Hammer Time!

Oldboy
Directed By Chan-wook Park
Starring Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang

You know those movies that claim that no animals were harmed in their making? Well, Oldboy is not one of those movies. This becomes very clear when the film’s star, Min-sik Choi, walks into a sushi bar and eats a squid that is not only alive but whose legs are still disturbingly slithering around the actor’s face while the remainder of its now-detached body is halfway down his gullet.

A miracle of CGI trickery? Nope. In all, four live squid were actually eaten by Choi while filming the scene, although director Chan-wook Park did at least have the decency to thank them when his grotesque but hugely entertaining film won the Grand Prix trophy at Cannes last year. That a movie featuring the most disgusting sequence of real-life consumption since Divine ate a fresh dog turd in Pink Flamingos should win such a prestigious award is less surprising when you recall that 2004’s Cannes jury was led by Quentin Tarantino.

Indeed, despite being from South Korea, this stylish, violent and punchily scripted whydunnit is effectively the best Quentin Tarantino movie not actually made by the man himself. Choi plays a man snatched off the street and held captive, without explanation, for 15 years. His only company during this ordeal is a television, from which he learns that his wife has been murdered and that he is the chief suspect. Over time he turns himself into the ultimate fighting machine by repeatedly punching the walls of his prison. Finally let loose, Choi beats up a gang, eats the unfortunate squid and then attempts to sexually assault beautiful sushi chef Hye-jeong Kang. Later, via cellphone, he is informed that he has five days to find out just what the hell is going on. If he succeeds, the man responsible for imprisoning him will kill himself. If he fails, our hero’s unknown tormentor will kill Kang, with whom, despite the earlier failed molestation, he has become involved.

And that’s just the first half hour! True, matters don’t actually get any weirder, although they do get much more violent as Choi sets about solving the riddle armed only with his own cunning and, well, a hammer. But, if the mayhem is unforgettable— and it is — then so too is pretty much every other part of this movie, from Choi’s gonzo haircut to the many philosophical ruminations on guilt to the oh-my-god-that-did-not-just-happen denouement. The resulting thriller is, like those of Tarantino, never merely concerned with who is going to end up sleeping with the fishes — or, if you want to be persnickity, with the mollusks.