An advertising executive is kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, he embarks on an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his punishment, only to find he is still trapped in a web of conspiracy and torment. Obsessed with vengeance, a man sets out to find out why he was kidnapped and locked into solitary confinement for twenty years without reason. Oldboy is a strange, sluggish and violent affair, a remake of a film that was not exactly crying out to be remade. Lee calls it in, delivering an awkward, sporadically entertaining film, but in no way laying claim to it. It feels like it could have been made by any number of people. Adding to the disappointment is seeing a director of Lee's caliber stumble so often with such an interesting template as the first Oldboy. <br/><br/>The basic premise is so fascinating that for large segments of the film we are at least entertained. It's the second half that sees the narrative fall apart, pointless or poorly acted scenes slow the momentum. Another thing: the violence. I'm desensitized to a point where I am not shocked by decapitations, rapes, murders, suicides of the likes found in 'Oldboy', but I am growing a bored of seeing films resort to this level of carnage as a narrative device. <br/><br/>I understand now why audiences avoided this one. Just awful, plain awful… Hollywood's new abomination and a smear to Korean cinema. When the announcement first came out, I was infuriated. An American remake of yet another great Asian movie? C'mon… I built the courage to see it because my friends have never seen the original version, and their reaction, "ok… we're watching the Korean version, this sucks"<br/><br/>I can watch the Korean version over and over again, but THIS… hell naw<br/><br/>I voted one star instead of 0 because, I gotta give it to Josh Brolin for his solid acting, but I want to shoot the guy who wrote the dialogs.. it seemed pretty campy for this type of plot.<br/><br/>Having said all of that, Spike Lee should go back to making Race-Oriented Movies Leave it to Spike Lee to deliver one of the strangest, most off-putting movies for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Ualusjean replied
355 weeks ago