like with stunt.
(14:38):
Like you're not having like these trained stunts. He's just, there's a lot of people, I have a hammer, I'm going to swing it until there are no more people.
It's interesting too. I like, I wanted this movie blind. I had no idea what it was about other than that there were some very good scenes.
Everyone loved this movie. When in blind and when that character first comes out, he's, you know, he's being arrested for being drunk disorderly.
(15:01):
And it's a very funny set of scenes. Supposedly he ad-libbed all of that. And it was the last thing they shot. They were just being silly.
And I was like, okay, so this is going to be a fun comedy. Like they're going to have some fun with this. So I have no idea where this is going.
And later on, he gets to be this very grisly fighter. And you kind of talk about that hammer scene. And even that part, I knew there was some big fight scene.
And that defeat, when it gets my expectations too, because I was expecting the sort of a choreographed sort of gung-fu, you know, John Wick sort of scene.
(15:28):
And no, I got a guy swinging a hammer. Like I would probably do it trying to save, you know, just survive that hallway of death.
And there's a part where he like collapses because he's so tired. He stands back up again, gets a little bit extra energy. He's just, he's got a knife at his back at one point.
That's what I'm talking about.
And it gives you, we had that, we had, we did Atomic Blonde recently and we had a Lorianne who was, she's being stunts.
(15:53):
And she was saying how she always enjoys movies where somebody is, you know, demonstrating fighting how they would do it. Like how a woman would fight.
You know, this is how a middle-aged dude who's been stuck in a room for 15 years would fight.
I do like the fact he says in there, like, I hope my fighting skills live up to my imagination.
Because he's practicing in his room against the wall for several years.
(16:15):
And then he says, they do. I love that.
Or when he fights those guys in the, at the initial part, when he first gets out and he's like laying, you know, he sort of, he's trying to get a cigarette from them or something.
And they sort of push him back and he just lays on the ground a little bit, trying to wonder, should I even get back up again?
That dude is, I mean, it's like I said, it's like, I mean, he kicked a lot of ass in this movie.
I mean, but at the end of the day, he was also so incredibly tortured.
(16:39):
I think it was a de-evolution because you say he was such a beautiful actor when you see him at the Busan Film Festival.
Well, the thing that I think then that only clearly exemplifies that they did such a good job.
He did such a good job changing his entire face and facial structure going from when he first went into that prison to when he got released 15 years later.
Did not look like the same dude. And they were very clear about that.
(17:02):
Every action he took did not feel like the same dude that went in there.
And it was this, that's, I think that's why he had that hitmanism. I know I might give it away a thing, but I think that's some of the stuff he had at the end because of that craziness.
And apparently he is still upset about the way they styled him in that movie.
Because he still talks about how traumatic it was when they when they like permed his hair to look like that.
(17:23):
And he's like, why? Why do you want me to look like garbage? Come on. I'm the star of the movie.
He even has a line where he's like, he's a thought goes in his head.
He says, like, I hate my haircut, which you can't see the hair at that point.
They zoom out like, yeah, I would hate that haircut, too. It's pretty bad.
Which is it's he is a very scruffy person. But the his antagonist, the villain of the movie is Woo Jin Lee.
(17:45):
Am I getting that right? And he is the exact opposite.
This that man is well dressed, well groomed, very sharp.
It's an interesting sort of dichotomy between those two people.
How what do you think of that character, the villain of the story?
I think I find that character fascinating because of the joy that he has and what he's doing.
Usually that type of character, you'd see him being like sinister and scheme, not that he's not sinister and scheming.
(18:10):
But like if you think of that scene where he hands him the purple box and is shining the little light on it like this big grin he has.
And he's giggling like a two year old that's about to get like a cake.
He's such a weird character and he's doing such cruel, awful things.
But he's so excited and proud of himself for the way he did it.
And it adds this weird levity to the what he's doing because it's just you feel like it's a little kid.
(18:36):
Like eventually, like he starts out so mysterious and when you find out more about him, he's just giddy with excitement about the awful, awful things that he's done.
Yeah, that dude is. I mean, so the bad guy, the bad guy in this movie, you know, not what I expected.
I guess I'll say that because I did see the 2013 remake and I kind of in my mind, I envision a guy similar to the first experience with this movie.
(19:02):
And he was not that guy completely. Just I mean, he's very cruel, very smart, sort of played a lot of pulls.
And you were just trying to figure out, you know, we might have figured out some of the things that go on, but they threw enough twists in that that it took a while for me, at least got to figure out the overall end game in this scenario.
I'm glad you said that, too. It was I was kind of like trying to figure out what was felt different about the movie.
(19:27):
The movie typically you kind of expected to be bad guy, good guy. They're going at it. But for the villain of the story, it's a vengeance story for him as well.
It's basically both people are putting vengeance upon one another and we don't really know where they kind of mentioned where it starts.
But it's and we don't know that at the beginning of the movie, we don't learn that till the last quarter of the movie, the last tenth of the movie that the level of vengeance is coming from.
(19:51):
And it's not as big as you think it would be. I mean, it's the steps he goes to go through to make the main characters life miserable is just astounding.
The things he does just to get to that point. And at the end of it, it's you're right. He starts you can see the joy on his face as his lifetime's worth of work.
He's been doing this for 15 years as a plan that it's like imagine building something like a company or a story or whatever. And you're getting to the culmination of that point. And he has just got this grid on his face.
(20:22):
Picture when he lays down on the bed, the picture of the video or the picture, that's sort of just a single set, a single scene kind of summarizes the issue that the click, how much depth of obsession this guy has with us.
Oh yeah. And it's he's very he's petty and he's enjoying it. And it's 15 years of him working to get to this point. It's his life's mission. And you kind of wonder like where does he have the money to do this? Like what is his day job? It's not this.
(20:52):
I think he worked in cameras. I think he worked in technology, cell phone cameras, cameras. I was just thinking he had that all over his place. I think they kind of hinted the amount of money he had. He had to have done or sold some technology of some kind.
And the interesting thing about the original comic, like we said, the twist was created for the movie. But what the twist was in original comic is that it was basically nothing. Like he the main character just saw him at a lonely moment.
(21:17):
And that like kind of destroyed him like because he's afraid of showing emotion. And so it people say it was disappointing because it you know there's that this big mystery. It's nothing. But I think that's an interesting twist to show that the length people will go to for something that like is completely one sided.
This guy has no memory of this moment. But it consumed him. I think adding what really happened in this movie that really did affect his life is a fascinating thing. But it also once again, Odeh Su does not remember it. So it's this it's kind of showing how what an impact can have on someone's life without remembering because it's so powerful to them.
(21:56):
Did he take that away or did he just not remember it? Because that I didn't get from the movie. That school scene where they discover it, was that just taken away? Or was there like forced hypnosis or forced removal of that memory?
It's actually stated in the movie. He asks and he says, I didn't take that from you. You just forgot.
I must have missed that. It's during the villain's epilogue, you know, his epilogue, but his big monologue that he's giving a sort of building up to the story of what's all happened and why we're all here. And he says in there, you just forgot. I didn't take that from you. I didn't hypnotize that away from you. You just forgot.
(22:30):
And it's funny. It's a lesson I try to teach my kids all the time that you never know. You might be the villain of someone else's story because you don't remember every moment of your life. And he did this small infraction, which he told his friend a secret and told his friend not to say anything.
And his friend goes and blabs the secret to everybody. And this guy, the villain, goes the source of the rumor. And that's our hero. If you want to call him a hero and says, now you've got to be punished.
(22:55):
You know, I would tell you there's another lesson in this. If you've seen Adam Sandler, Billy Madison, call the people you've wronged. Just gonna leave it out there. Let that float. If you've ever seen Billy Madison with Adam Sandler, call the people you've wronged because it can't benefit you in the end.
How do you feel about the character Midu?
I don't know, a little whiny, a little bit whiny, a little bit whiny, but she's definitely believable, but just a teeny bit whiny through the whole thing. At first she seems cool, but she gets whiny.
(23:21):
But I think, you know, Bakhtanuk himself, like, really regretted the way he treated that character. And he spent decades after making films about women with agency because he had this character that had no agency.
Even the way we see her acting at the beginning is all because of this training and manipulation and hypnosis that she's gone through. So she has no power over the decisions she's making.
(23:44):
And she has no agency in the end because she needs to know is kept from her. So it must have been a difficult character to play because at no point does she have all the information or have any agency to make her own decision.
I agree with you on that one. There are many times at the beginning of the movie, too, of course you find out the secret of the movie. You're watching saying, like, why is she following him? Why is she going along with this? Why is she doing any of this?
(24:06):
He's a stranger who came into her restaurant and he came and ate octopus. Why is this a thing? And she eventually like I was like, is he is he his Robin now in this story? Is there a scene I didn't see where he explains everything has happened and she's like, I'm buying into this.
I'm going to help you. Things just happen with her. Once you know the twist, you want to know she was manipulated in this position with the same hypnosis that he was affected by.
(24:30):
Then it's like, okay, she she has no willpower. But yeah, she has no, which means she has no agency. It's good to hear he went out and made movies after that to sort of redeem other female characters because she was flat.
Like as in that she was very two dimensional. I didn't actually know that was done intentionally, quite frankly. So that's it. That's even more surprising. But I'm glad they did go around and try to create powerful women characters. That's always a positive.
(24:52):
But yeah, I mean, it's it's you know, there was a lot that could have been done with that. I think that they again the 2013 was kind of similar in the fact that it's still a bit of a two dimensional character, two dimensional representation.
And that's what stood in contrast to the main character, which is why that because the other guy was flip it out. Just absolutely flip it out. And to be clear, the female characters created later are still like garbage people.
(25:17):
Like most people in movies. It's not like he made like amazing, but it's like they're garbage people because they made a decision to do garbage, terrible things and hurt people.
Hey, as long as they make the decision themselves. Yes, as I'm saying, watch Adam Sandler's Billy Madison.
There is a character I do think is I would I would want to touch on is was his name. I'm looking up professor Mr. Han. He's the white haired dude, the the bodyguard.
(25:43):
He was a sort of silent force and I felt that silent force throughout the movie and he did not disappoint at the end of it.
He kicks him ass. I didn't realize he was that much of an asker.
His end moment where he has that powerful moment he looks like basically seems like the Terminator and the way he can dispatch this guy and then do the turn around and find out that Odesu won that fight anyway.
(26:07):
And it will look on his face like, wait, that's not allowed to happen. I don't lose what how that total shock.
Now there are some famous scenes in this movie. We might as well get the biggest one out of the way and talk about that.
And then we'll go into some other ones. The hallway scene that is or the hammer scene shot in one continuous take over 17 days, but shot is one continuous take.
(26:29):
And it's funny how like the hallway scene has become like a genre in itself now, not just in Korean cinema, but in American cinema. There's, you know, every season of Daredevil is like, what's our new hallway fight?
Like so many movies have tried to recreate that. Absolutely.
Um Bakli, whatever is Um Bak, Tony Jaa. I mean, they do these hallway scenes phenomenal now. They just keep going. I mean, that's all most of them. That's how you show close up fighting.
(26:54):
The one I saw, what's it remind me of the, because we just did a Tonk Blonde. There's that one scene on Tonk Blonde where they're fighting up a stairwell into a final scene as well.
So I think this movie, that one shot fight scene has lended itself to, people have stolen that idea and taken it to other directions.
It was not what I was expecting. Like I said, it was hyped up to be this massive fight and I was expecting some sort of like John Wick style fight.
(27:17):
Not that this was bad, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting more of that and I was happy with what I got because it was more personal of a fight it felt like just because he was just getting up and close, hitting people with a hammer, getting stabbed in the back.
He gave up at one point, jumps back up and keeps fighting as he goes along, especially when he sees those guys in the elevator when they open up at the end.
And I think what makes this one so powerful, like all these ones that have come in the wake of it are doing that, like I said, super choreographed, like this has to happen here, this has to happen here, this camera movement has to happen here.
(27:49):
And everyone looks like they're trained by a stunt coordinator. Whereas in this one, some of the guys he's fighting, the reason he's able to defeat them is because they're like, I don't want to fight this dude with a hammer.
Like they're just standing back, like when he's catching his breath, they're not after him, they're like, are we getting paid enough for this? Like why are we fighting? And he's like, I don't care, you're still in the way, I'm still gonna hit you with a hammer.
It just feels messy. And I like when movies let their fights feel messy like that.
(28:15):
Yeah, there was that larger sort of plumpier guy who like leans into him, goes forward, steps back, goes forward. He's like, do I really want to do this? Because I don't want to get a hammer to the face.
And speaking of the hammer, there was that scene that happened right before that where he becomes a dentist for a scene, let's put it that way. That scene occurred, I'm like, oh, we're going there. That's how dark and gritty this movie is going to go.
(28:37):
I could tell that by the amount of times he attempted to commit suicide by inking into his hands, breaking his own hand on the wall. Like over time, he just became a ferocious animal.
So when he got out, and you saw him just kind of like, not even flinching when the guy fell off the building or anything, you kind of knew that shit was gonna get real. It was about to go down.
(28:58):
And he took care of that business, right? Wow. That was something else. And like I said, it just shows that, you know, you don't have to be massive muscly to be effective.
So the, I do want to talk about this, the, just for a little thing, the octopus eating scene. Virgil, how did you feel about when you saw that man eating an octopus?
That was also something that I believe he requested, if I'm not mistaken for this, he wanted a live octopus for this thing.
(29:22):
It's because it has a little veins that make it live after its head gets popped out. It's a little much. It's a little much. I'm not gonna lie. It's a little much.
It's not my personal cup of tea, but I can see the visual effect for the movie. What an actor. He took one for the team.
He ate four live octopuses that pulled that scene off. Those are all real.
I'm a, I'm a vegetarian, so it's not something I love watching, but it's a, it's a powerful moment in the film.
(29:48):
And it was, it was terrible for, uh, came in, she called so cause he said he, he had to like pray before each one and apologize to the octopus.
He's like, I gotta do what I'm sorry. It's, it really shows how feral this man is. Yeah. He is the monster at that point. He just, I want to eat something alive.
People do eat octopus here. Like that, that restaurant, you can order an octopus, but like you said, they chopped the head off and the tentacles are still wiggling.
(30:14):
So that's just taking something that you can see in everyday life in Korea and taking it to the next step where it's like, oh, we didn't even chop the tentacles off. This is the whole octopus.
I am vehemently raising my hands this way. I just had to come off camera this day. That's no go.
I'm very freeing in my food, but at some point I've got to have a line like things that are living. I don't know. It just feels that and, uh, those ox balls. I don't know if I could do those.
(30:40):
What mountain oysters? Mountain oysters. Yeah. Those two things. I think I'd have to, I have octopus in mountain oysters.
What other scenes stood out to you guys?
When he tried to attack her in the bathroom, like that was surprising. I was not, it was, it felt like I wasn't sure where that was coming from, but he just like, he went at her and then he thought he wasn't worthy and kind of laughed. That was weird. That was just a little weird.
(31:03):
Yeah. It really shows how monstrous he's become because he didn't have to do that. She was extremely interested in him, but he still felt the need to pursue her non-consensually, which really made us hate this character. And it's a strange thing how much this character, how much this movie wants us to hate.
Yeah. Cause before that you feel sorry for this guy. He's been in prison for 15 years that he doesn't know why and he's in there and then he comes out and he does this, he attacks her and he doesn't have to, he doesn't need to. Their whole relationship was really messed up. Even without the twist at the end of the movie.
(31:38):
Yeah. Well, I'm not, I don't think we can give away the twist because I think this movie is like tenant. You got to see it all the way through to get, if you're investing, even if you're investing the two hours, the payoff is definitely worth it at the end. It's a screwed up movie and it doesn't let that go through the entire film.
I think we can give it away because if they haven't seen it by this point, they're probably not going to. It's been 20 plus years.
(32:00):
I'm okay. I'm going to be the big reveal to get his mind wiped so he can be with his daughter as his lover. That's odd. That's definitely different. It's interesting to me that he chose to kill that side.
I think the twist is more that what happened was for our listeners that have not seen this movie is that when the villain and the hero, I will mess up their names so I'm trying not to, when they were kids, they went to high school together and they're called old boys when they graduate.
(32:32):
Both went to high school together and the villain was having an inappropriate relationship with his sister and this rumor started getting around and then she kills herself. That's what the vengeance is about. He wants to kill the hero because of his rumor, his sister committed suicide.
Now to exact his revenge, he made him go through something just as bad if not worse. He wipes his mind, makes him forget who his family is and then he ends up, the reason why it's 15 years is so his four-year-old daughter is now 19 and then they both are hypnotized so that the hero ends up seducing his own daughter.
(33:08):
That's what the vengeance really is about. Basically, they both go crazy because of it. You're very succinct in that but it's the way both sides played off each other that made this movie cruel.
It was the way that every single particular area that this guy was going where he's thinking he's one step ahead was meticulously planned for and the way each one of these setbacks just drove him over the edge.
(33:35):
It all drove him over to the very end when he cut his own tongue out. Like he literally cut his own tongue out. That's just drove him to the edge and it's how he did that even though he won. He beat the bad-ass dude. He could kill the guy but he was in the end begging to make sure that she didn't know that she had sex with her father.
The other unique thing about this film is that this genre of vengeance films, the point of it always is that the vengeance was never worth it. It just makes things worse and every single character ends in a worse place than where they started.
(34:08):
But this is the only film where the two characters are such pieces of garbage that they end with exactly what they wanted and end smiling. I wouldn't say they end happily but they end smiling. The villain does exactly the horrible thing he wanted and ends grinning happily about it.
And then Odeh Su ends up removing the memory that this was his daughter from his mind so that he can date her. He has that creepy smile at the end where you don't know if he's about to laugh or cry which is what Pak Tanuk asked him to do.
(34:40):
He's become such, well he's a monster at the beginning. Through all these things he's gone through he's become such a garbage human that that's a happy ending for him.
Both people get their vengeance and both people lose.
Or do they? I mean, so, because it seems like neither, to Ryan's point, it does seem like neither of them lost. Like it seems ultimately at the very end of the game either one got exactly what had been planned.
(35:08):
Maybe one guy did know and one guy did but they both got exactly where it was like they were creating towards one another.
I think the thing is that it's an ending that any of us, any reasonable person, would find to be losing. They are so broken by everything that's happened that they're like, I'm cool with that. That's exactly what I wanted. Great.
And that is even more disturbing and gross than if they had been sad about it.
(35:32):
Yeah, it's true. They both won their battles but they both lost the war of salvation. They are both doomed, these existences. Well, one gets a doomed existence, the other one is dead.
That's what made the movie really good. That's why this movie, I can see why it picked up what it picked up because it made like 18 million in South Korea. It was like the fifth highest growing movie.
It was a third highest. It was really a big movie. And it came out in Russia. And to your point, Ryan, it changed a lot of things. A lot of stuff got, you know, Korean movies got picked up over here.
(36:03):
And it picked up like the raid and other films of that train to Busan. Certain things have already, and they continue to come out over here. That just does the part. But what that's doing over there. So, you know, it's damn good movie.
I mean, I'm not a subtitle guy and I was quite impressed with this movie.
When the villain is monologuing about why he did this, the backstory, sort of laying all the cards on the table, did either of you guys see the final twist of what he convinced him, the hero, to do?
(36:35):
As soon as I figured out that she was, like, as soon as he opened the book, you know, during the movie, it crossed my mind because they kept crossing boundaries. So I was like, this could be what they're leading up to, which would be gross.
And then they showed the example between the brother and sister. I'm like, yeah, this is on the table. But the effect, and that's the director, I think, is that the effect when he opens the box, that's when it really starts becoming apparent what's about to happen.
(37:02):
I think it's very rare for anyone in the English speaking world to have seen this movie without knowing the twist in advance.
Because even though I saw when it came out, I had to wait until it came out with Korean subtitles on DVD. It's one of those twists that everyone immediately spoils and talks about. I'm pretty sure I knew the twist before I ever saw the film. And that happens with a lot of people.
I did not know the twist before I saw this movie. And that was disturbing.
(37:28):
And you know what's interesting? I'm just going to say it outright because I think this is where the two movies diverged probably due to Spike Lee. In the end of the 2013 old boy, he got the diamonds. He's still same storyline.
But instead, he ends up giving the diamonds to his daughter, begging them to make sure that they never know, kills the guy. That's all still happens, suicide.
But he ends up giving the vast majority of diamonds and he goes back to the guy with the prison, which is Samuel Jackson, to ask to be put back in the prison with the rest of the diamonds, not get out of the hotel room again.
(37:56):
Just stay in there until he dies.
Now the final scene of the movie is an epilogue, essentially. Snowy background. So it takes, I guess, months later. I think they filmed it actually in New Zealand.
He goes in and he's basically asking the person hypnotized him to remove the memory that it's his daughter, to get rid of that piece of the memory.
And she says the monster will walk away. You'll be split into two people, the monster and you and the monster walk away. And for every step it takes, it ages a year and eventually hits 70, it dies.
(38:26):
And then she showed the daughter shows up and he's sitting with her. She still she has no idea because, of course, she never opened that box.
And now we're looking at this guy. Is he the monster or is he our hero?
The laughter was the thing that made you think about that when the movie ended, because he went from like laughing to almost like something didn't fully take on that, whatever that was.
(38:50):
Yeah, I think it feels like he has gone through this process to give himself plausible deniability that he doesn't know anymore.
But he knows it's, you know, even if there's some surface level where this magical hypnotism that doesn't exist in the real world has like made him able to forget it.
Like he knows deep down that this has happened, but he is broken enough that he can allow himself to pretend like he forgot.
(39:14):
Yeah, I think he is the monster. Remember that they said we need to look someone who'd you walk here with and they follow the footsteps back to it.
So he walked from that spot to where they meet up as the monster because he was supposed to stand still.
The monster was the one that walks away. And that's who she meets up with is the monster.
So I kind of think that he is, I think you're just right. He is, he has a plausible deniability. He wants this. I don't want to say happy life because it's just gross and disgusting.
(39:39):
But the life he wants, I guess. This movie takes just about two hours. Did it move fast? Did it move slow?
It moved fast. It didn't, it didn't sense. I mean, you know, there's always points you can always kind of, once you start getting the arc of the movie, there's always a couple of scenes here and there where you can move forward.
But this movie moves pretty good. Again, I wanted to give this one a little attention because it did take my attention. It was actually not horrible. So I was like, okay, let's see where this is going.
(40:06):
So moved decently fast. I mean, it's an older movie, so that could also wear on the eye a little bit. I'm kind of spoiled in my HD world.
Now, like I said, compared to the manga, it's a rocket. Like even when you're at the beginning, when you're showing the idea of monotony that a lot of people show by making the film monotonous, this actually just fired through with interesting shots and interesting editing to show the monotony of his life locked up while still having a propulsive rhythm.
(40:37):
For me, it felt a little, little slow. That's because I think because I did not know the twist and where it was going to go. And I went in with the expectations of an action movie, sort of vengeance action movie. I wasn't getting that right away. It was a long build up to get there.
So that was just beat me and my expectations around it from what I had heard about the movie.
Damn you, Chris, and those expectations.
(40:58):
I know that's all I have sometimes.
Now, knowing what the movie was, I think the pacing was important to it because I think you're right. They wanted you to feel what it was like in that prison. The fact that it was slow, the fact that it was monotonous. I do like the fact when he's punching the wall, he's drawing a picture of a man that he's just beating up.
(41:19):
Yeah, and that the painting behind him that ages, he references that a couple times. That shot was not misused. The guy going back to the painting with the statement on, you know, do I not have a right to live if I'm a beast? That's an interesting because that painting keeps getting like a Dorian Gray picture.
So what did you guys love about this movie? What do you think they could have done better?
(41:40):
It's an older movie, so let's remake a little bit of it. I think that's what they needed to do. Get a little cleaner with some of the stuff that we've got going on today. But I think they did for a subtitled movie, it was one of the best, most intense, like carry the performance on your face movies I think I've ever seen.
For me, I think I love the tonal variety of it because people talk about how dark and disturbing movie is. And so many movies that have come in the wake of that try to recreate it, but they just make everything dark. The colors are dark, the personalities are dark, and they're just so punishing. But this one, there's actually a lot of bright colors.
(42:15):
There's a lot of like dark humor. There's a lot of gleeful moments that like buried within this thing, which that balance kind of makes it more disturbing and kind of easier to watch, even though it gets really dark. So I love that it did a lot of different things.
But one thing that never sat right with me that, again, I don't dislike, I don't disrespect, but it's not something I like is that ending we're talking about with the hypnotist. It feels so out of place, first of all because we've never met that character before and we're having this powerful moment with a character we've never met.
(42:54):
Who's been, you know, obviously been involved in the story through the villain. We've never met this character and it's this, and even though we've been talking about hypnotism, it makes it feel like this magical bit at the end.
I like, not that I like the remake, but I like the idea that it ends with the prison because those are characters that we know that we've gone through an arc with and that can end, the solution can involve them.
(43:21):
As much as I dislike the decision he made and don't like watching it, it does say a lot about the character. So I'm not saying it's wrong. I just don't particularly like watching the epilogue.
I'm glad you said that because for me the epilogue, in particular, was where I saw some problems because I thought maybe it's like a cultural thing I wasn't aware of. Like maybe in Korean culture there is a sort of mystic woman who can do this kind of thing and she's supposed to be an analog for that.
(43:46):
And I was like, maybe that's what it is. But she felt really sort of, we see her in one scene early on when she says, turn your head, you'll be in a green field, and he wakes up in a suitcase. And all of a sudden she's back again. How did he find her?
Now how does this actually work? She's like, look at a tree, it'll become concrete, and now all of a sudden you're two people. That's pretty hard. It's a pretty big pill to swallow.
(44:09):
Well, it's implied too because remember, this entire movie has to swallow some big pills. You're telling me so much of this guy's experience has been hypnotized, he's been hit with drugs and different things. It could be this fantastical woman that we know is on his payroll. So she might be the lady with the power, the soup du jour, if you will.
Or she doesn't exist at all. We don't know.
(44:31):
I think the movie would have been a lot more powerful if hypnosis had never been involved. Because, you know, like you mentioned, he didn't forget his family, they made him believe his daughter was adopted in another country. That's all you need to do.
And I think it would have been more interesting to have psychological manipulation have them do what they did rather than magical realism, hypnotism story. I think there would have been ways to do it that would have been more interesting than being like a wizard did it.
(45:00):
Now you mentioned, Ryan, that this is actually part of a trilogy. Have you seen any of those movies?
Of course. Yeah, so it's not a trilogy that like characters go through. But basically what happened is that he made a film called Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. And then he was approached about making Oldboy and a reporter was like, didn't you just make a movie about vengeance?
(45:21):
So rather than like admit to like, you know, you know, he basically just said, so what, maybe I'll make a third one. I'll make it a trilogy. And so he did. And he made Lady Vengeance.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a very dark film about a child kidnapping the well-meaning, well, they kidnapped the child, but they thought they were doing something good and the child died and it becomes a story.
(45:46):
Lady Vengeance is a lot more like Oldboy in that has a lot of dark humor in it and ends with this adorable murder scene. It's just so Korean. If you've ever been to a Korean party where like people like take turns cleaning up and like, it's just such an adorable murder. That's my favorite one in the trilogy.
It's him trying to say everything he has to say about vengeance and why it's not necessarily going to make things better.
(46:12):
Kind of reminds me of the concept that was at the Cornetto trilogy. It's like Shaun of the Dead. What were the other ones that were in there? Hot Fuzz. And there's one about the bar at the end of the world.
World's End.
World's End, thank you.
World's End, probably one of the greatest movies. I mean, every one of those movies you just named are absolutely phenomenal. It's one of the reasons I still can tune into a Simon Pegg story because of those movies.
(46:34):
Fergal, you alluded to this earlier. There was actually a body-widening knockoff of this movie called Zindi. Do either of you want to see this movie?
Well, I did just see the Indian Spider-Man, so I think I'll probably going to put myself into that one. And it's amazing. Just so you know, I even saw the Indian movie at the Midget who was an ass kicking shaft. It was amazing.
Yeah, I think I'll skip it. I've seen a lot of Bollywood knockoffs and none of them have. Not that they aren't great Bollywood movies, but the knockoffs are never really. I was in a Bollywood movie once and some of them are not very well made.
(47:10):
You were in a Bollywood movie? Did you dance?
No, I did voiceover work in a movie called Apkasur, the movie, The Real Love Story. Two of those words are spelled wrong in the title.
Wow. Was your character just, was your character a dancing character? Because there's got to be dancing in your movie.
Well, there's a lot of dancing in it, but I played a police officer who said, what the hell for three minutes, because there was no script. And I asked, I asked them, what's the script? And they said, the line is, what the hell? And I said, okay, he talks for three minutes.
(47:36):
And they said, yeah, just say that. So I just did it to show them how what a bad idea it was. And then they're like, yeah, great. Print it in the movie.
That's perfect. That's one of those have to be there to experience the type things. That's amazing, bro. I'm just gonna give it up on that one. You've got a lot of those in your background.
If there's anyone else out there, I was probably the last one who has not seen this movie, should they go find it?
(47:58):
Yeah, I think it's I mean, you know, I probably wouldn't found it unless it was a homework assignment, but it was a damn good and pleasantly surprising home. Unlike The Cemetery Man, which to this point has now become a counseling session. This was a pleasantly surprising movie.
Yeah, I definitely I love Korean movies and I hope people see more of them. Like I said, I think Oldboy is a great movie. It's far from the best Korean. So if you if you like it, I hope people check out a lot more. You said you're not a big fan of subtitles, but there's Korean director Bong Joon-ho.
(48:32):
When he after he won the Oscar, he had the quote, once you overcome the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you've introduced so many more amazing films. And there especially that like 2000 2010 era in Korea, there was this period where like the film industry got into a point where they could make big films, but there were no like genre conventions yet.
So people were able to experiment, do interesting things. There's so many movies made during that period that are just fascinating. Oldboy is definitely one of them. Check as many of them as you out as you can. It was really from 2000 2010 because 2010 is when Hollywood started to notice all of these directors doing interesting things and tried to import them all into America.
(49:14):
And then they were in production hell for like a decade trying to make things that Hollywood's like, oh yeah, but make it just like you but don't make it weird and kind of ruined the film industry for a decade. And then now Korea is starting to come back. But that's sweet spot. Find as many great films as you can from that time.
Check them out. Yeah, and you've given us some other ones to add to our list. So they're now the big master list. There's like 10 of them you gave me.
(49:39):
If you want to see another great movie by Bakhtan Oakh, check out JSA. That's my favorite.
I keep hearing about that one too. I gotta check that one out. For me, I think people should, if I lay back up on that, first off, I don't think it's pleasant, Fergal. I gotta say that. You could use the word pleasant in this movie. They do not go together.
Should people watch this movie? I'd say probably. If you want an experience, it's an experience. The ending will disturb you. And if it doesn't, I don't want to know you. Because this movie is just disturbing.
(50:10):
It's an enjoyable movie. And it's got in the hallway scene, everyone talks about it for a good reason. Don't go into this movie thinking it's going to be the next John Wick movie. It's not a John Wick movie.
It's average fat, slubby guy who's been in prison for 15 years seeking vengeance that he probably should not be going after.
Well, I think the first 10 years of the movie, he was pretty flabby. But when he was coming out, and I think I got to see him shirtless once or twice, he wasn't super muscular.
(50:39):
But I think he had portrayed that he had lost a bunch of weight for this movie to portray a guy who's been in a place like that for as long as he has. He method-acted the shit out of this.
And so if you did enjoy the filmmaking but found it too dark, that movie I mentioned, JSA, is a murder mystery where the twist, instead of being the most disturbing thing you've ever seen, is the most adorable thing you've ever seen.
(51:03):
If you need a break from old boy, go to JSA. Violent things happen, but it's so cute.
Every time you say JSA, I think just the Society of America.
I was just going to say the same thing.
Joint security area.
At least I know that like-minds think alike, Chris. I know that.
I will have to check it out though. Thumbs up, thumbs down. How would you rate this movie?
I would give this a brutal thumbs up with a hammer backed up on somebody's tooth with a smile in my face.
(51:33):
You're beating it to me. I was getting out my hammer just so I could have the thumbs up while holding the hammer.
This is perfect right here.
Our audio medium, Ryan actually got out a toolkit, grabbed the hammer, and raised it.
That should tell you something. I'd say I'd give it like a three-quarter thumbs up.
The ending did disturb me, so I probably won't be watching this movie anytime soon again.
(51:55):
It's not a bad... Don't let that stop you from watching the movie.
Don't let my disgust at the ending stop you from watching it. That should not be your deciding factor.
I actually don't think that'll be a huge problem, Chris.
Before we move on though, I do have a mail back for us, Fergal. I'd love to get your reaction on it.
Oh, mail back.
It's a rating. A great pod from Three Connoisseurs of the Comic World.
(52:18):
They revisit the best, the worst, and everything in between.
It's not just superheroes, graphic novels, and manga inspired cinema as well. Five stars.
Five stars. That is amazing. Well, thank you, whoever that is. We would like to put you on payroll.
It is five stars out of five, just so we're clear.
That's perfect.
So before we head on out, Ryan, where can people find you?
(52:40):
Go to RyanEstrada.com. You'll find thousands of pages of free comics, information about all my books.
I wrote a few stories about Korea. I've written several books about my wife's experiences being hunted down by the cops,
reading banned books in the 80s, banned book club, my new one No Rules Tonight, and lots, lots more comics where that came from.
Your website's got a ton of free stuff on it. And I think it also talks about how you worked with Garfield and Popeye and a few other ones out there too.
(53:08):
Star Trek, yeah.
So take a look at all of them. Fergal, where can people find you?
Finding this guy's books. I did see a couple of his stuff. He's got some interesting stories and a lot of it's just all truth based stories, which is amazing.
No, we're just, we're hunting down great comic finds, talking to folks, putting that material up on GothamNight.com.
And we're still just working our way back towards reopening our store, which we hope to do in the next year or two.
(53:30):
And for me, you can always find me on off panel creations. We're always building some piece of nerdy furniture.
I want to thank you for listening to spending some time with us. If you have thoughts about Oldboy and how me, I just don't get it.
So send us a note over at movie-smash.com and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.
(53:51):
This has been Movie Smash with Chris Roberts, Jeremy Parmentier and Fergal Amayo, produced by me, Chris Roberts, executive produced by Off Panel Creations, LLC.
Movie clips provided by their respective studios.
You can rate and review the show at Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You might even find your review read on a future episode.
Got a question for us? Visit us at movie-smash.com and send us a note. It too can be read on a future episode.
(54:14):
If you haven't already, please subscribe to Movie Smash wherever you listen to your podcasts.
It's a little much. I'm not gonna lie, it's a little much.
and ends with this adorable murder scene.
(00:04):
And I was like, okay, so this is gonna be a fun comedy.
Curious to see how this goes.
You have nine months to get overweight and look like you rolled out of a dumpster.
I want to eat something alive.
They're garbage people because they made a decision to do garbage terrible things.
Hello and welcome to movies.
MULTIPLE SCREAMS
MUSIC
(00:29):
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash, the show where we dive head first in the
comic book movies outside the MCU.
If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us.
If you've been here before, you know the drill.
Each episode, we're going to smash a movie who sourced materials from a graphic novel or a comic.
Is it worth revisiting?
Should it be forgotten?
Let's find out.
This is Movie Smash.
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Roberts.
I'm the founder of all panel creations.
(00:50):
With me today, I have Fergal Amayo.
Fergal Amayo, owner of Gotham Knight Comics, where we believe that your nerd is the way.
We want you to get that nerd on through our ability to give you the best and most amazing experience
and quite frankly, tell those stories in comics.
And I am interested to see what happens when we imprison ourselves in our minds.
(01:12):
And our guest host today is Ryan Estrada.
Hi, I am Ryan.
I make comics myself and hopefully one day I'll have a movie of my comics that you'll be talking about on the show.
But I make many, many things, including the Eisner nominated graphic novel band Book Club, the new book No Rules Tonight, and the Student Ambassador series.
I also am coming to you from Busan, South Korea, not too far from where our boy Odessu ate that octopus.
(01:40):
Is there a train coming from Busan, by the way, just out of curiosity?
Zombies coming into Busan?
Well, to be clear, in the movie Train to Busan, Busan was the safe zone, so we're good.
That's good.
Our movie today is 2003's Old Boy starring, and I am going to just be butchering names today.
Ryan, correct me if you have a better pronunciation for them.
(02:02):
I assume you do.
Garan.
You want me to say it first?
Well, Taemin Sik is the lead actor.
Struck by.
Pak Chanuk.
Odessu. Long time no see. Imprisoned for 15 years. Losing your wife and child.
(02:23):
Seeking revenge is the greatest cure for someone who got hurt. What happens after you've revenged yourself? What will you do?
I can't end it like that.
You actually picked this movie for us. Why did you pick Old Boy?
Well, I mean, I live here in South Korea and I have, like I said, I live near where they shot large portions of the film.
(02:48):
And, you know, I love Korean cinema. When I came here, it was like discovering a whole new history of film, that there's so many amazing films made here.
For a lot of people, Old Boy is the movie that they know.
People think this is the best Korean movie. It's not the best Korean movie. It's not even the best Korean vengeance movie.
It's not even the best Pak Chanuk movie. That's JSA. And it's not even the best movie in its own trilogy. That's Lady Vengeance.
(03:11):
It is a movie that's very important to the history of Korean film. It influenced a lot of films to come after it.
And it's what a lot of people know about. And of course, it is based on a comic book.
Although I don't want to break the format of your show. Technically, Old Boy is the only comic book movie that exists within the MCU.
When The Winter Soldier came out, there's a scene at the beginning where Rikap makes a list of things that he needs to catch up on after he's been imprisoned in ice.
(03:39):
I do remember the block.
It was different for every country. They would put local things. Of course, nobody knew that when watching the movie for the first time.
So in South Korea, the movie that he needed to catch up on was Old Boy. And so this movie does exist within the MCU.
But that actually made it a horror movie in Korea because not knowing that was just to pander to the locals, I saw that.
And I'm like, they're making a big deal about the fact he hasn't seen Old Boy.
(04:01):
And then there's him becoming romantically interested in Carter. And I'm like, oh, no, oh, no.
Are they setting up something where he doesn't know that this is the daughter of the woman he used to date?
That was not what they were doing. But I was terrified the whole film.
That would be an interesting twist for the MCU. I don't think they would ever go there.
(04:21):
Speaking of the manga, are either you familiar with that original manga or have you read it?
Because I haven't. So I'm not, as you all know, and hopefully our audience knows me by now, I'm not a big manga guy.
I've read some manga. And obviously I'm a Kira fan. There are certain stories that I do enjoy.
And they're like Dragon Ball and different things like that. But no, I had not read that.
(04:42):
I'm familiar with the artist. I know he's had some good work and he's done phenomenally well.
And this book was nominated for an Icer and I do track those. That's why. Congratulations, Ryan.
Those are hard things to get and to be at the pinnacle of your genre. So that's phenomenal.
But no, I hadn't read the book up until this point.
I have the first volume. I decided to start reading it. I read the first volume.
(05:06):
I decided I was going to try and read through it all. And through the first volume, it's 210 pages, 10 chapters.
And it covers about 10 minutes of the movie. I'm like, this is way too slow.
I don't know if I can read this whole thing. Like, it's very, very slow.
But what's wild is what I read in the first volume is like exactly like the movie, like beat for beat.
(05:30):
Like a specific 10 minute stretch of the movie.
Although from what I understand, it just, again, stretched out much, much longer.
But from my understanding, after that, toward the end, it's completely different.
Basically anything you remember from the movie, all the memorable moments, all the memorable plot twists do not come from the movie.
They come from Pak Chanuk's Weird Mind. So I've started it and read volume one.
(05:56):
There are 79 chapters in that. 79 chapters over eight collected volumes. It's a long series.
Yeah, I read that too. That this movie is essentially almost lifted directly from the manga,
except for the big twist that everyone remembers. That was added after the fact.
That was not part of the actual manga. But beyond that, I don't know much about it.
(06:19):
So was this your, obviously, Ryan, this is probably not your first viewing, but Fergal, was this your first viewing of this movie?
So no, it's my first time seeing the Korean version of this story, but I did see the Josh Brolin story.
So the Old Boy 2013 remake. Interesting movie.
But I'm going to tell you, I can see why that movie, the first one I saw didn't really make sense.
(06:40):
And I can see why this movie was, I'm not a subtitle guy.
I don't do a lot of subtitle movies just because time is fast. And sometimes I just don't want to read a movie.
I want to see a movie. This movie is one of those rare, interesting movies where his facial expressions,
I could not read it and still figure out this guy is just, it was surprisingly good.
(07:03):
I first moved to Korea in 2002. So I saw this movie when it came out, when I was kind of discovering Korean cinema.
And yeah, it was a big inflection point for, like I said, it changed Korean cinema in that it did so well overseas that everyone's like,
well, I guess vengeance movies is what we do now. It became like what superhero movies are in America,
(07:24):
where it's like now we have to all make vengeance movies. And like you mentioned that the manga was, or manga is actually a lot less violent.
Nobody dies until the end in the manga and there's a lot less violence.
Bak Chan-wook really just wanted to dig into vengeance and how messy it gets. And that's why he made it so extreme.
And that was kind of, you know, not that it hadn't been done before, but it was kind of such a big thing in Korea that it completely changed how people made movies.
(07:49):
And I can see why. It's a crazy ass movie. It's just completely crazy how they pulled this thing together.
It kind of reminds me of the Japanese horror movie craze that we had for a while where they just did really well in the States and then they started pumping out a ton of them.
This is the first time I saw this movie. I saw it first thing this morning actually to get ready for the show.
And I've had friends telling me for a while now, you need to see this movie. So it was, I came into it with the hype level being through the roof.
(08:15):
So when you saw the movie, were you disappointed? Were you hyped up? Did it catch you? Was it like the lions on a 47-9 victory over the Cowboys?
What was it? Did it meet your expectations?
We will get to that and I'll save it for that part.
Before we jump into it, Fergal, do you have any sort of history of the manga itself for us?
Well, it was originally ran, and again, I'm going to butcher a name, Guran Tushiai.
(08:41):
And again, if I butcher it, and then Nubaku Minagishi was the illustrator.
It really was a dark horse run from 96 to 98. It's the original run, eight volumes.
And it won an Eisner Award. It's really well loved manga. It's one of the, again, it's one of the...
The creator has done several other books beyond this, but this was one of his, kind of like everybody has that big one book.
(09:06):
I think this really was one of his big young books because it was remade, not just American, but there's an unauthorized Hindi remake of this movie as well.
So if this is your first time joining us, just a heads up. We'll be discussing a plot of this 20-year-old movie.
And with that, discuss certain elements of the story that might be considered spoilers, especially the end. And consider yourself warned.
So Ryan, why don't you... Can you walk us through the story of this movie a little bit? Can you tell us what happens?
(09:30):
Curious to see how this goes.
So yeah, so this is the story of Odeh Su, a drunken man who wakes up in a hotel room that he cannot get out of and finds himself locked up for 10 years and then suddenly released.
And he has to investigate who locked him up, why they locked him up, and why they let him out.
(09:51):
And then investigation takes him to some dark, weird places where he discovers some things he does not want to know.
That's a pretty good sense of what it was. It took me a while to figure out what the whole movie was about.
It's funny you said 10 years, so maybe that's a translation problem because in the movie they kept saying 15.
I might be confusing it with the book.
Well, I thought the American... So this is where it gets a little confusing. The old boy of 2013 is 20 years. So in this one, they reference 15 years because the inflection for him happened at year 11.
(10:19):
Yeah, it's 15 here because his daughter was three years old when he went into the prison. So when he comes out, she's 18.
So let me jump in. We've sort of hit some of the characters here. Why don't we start with... Was it Dae-shae-hoo?
Odeh Su, which is... Odeh Su is a reference to Odysseus from the Odyssey.
No, it's not Odysseus. It was the guy who marries his mother.
(10:42):
Oedipus?
Oedipus, that's who it is. It's actually... I think it's a play on Epidus.
Interesting.
Nonetheless, how do you feel as a character, as an actor, how he portrayed that role?
I thought he was brilliant. I actually... This is one of these... Again, because it was a written movie, sort of like when we... So, Ryan, we did Cemetery Man.
Well, Cemetery Man, you couldn't turn away because it was so... They didn't shoot any two movie to make sense. Each scene did not make sense after the other.
(11:10):
So you had to kind of follow along. You were just completely lost. This movie is that written word all the way through. Probably not in South Korea, but here it is.
And I was mad impressed with how he portrayed all of that dynamic kind of crazy through how he became monster and vengeance. It was good. He was good.
I say it was probably better than the remake that was America. I'm definitely going to say that.
(11:36):
Yeah, Chaiman Chik is an amazing actor. He's a big star here. And the way he embodied this character, it's wild to start a character with it.
Like, start a movie with your main character being such an irredeemable dick, like just such a jerk.
And then you're like, oh, well, he's going to learn a lesson and get better. And no, he's going to get so much worse in every way.
But he is able to still make this character someone that you want to follow.
(12:00):
And the way the character is introduced and styled is interesting, too, because he looks like absolute garbage.
Like, if you look at the manga, there's a whole plot line about how since he was locked up, he decided to do nothing but exercise and get into shape.
And he comes out looking really ripped and hot, whereas in the movie, he just looks like he rolled out of a dumpster.
(12:21):
And that also really influenced Korean cinema going forward, because nowadays it's like you look at an American movie and they're like, oh, I just cast a big movie.
I'm going to spend like, you know, nine months getting super into shape and ripped.
And then you see them between movies like with a big dad bod and like gruffy hair.
Where in Korea, it's the opposite, where it's like I go to the I just got out of the Busan Film Festival.
(12:43):
I meet all these actors. I've met Chaiman Chik. I've met the director of the film.
I've met Song Kang Ho, all these actors, and they are all like the most beautiful people on Earth.
And every time they're casting a movie, the director is like, you have nine months to get overweight and look like you rolled out of a dumpster because we want you to look like absolute garbage.
(13:04):
It gave him the John Wick strength. That was interesting because I read some information about how that guy, and I don't even want to try to slaughter his name, Chaim In-Suk.
When he, you know, he did all of his own stunts, a majority of his own stunts, and there was very little CGI or other influence added to this movie.
Maybe the ants, a few other very minor things, the knife and a lot of that.
(13:26):
So it's sort of like that believable superhero guy. He's powered so much by vengeance and anger.
Because remember, he was in that room and there was not, I mean, there was a lot of dudes.
He took out a lot of dudes and, you know, stuff should have took him down. He kept going.
So that was powered by strength, but just not, you know, Chris Evans or Thor, you know, Chris Evans or, you know, one of these other guys and other Chris Emsworth strength.
(13:49):
It was like John Wick strength, not huge, but you wouldn't want to screw with him.
In Korean cinema, there's a really, there's a thing about, I love the fight scenes in Korean movies because they're not choreographed in the way that they would choreograph in America.
In America, they choreograph these fight scenes like dances, and they're doing very distinct movements with a lot of training.
In Korean movies, they really try and make it look like this is what an out of shape middle aged dude would do if he needed to fight.
(14:16):
There's a lot, you know, in the hammer, in that famous hammer scene, he's running through swinging a hammer. He's not doing like amazing moves.
And that kind of, in other movies, you see people like fall on their butts in the middle of the fight because they're just so mad.
Like it just, it always feels so real. And that's what makes that hammer scene so powerful is that he's not doing like with John Wick, like with stunt.
(14:38):
Like you're not having like these trained stunts. He's just, there's a lot of people, I have a hammer, I'm going to swing it until there are no more people.
It's interesting too. I like, I wanted this movie blind. I had no idea what it was about other than that there were some very good scenes.
Everyone loved this movie. When in blind and when that character first comes out, he's, you know, he's being arrested for being drunk disorderly.
(15:01):
And it's a very funny set of scenes. Supposedly he ad-libbed all of that. And it was the last thing they shot. They were just being silly.
And I was like, okay, so this is going to be a fun comedy. Like they're going to have some fun with this. So I have no idea where this is going.
And later on, he gets to be this very grisly fighter. And you kind of talk about that hammer scene. And even that part, I knew there was some big fight scene.
And that defeat, when it gets my expectations too, because I was expecting the sort of a choreographed sort of gung-fu, you know, John Wick sort of scene.
(15:28):
And no, I got a guy swinging a hammer. Like I would probably do it trying to save, you know, just survive that hallway of death.
And there's a part where he like collapses because he's so tired. He stands back up again, gets a little bit extra energy. He's just, he's got a knife at his back at one point.
That's what I'm talking about.
And it gives you, we had that, we had, we did Atomic Blonde recently and we had a Lorianne who was, she's being stunts.
(15:53):
And she was saying how she always enjoys movies where somebody is, you know, demonstrating fighting how they would do it. Like how a woman would fight.
You know, this is how a middle-aged dude who's been stuck in a room for 15 years would fight.
I do like the fact he says in there, like, I hope my fighting skills live up to my imagination.
Because he's practicing in his room against the wall for several years.
(16:15):
And then he says, they do. I love that.
Or when he fights those guys in the, at the initial part, when he first gets out and he's like laying, you know, he sort of, he's trying to get a cigarette from them or something.
And they sort of push him back and he just lays on the ground a little bit, trying to wonder, should I even get back up again?
That dude is, I mean, it's like I said, it's like, I mean, he kicked a lot of ass in this movie.
I mean, but at the end of the day, he was also so incredibly tortured.
(16:39):
I think it was a de-evolution because you say he was such a beautiful actor when you see him at the Busan Film Festival.
Well, the thing that I think then that only clearly exemplifies that they did such a good job.
He did such a good job changing his entire face and facial structure going from when he first went into that prison to when he got released 15 years later.
Did not look like the same dude. And they were very clear about that.
(17:02):
Every action he took did not feel like the same dude that went in there.
And it was this, that's, I think that's why he had that hitmanism. I know I might give it away a thing, but I think that's some of the stuff he had at the end because of that craziness.
And apparently he is still upset about the way they styled him in that movie.
Because he still talks about how traumatic it was when they when they like permed his hair to look like that.
(17:23):
And he's like, why? Why do you want me to look like garbage? Come on. I'm the star of the movie.
He even has a line where he's like, he's a thought goes in his head.
He says, like, I hate my haircut, which you can't see the hair at that point.
They zoom out like, yeah, I would hate that haircut, too. It's pretty bad.
Which is it's he is a very scruffy person. But the his antagonist, the villain of the movie is Woo Jin Lee.
(17:45):
Am I getting that right? And he is the exact opposite.
This that man is well dressed, well groomed, very sharp.
It's an interesting sort of dichotomy between those two people.
How what do you think of that character, the villain of the story?
I think I find that character fascinating because of the joy that he has and what he's doing.
Usually that type of character, you'd see him being like sinister and scheme, not that he's not sinister and scheming.
(18:10):
But like if you think of that scene where he hands him the purple box and is shining the little light on it like this big grin he has.
And he's giggling like a two year old that's about to get like a cake.
He's such a weird character and he's doing such cruel, awful things.
But he's so excited and proud of himself for the way he did it.
And it adds this weird levity to the what he's doing because it's just you feel like it's a little kid.
(18:36):
Like eventually, like he starts out so mysterious and when you find out more about him, he's just giddy with excitement about the awful, awful things that he's done.
Yeah, that dude is. I mean, so the bad guy, the bad guy in this movie, you know, not what I expected.
I guess I'll say that because I did see the 2013 remake and I kind of in my mind, I envision a guy similar to the first experience with this movie.
(19:02):
And he was not that guy completely. Just I mean, he's very cruel, very smart, sort of played a lot of pulls.
And you were just trying to figure out, you know, we might have figured out some of the things that go on, but they threw enough twists in that that it took a while for me, at least got to figure out the overall end game in this scenario.
I'm glad you said that, too. It was I was kind of like trying to figure out what was felt different about the movie.
(19:27):
The movie typically you kind of expected to be bad guy, good guy. They're going at it. But for the villain of the story, it's a vengeance story for him as well.
It's basically both people are putting vengeance upon one another and we don't really know where they kind of mentioned where it starts.
But it's and we don't know that at the beginning of the movie, we don't learn that till the last quarter of the movie, the last tenth of the movie that the level of vengeance is coming from.
(19:51):
And it's not as big as you think it would be. I mean, it's the steps he goes to go through to make the main characters life miserable is just astounding.
The things he does just to get to that point. And at the end of it, it's you're right. He starts you can see the joy on his face as his lifetime's worth of work.
He's been doing this for 15 years as a plan that it's like imagine building something like a company or a story or whatever. And you're getting to the culmination of that point. And he has just got this grid on his face.
(20:22):
Picture when he lays down on the bed, the picture of the video or the picture, that's sort of just a single set, a single scene kind of summarizes the issue that the click, how much depth of obsession this guy has with us.
Oh yeah. And it's he's very he's petty and he's enjoying it. And it's 15 years of him working to get to this point. It's his life's mission. And you kind of wonder like where does he have the money to do this? Like what is his day job? It's not this.
(20:52):
I think he worked in cameras. I think he worked in technology, cell phone cameras, cameras. I was just thinking he had that all over his place. I think they kind of hinted the amount of money he had. He had to have done or sold some technology of some kind.
And the interesting thing about the original comic, like we said, the twist was created for the movie. But what the twist was in original comic is that it was basically nothing. Like he the main character just saw him at a lonely moment.
(21:17):
And that like kind of destroyed him like because he's afraid of showing emotion. And so it people say it was disappointing because it you know there's that this big mystery. It's nothing. But I think that's an interesting twist to show that the length people will go to for something that like is completely one sided.
This guy has no memory of this moment. But it consumed him. I think adding what really happened in this movie that really did affect his life is a fascinating thing. But it also once again, Odeh Su does not remember it. So it's this it's kind of showing how what an impact can have on someone's life without remembering because it's so powerful to them.
(21:56):
Did he take that away or did he just not remember it? Because that I didn't get from the movie. That school scene where they discover it, was that just taken away? Or was there like forced hypnosis or forced removal of that memory?
It's actually stated in the movie. He asks and he says, I didn't take that from you. You just forgot.
I must have missed that. It's during the villain's epilogue, you know, his epilogue, but his big monologue that he's giving a sort of building up to the story of what's all happened and why we're all here. And he says in there, you just forgot. I didn't take that from you. I didn't hypnotize that away from you. You just forgot.
(22:30):
And it's funny. It's a lesson I try to teach my kids all the time that you never know. You might be the villain of someone else's story because you don't remember every moment of your life. And he did this small infraction, which he told his friend a secret and told his friend not to say anything.
And his friend goes and blabs the secret to everybody. And this guy, the villain, goes the source of the rumor. And that's our hero. If you want to call him a hero and says, now you've got to be punished.
(22:55):
You know, I would tell you there's another lesson in this. If you've seen Adam Sandler, Billy Madison, call the people you've wronged. Just gonna leave it out there. Let that float. If you've ever seen Billy Madison with Adam Sandler, call the people you've wronged because it can't benefit you in the end.
How do you feel about the character Midu?
I don't know, a little whiny, a little bit whiny, a little bit whiny, but she's definitely believable, but just a teeny bit whiny through the whole thing. At first she seems cool, but she gets whiny.
(23:21):
But I think, you know, Bakhtanuk himself, like, really regretted the way he treated that character. And he spent decades after making films about women with agency because he had this character that had no agency.
Even the way we see her acting at the beginning is all because of this training and manipulation and hypnosis that she's gone through. So she has no power over the decisions she's making.
(23:44):
And she has no agency in the end because she needs to know is kept from her. So it must have been a difficult character to play because at no point does she have all the information or have any agency to make her own decision.
I agree with you on that one. There are many times at the beginning of the movie, too, of course you find out the secret of the movie. You're watching saying, like, why is she following him? Why is she going along with this? Why is she doing any of this?
(24:06):
He's a stranger who came into her restaurant and he came and ate octopus. Why is this a thing? And she eventually like I was like, is he is he his Robin now in this story? Is there a scene I didn't see where he explains everything has happened and she's like, I'm buying into this.
I'm going to help you. Things just happen with her. Once you know the twist, you want to know she was manipulated in this position with the same hypnosis that he was affected by.
(24:30):
Then it's like, okay, she she has no willpower. But yeah, she has no, which means she has no agency. It's good to hear he went out and made movies after that to sort of redeem other female characters because she was flat.
Like as in that she was very two dimensional. I didn't actually know that was done intentionally, quite frankly. So that's it. That's even more surprising. But I'm glad they did go around and try to create powerful women characters. That's always a positive.
(24:52):
But yeah, I mean, it's it's you know, there was a lot that could have been done with that. I think that they again the 2013 was kind of similar in the fact that it's still a bit of a two dimensional character, two dimensional representation.
And that's what stood in contrast to the main character, which is why that because the other guy was flip it out. Just absolutely flip it out. And to be clear, the female characters created later are still like garbage people.
(25:17):
Like most people in movies. It's not like he made like amazing, but it's like they're garbage people because they made a decision to do garbage, terrible things and hurt people.
Hey, as long as they make the decision themselves. Yes, as I'm saying, watch Adam Sandler's Billy Madison.
There is a character I do think is I would I would want to touch on is was his name. I'm looking up professor Mr. Han. He's the white haired dude, the the bodyguard.
(25:43):
He was a sort of silent force and I felt that silent force throughout the movie and he did not disappoint at the end of it.
He kicks him ass. I didn't realize he was that much of an asker.
His end moment where he has that powerful moment he looks like basically seems like the Terminator and the way he can dispatch this guy and then do the turn around and find out that Odesu won that fight anyway.
(26:07):
And it will look on his face like, wait, that's not allowed to happen. I don't lose what how that total shock.
Now there are some famous scenes in this movie. We might as well get the biggest one out of the way and talk about that.
And then we'll go into some other ones. The hallway scene that is or the hammer scene shot in one continuous take over 17 days, but shot is one continuous take.
(26:29):
And it's funny how like the hallway scene has become like a genre in itself now, not just in Korean cinema, but in American cinema. There's, you know, every season of Daredevil is like, what's our new hallway fight?
Like so many movies have tried to recreate that. Absolutely.
Um Bakli, whatever is Um Bak, Tony Jaa. I mean, they do these hallway scenes phenomenal now. They just keep going. I mean, that's all most of them. That's how you show close up fighting.
(26:54):
The one I saw, what's it remind me of the, because we just did a Tonk Blonde. There's that one scene on Tonk Blonde where they're fighting up a stairwell into a final scene as well.
So I think this movie, that one shot fight scene has lended itself to, people have stolen that idea and taken it to other directions.
It was not what I was expecting. Like I said, it was hyped up to be this massive fight and I was expecting some sort of like John Wick style fight.
(27:17):
Not that this was bad, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting more of that and I was happy with what I got because it was more personal of a fight it felt like just because he was just getting up and close, hitting people with a hammer, getting stabbed in the back.
He gave up at one point, jumps back up and keeps fighting as he goes along, especially when he sees those guys in the elevator when they open up at the end.
And I think what makes this one so powerful, like all these ones that have come in the wake of it are doing that, like I said, super choreographed, like this has to happen here, this has to happen here, this camera movement has to happen here.
(27:49):
And everyone looks like they're trained by a stunt coordinator. Whereas in this one, some of the guys he's fighting, the reason he's able to defeat them is because they're like, I don't want to fight this dude with a hammer.
Like they're just standing back, like when he's catching his breath, they're not after him, they're like, are we getting paid enough for this? Like why are we fighting? And he's like, I don't care, you're still in the way, I'm still gonna hit you with a hammer.
It just feels messy. And I like when movies let their fights feel messy like that.
(28:15):
Yeah, there was that larger sort of plumpier guy who like leans into him, goes forward, steps back, goes forward. He's like, do I really want to do this? Because I don't want to get a hammer to the face.
And speaking of the hammer, there was that scene that happened right before that where he becomes a dentist for a scene, let's put it that way. That scene occurred, I'm like, oh, we're going there. That's how dark and gritty this movie is going to go.
(28:37):
I could tell that by the amount of times he attempted to commit suicide by inking into his hands, breaking his own hand on the wall. Like over time, he just became a ferocious animal.
So when he got out, and you saw him just kind of like, not even flinching when the guy fell off the building or anything, you kind of knew that shit was gonna get real. It was about to go down.
(28:58):
And he took care of that business, right? Wow. That was something else. And like I said, it just shows that, you know, you don't have to be massive muscly to be effective.
So the, I do want to talk about this, the, just for a little thing, the octopus eating scene. Virgil, how did you feel about when you saw that man eating an octopus?
That was also something that I believe he requested, if I'm not mistaken for this, he wanted a live octopus for this thing.
(29:22):
It's because it has a little veins that make it live after its head gets popped out. It's a little much. It's a little much. I'm not gonna lie. It's a little much.
It's not my personal cup of tea, but I can see the visual effect for the movie. What an actor. He took one for the team.
He ate four live octopuses that pulled that scene off. Those are all real.
I'm a, I'm a vegetarian, so it's not something I love watching, but it's a, it's a powerful moment in the film.
(29:48):
And it was, it was terrible for, uh, came in, she called so cause he said he, he had to like pray before each one and apologize to the octopus.
He's like, I gotta do what I'm sorry. It's, it really shows how feral this man is. Yeah. He is the monster at that point. He just, I want to eat something alive.
People do eat octopus here. Like that, that restaurant, you can order an octopus, but like you said, they chopped the head off and the tentacles are still wiggling.
(30:14):
So that's just taking something that you can see in everyday life in Korea and taking it to the next step where it's like, oh, we didn't even chop the tentacles off. This is the whole octopus.
I am vehemently raising my hands this way. I just had to come off camera this day. That's no go.
I'm very freeing in my food, but at some point I've got to have a line like things that are living. I don't know. It just feels that and, uh, those ox balls. I don't know if I could do those.
(30:40):
What mountain oysters? Mountain oysters. Yeah. Those two things. I think I'd have to, I have octopus in mountain oysters.
What other scenes stood out to you guys?
When he tried to attack her in the bathroom, like that was surprising. I was not, it was, it felt like I wasn't sure where that was coming from, but he just like, he went at her and then he thought he wasn't worthy and kind of laughed. That was weird. That was just a little weird.
(31:03):
Yeah. It really shows how monstrous he's become because he didn't have to do that. She was extremely interested in him, but he still felt the need to pursue her non-consensually, which really made us hate this character. And it's a strange thing how much this character, how much this movie wants us to hate.
Yeah. Cause before that you feel sorry for this guy. He's been in prison for 15 years that he doesn't know why and he's in there and then he comes out and he does this, he attacks her and he doesn't have to, he doesn't need to. Their whole relationship was really messed up. Even without the twist at the end of the movie.
(31:38):
Yeah. Well, I'm not, I don't think we can give away the twist because I think this movie is like tenant. You got to see it all the way through to get, if you're investing, even if you're investing the two hours, the payoff is definitely worth it at the end. It's a screwed up movie and it doesn't let that go through the entire film.
I think we can give it away because if they haven't seen it by this point, they're probably not going to. It's been 20 plus years.
(32:00):
I'm okay. I'm going to be the big reveal to get his mind wiped so he can be with his daughter as his lover. That's odd. That's definitely different. It's interesting to me that he chose to kill that side.
I think the twist is more that what happened was for our listeners that have not seen this movie is that when the villain and the hero, I will mess up their names so I'm trying not to, when they were kids, they went to high school together and they're called old boys when they graduate.
(32:32):
Both went to high school together and the villain was having an inappropriate relationship with his sister and this rumor started getting around and then she kills herself. That's what the vengeance is about. He wants to kill the hero because of his rumor, his sister committed suicide.
Now to exact his revenge, he made him go through something just as bad if not worse. He wipes his mind, makes him forget who his family is and then he ends up, the reason why it's 15 years is so his four-year-old daughter is now 19 and then they both are hypnotized so that the hero ends up seducing his own daughter.
(33:08):
That's what the vengeance really is about. Basically, they both go crazy because of it. You're very succinct in that but it's the way both sides played off each other that made this movie cruel.
It was the way that every single particular area that this guy was going where he's thinking he's one step ahead was meticulously planned for and the way each one of these setbacks just drove him over the edge.
(33:35):
It all drove him over to the very end when he cut his own tongue out. Like he literally cut his own tongue out. That's just drove him to the edge and it's how he did that even though he won. He beat the bad-ass dude. He could kill the guy but he was in the end begging to make sure that she didn't know that she had sex with her father.
The other unique thing about this film is that this genre of vengeance films, the point of it always is that the vengeance was never worth it. It just makes things worse and every single character ends in a worse place than where they started.
(34:08):
But this is the only film where the two characters are such pieces of garbage that they end with exactly what they wanted and end smiling. I wouldn't say they end happily but they end smiling. The villain does exactly the horrible thing he wanted and ends grinning happily about it.
And then Odeh Su ends up removing the memory that this was his daughter from his mind so that he can date her. He has that creepy smile at the end where you don't know if he's about to laugh or cry which is what Pak Tanuk asked him to do.
(34:40):
He's become such, well he's a monster at the beginning. Through all these things he's gone through he's become such a garbage human that that's a happy ending for him.
Both people get their vengeance and both people lose.
Or do they? I mean, so, because it seems like neither, to Ryan's point, it does seem like neither of them lost. Like it seems ultimately at the very end of the game either one got exactly what had been planned.
(35:08):
Maybe one guy did know and one guy did but they both got exactly where it was like they were creating towards one another.
I think the thing is that it's an ending that any of us, any reasonable person, would find to be losing. They are so broken by everything that's happened that they're like, I'm cool with that. That's exactly what I wanted. Great.
And that is even more disturbing and gross than if they had been sad about it.
(35:32):
Yeah, it's true. They both won their battles but they both lost the war of salvation. They are both doomed, these existences. Well, one gets a doomed existence, the other one is dead.
That's what made the movie really good. That's why this movie, I can see why it picked up what it picked up because it made like 18 million in South Korea. It was like the fifth highest growing movie.
It was a third highest. It was really a big movie. And it came out in Russia. And to your point, Ryan, it changed a lot of things. A lot of stuff got, you know, Korean movies got picked up over here.
(36:03):
And it picked up like the raid and other films of that train to Busan. Certain things have already, and they continue to come out over here. That just does the part. But what that's doing over there. So, you know, it's damn good movie.
I mean, I'm not a subtitle guy and I was quite impressed with this movie.
When the villain is monologuing about why he did this, the backstory, sort of laying all the cards on the table, did either of you guys see the final twist of what he convinced him, the hero, to do?
(36:35):
As soon as I figured out that she was, like, as soon as he opened the book, you know, during the movie, it crossed my mind because they kept crossing boundaries. So I was like, this could be what they're leading up to, which would be gross.
And then they showed the example between the brother and sister. I'm like, yeah, this is on the table. But the effect, and that's the director, I think, is that the effect when he opens the box, that's when it really starts becoming apparent what's about to happen.
(37:02):
I think it's very rare for anyone in the English speaking world to have seen this movie without knowing the twist in advance.
Because even though I saw when it came out, I had to wait until it came out with Korean subtitles on DVD. It's one of those twists that everyone immediately spoils and talks about. I'm pretty sure I knew the twist before I ever saw the film. And that happens with a lot of people.
I did not know the twist before I saw this movie. And that was disturbing.
(37:28):
And you know what's interesting? I'm just going to say it outright because I think this is where the two movies diverged probably due to Spike Lee. In the end of the 2013 old boy, he got the diamonds. He's still same storyline.
But instead, he ends up giving the diamonds to his daughter, begging them to make sure that they never know, kills the guy. That's all still happens, suicide.
But he ends up giving the vast majority of diamonds and he goes back to the guy with the prison, which is Samuel Jackson, to ask to be put back in the prison with the rest of the diamonds, not get out of the hotel room again.
(37:56):
Just stay in there until he dies.
Now the final scene of the movie is an epilogue, essentially. Snowy background. So it takes, I guess, months later. I think they filmed it actually in New Zealand.
He goes in and he's basically asking the person hypnotized him to remove the memory that it's his daughter, to get rid of that piece of the memory.
And she says the monster will walk away. You'll be split into two people, the monster and you and the monster walk away. And for every step it takes, it ages a year and eventually hits 70, it dies.
(38:26):
And then she showed the daughter shows up and he's sitting with her. She still she has no idea because, of course, she never opened that box.
And now we're looking at this guy. Is he the monster or is he our hero?
The laughter was the thing that made you think about that when the movie ended, because he went from like laughing to almost like something didn't fully take on that, whatever that was.
(38:50):
Yeah, I think it feels like he has gone through this process to give himself plausible deniability that he doesn't know anymore.
But he knows it's, you know, even if there's some surface level where this magical hypnotism that doesn't exist in the real world has like made him able to forget it.
Like he knows deep down that this has happened, but he is broken enough that he can allow himself to pretend like he forgot.
(39:14):
Yeah, I think he is the monster. Remember that they said we need to look someone who'd you walk here with and they follow the footsteps back to it.
So he walked from that spot to where they meet up as the monster because he was supposed to stand still.
The monster was the one that walks away. And that's who she meets up with is the monster.
So I kind of think that he is, I think you're just right. He is, he has a plausible deniability. He wants this. I don't want to say happy life because it's just gross and disgusting.
(39:39):
But the life he wants, I guess. This movie takes just about two hours. Did it move fast? Did it move slow?
It moved fast. It didn't, it didn't sense. I mean, you know, there's always points you can always kind of, once you start getting the arc of the movie, there's always a couple of scenes here and there where you can move forward.
But this movie moves pretty good. Again, I wanted to give this one a little attention because it did take my attention. It was actually not horrible. So I was like, okay, let's see where this is going.
(40:06):
So moved decently fast. I mean, it's an older movie, so that could also wear on the eye a little bit. I'm kind of spoiled in my HD world.
Now, like I said, compared to the manga, it's a rocket. Like even when you're at the beginning, when you're showing the idea of monotony that a lot of people show by making the film monotonous, this actually just fired through with interesting shots and interesting editing to show the monotony of his life locked up while still having a propulsive rhythm.
(40:37):
For me, it felt a little, little slow. That's because I think because I did not know the twist and where it was going to go. And I went in with the expectations of an action movie, sort of vengeance action movie. I wasn't getting that right away. It was a long build up to get there.
So that was just beat me and my expectations around it from what I had heard about the movie.
Damn you, Chris, and those expectations.
(40:58):
I know that's all I have sometimes.
Now, knowing what the movie was, I think the pacing was important to it because I think you're right. They wanted you to feel what it was like in that prison. The fact that it was slow, the fact that it was monotonous. I do like the fact when he's punching the wall, he's drawing a picture of a man that he's just beating up.
(41:19):
Yeah, and that the painting behind him that ages, he references that a couple times. That shot was not misused. The guy going back to the painting with the statement on, you know, do I not have a right to live if I'm a beast? That's an interesting because that painting keeps getting like a Dorian Gray picture.
So what did you guys love about this movie? What do you think they could have done better?
(41:40):
It's an older movie, so let's remake a little bit of it. I think that's what they needed to do. Get a little cleaner with some of the stuff that we've got going on today. But I think they did for a subtitled movie, it was one of the best, most intense, like carry the performance on your face movies I think I've ever seen.
For me, I think I love the tonal variety of it because people talk about how dark and disturbing movie is. And so many movies that have come in the wake of that try to recreate it, but they just make everything dark. The colors are dark, the personalities are dark, and they're just so punishing. But this one, there's actually a lot of bright colors.
(42:15):
There's a lot of like dark humor. There's a lot of gleeful moments that like buried within this thing, which that balance kind of makes it more disturbing and kind of easier to watch, even though it gets really dark. So I love that it did a lot of different things.
But one thing that never sat right with me that, again, I don't dislike, I don't disrespect, but it's not something I like is that ending we're talking about with the hypnotist. It feels so out of place, first of all because we've never met that character before and we're having this powerful moment with a character we've never met.
(42:54):
Who's been, you know, obviously been involved in the story through the villain. We've never met this character and it's this, and even though we've been talking about hypnotism, it makes it feel like this magical bit at the end.
I like, not that I like the remake, but I like the idea that it ends with the prison because those are characters that we know that we've gone through an arc with and that can end, the solution can involve them.
(43:21):
As much as I dislike the decision he made and don't like watching it, it does say a lot about the character. So I'm not saying it's wrong. I just don't particularly like watching the epilogue.
I'm glad you said that because for me the epilogue, in particular, was where I saw some problems because I thought maybe it's like a cultural thing I wasn't aware of. Like maybe in Korean culture there is a sort of mystic woman who can do this kind of thing and she's supposed to be an analog for that.
(43:46):
And I was like, maybe that's what it is. But she felt really sort of, we see her in one scene early on when she says, turn your head, you'll be in a green field, and he wakes up in a suitcase. And all of a sudden she's back again. How did he find her?
Now how does this actually work? She's like, look at a tree, it'll become concrete, and now all of a sudden you're two people. That's pretty hard. It's a pretty big pill to swallow.
(44:09):
Well, it's implied too because remember, this entire movie has to swallow some big pills. You're telling me so much of this guy's experience has been hypnotized, he's been hit with drugs and different things. It could be this fantastical woman that we know is on his payroll. So she might be the lady with the power, the soup du jour, if you will.
Or she doesn't exist at all. We don't know.
(44:31):
I think the movie would have been a lot more powerful if hypnosis had never been involved. Because, you know, like you mentioned, he didn't forget his family, they made him believe his daughter was adopted in another country. That's all you need to do.
And I think it would have been more interesting to have psychological manipulation have them do what they did rather than magical realism, hypnotism story. I think there would have been ways to do it that would have been more interesting than being like a wizard did it.
(45:00):
Now you mentioned, Ryan, that this is actually part of a trilogy. Have you seen any of those movies?
Of course. Yeah, so it's not a trilogy that like characters go through. But basically what happened is that he made a film called Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. And then he was approached about making Oldboy and a reporter was like, didn't you just make a movie about vengeance?
(45:21):
So rather than like admit to like, you know, you know, he basically just said, so what, maybe I'll make a third one. I'll make it a trilogy. And so he did. And he made Lady Vengeance.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a very dark film about a child kidnapping the well-meaning, well, they kidnapped the child, but they thought they were doing something good and the child died and it becomes a story.
(45:46):
Lady Vengeance is a lot more like Oldboy in that has a lot of dark humor in it and ends with this adorable murder scene. It's just so Korean. If you've ever been to a Korean party where like people like take turns cleaning up and like, it's just such an adorable murder. That's my favorite one in the trilogy.
It's him trying to say everything he has to say about vengeance and why it's not necessarily going to make things better.
(46:12):
Kind of reminds me of the concept that was at the Cornetto trilogy. It's like Shaun of the Dead. What were the other ones that were in there? Hot Fuzz. And there's one about the bar at the end of the world.
World's End.
World's End, thank you.
World's End, probably one of the greatest movies. I mean, every one of those movies you just named are absolutely phenomenal. It's one of the reasons I still can tune into a Simon Pegg story because of those movies.
(46:34):
Fergal, you alluded to this earlier. There was actually a body-widening knockoff of this movie called Zindi. Do either of you want to see this movie?
Well, I did just see the Indian Spider-Man, so I think I'll probably going to put myself into that one. And it's amazing. Just so you know, I even saw the Indian movie at the Midget who was an ass kicking shaft. It was amazing.
Yeah, I think I'll skip it. I've seen a lot of Bollywood knockoffs and none of them have. Not that they aren't great Bollywood movies, but the knockoffs are never really. I was in a Bollywood movie once and some of them are not very well made.
(47:10):
You were in a Bollywood movie? Did you dance?
No, I did voiceover work in a movie called Apkasur, the movie, The Real Love Story. Two of those words are spelled wrong in the title.
Wow. Was your character just, was your character a dancing character? Because there's got to be dancing in your movie.
Well, there's a lot of dancing in it, but I played a police officer who said, what the hell for three minutes, because there was no script. And I asked, I asked them, what's the script? And they said, the line is, what the hell? And I said, okay, he talks for three minutes.
(47:36):
And they said, yeah, just say that. So I just did it to show them how what a bad idea it was. And then they're like, yeah, great. Print it in the movie.
That's perfect. That's one of those have to be there to experience the type things. That's amazing, bro. I'm just gonna give it up on that one. You've got a lot of those in your background.
If there's anyone else out there, I was probably the last one who has not seen this movie, should they go find it?
(47:58):
Yeah, I think it's I mean, you know, I probably wouldn't found it unless it was a homework assignment, but it was a damn good and pleasantly surprising home. Unlike The Cemetery Man, which to this point has now become a counseling session. This was a pleasantly surprising movie.
Yeah, I definitely I love Korean movies and I hope people see more of them. Like I said, I think Oldboy is a great movie. It's far from the best Korean. So if you if you like it, I hope people check out a lot more. You said you're not a big fan of subtitles, but there's Korean director Bong Joon-ho.
(48:32):
When he after he won the Oscar, he had the quote, once you overcome the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you've introduced so many more amazing films. And there especially that like 2000 2010 era in Korea, there was this period where like the film industry got into a point where they could make big films, but there were no like genre conventions yet.
So people were able to experiment, do interesting things. There's so many movies made during that period that are just fascinating. Oldboy is definitely one of them. Check as many of them as you out as you can. It was really from 2000 2010 because 2010 is when Hollywood started to notice all of these directors doing interesting things and tried to import them all into America.
(49:14):
And then they were in production hell for like a decade trying to make things that Hollywood's like, oh yeah, but make it just like you but don't make it weird and kind of ruined the film industry for a decade. And then now Korea is starting to come back. But that's sweet spot. Find as many great films as you can from that time.
Check them out. Yeah, and you've given us some other ones to add to our list. So they're now the big master list. There's like 10 of them you gave me.
(49:39):
If you want to see another great movie by Bakhtan Oakh, check out JSA. That's my favorite.
I keep hearing about that one too. I gotta check that one out. For me, I think people should, if I lay back up on that, first off, I don't think it's pleasant, Fergal. I gotta say that. You could use the word pleasant in this movie. They do not go together.
Should people watch this movie? I'd say probably. If you want an experience, it's an experience. The ending will disturb you. And if it doesn't, I don't want to know you. Because this movie is just disturbing.
(50:10):
It's an enjoyable movie. And it's got in the hallway scene, everyone talks about it for a good reason. Don't go into this movie thinking it's going to be the next John Wick movie. It's not a John Wick movie.
It's average fat, slubby guy who's been in prison for 15 years seeking vengeance that he probably should not be going after.
Well, I think the first 10 years of the movie, he was pretty flabby. But when he was coming out, and I think I got to see him shirtless once or twice, he wasn't super muscular.
(50:39):
But I think he had portrayed that he had lost a bunch of weight for this movie to portray a guy who's been in a place like that for as long as he has. He method-acted the shit out of this.
And so if you did enjoy the filmmaking but found it too dark, that movie I mentioned, JSA, is a murder mystery where the twist, instead of being the most disturbing thing you've ever seen, is the most adorable thing you've ever seen.
(51:03):
If you need a break from old boy, go to JSA. Violent things happen, but it's so cute.
Every time you say JSA, I think just the Society of America.
I was just going to say the same thing.
Joint security area.
At least I know that like-minds think alike, Chris. I know that.
I will have to check it out though. Thumbs up, thumbs down. How would you rate this movie?
I would give this a brutal thumbs up with a hammer backed up on somebody's tooth with a smile in my face.
(51:33):
You're beating it to me. I was getting out my hammer just so I could have the thumbs up while holding the hammer.
This is perfect right here.
Our audio medium, Ryan actually got out a toolkit, grabbed the hammer, and raised it.
That should tell you something. I'd say I'd give it like a three-quarter thumbs up.
The ending did disturb me, so I probably won't be watching this movie anytime soon again.
(51:55):
It's not a bad... Don't let that stop you from watching the movie.
Don't let my disgust at the ending stop you from watching it. That should not be your deciding factor.
I actually don't think that'll be a huge problem, Chris.
Before we move on though, I do have a mail back for us, Fergal. I'd love to get your reaction on it.
Oh, mail back.
It's a rating. A great pod from Three Connoisseurs of the Comic World.
(52:18):
They revisit the best, the worst, and everything in between.
It's not just superheroes, graphic novels, and manga inspired cinema as well. Five stars.
Five stars. That is amazing. Well, thank you, whoever that is. We would like to put you on payroll.
It is five stars out of five, just so we're clear.
That's perfect.
So before we head on out, Ryan, where can people find you?
(52:40):
Go to RyanEstrada.com. You'll find thousands of pages of free comics, information about all my books.
I wrote a few stories about Korea. I've written several books about my wife's experiences being hunted down by the cops,
reading banned books in the 80s, banned book club, my new one No Rules Tonight, and lots, lots more comics where that came from.
Your website's got a ton of free stuff on it. And I think it also talks about how you worked with Garfield and Popeye and a few other ones out there too.
(53:08):
Star Trek, yeah.
So take a look at all of them. Fergal, where can people find you?
Finding this guy's books. I did see a couple of his stuff. He's got some interesting stories and a lot of it's just all truth based stories, which is amazing.
No, we're just, we're hunting down great comic finds, talking to folks, putting that material up on GothamNight.com.
And we're still just working our way back towards reopening our store, which we hope to do in the next year or two.
(53:30):
And for me, you can always find me on off panel creations. We're always building some piece of nerdy furniture.
I want to thank you for listening to spending some time with us. If you have thoughts about Oldboy and how me, I just don't get it.
So send us a note over at movie-smash.com and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.
(53:51):
This has been Movie Smash with Chris Roberts, Jeremy Parmentier and Fergal Amayo, produced by me, Chris Roberts, executive produced by Off Panel Creations, LLC.
Movie clips provided by their respective studios.
You can rate and review the show at Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You might even find your review read on a future episode.
Got a question for us? Visit us at movie-smash.com and send us a note. It too can be read on a future episode.
(54:14):
If you haven't already, please subscribe to Movie Smash wherever you listen to your podcasts.
It's a little much. I'm not gonna lie, it's a little much.
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