I feel I must preface this review by admitting, unfortunately, that I
have not seen the reportedly brilliant, shockingly successful source material for Spike Lee’s
Oldboy, Park Chun-wook’s 2003 Korean
cult classic described by one
critic as “adapted from a manga comic-book, which was in turn adapted from
an overwhelming desire to see what damage hammers do to foreheads.” As I have
been deprived of this undoubtedly awesome experience (while most critics have
not), I will refrain from making any comparisons between Lee’s movie and its
inspiration (which most critics have made). It is my understanding that the new
and unimproved Oldboy falls sadly
short of its predecessor, but, for those of us who haven’t seen the Korean
version, this reimagining can still be a lot of fun.
Although the negative
reviews have probably managed to kill
Lee’s film by now, Oldboy is a movie worth
resuscitating. With its big name actors, celebrity director, and commercial
genre qualities, the movie is not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it is a
lively entry into Lee’s ongoing campaign to push into the mainstream (25th Hour, Inside Man). The film has an
obsessive, hypnotic quality that could only be dampened by comparisons to the
original. Even rarer, it’s an adult movie at a time when PG-13 films fill the
multiplexes, a Nicolas
Winding Refn for the masses.
