Oldboy (2003) is a South Korean film inspired by the Japanese comic of the same name. The film is artistic and offbeat, beautiful and unsettling. It’s a thriller, and has fun action scenes as well as intriguing psychological themes.
Now, when I heard that it had an American remake, my interest was piqued. I wanted to look into this, as I was interested to see how one would tackle adapting such a beloved film.
The original film, Oldboy (2003)
Oldboy (2003) is a film in which Dae-su, a Korean man with a penchant for drinking and messing around, gets kidnapped and placed into captivity by a mysterious individual. After fifteen years, he is released into the everyday world. It’s a bizarre, surreal thriller that makes you feel as lost and disoriented as the main character does.
Due to cultural osmosis, I have heard a few things about this movie beforehand, so I did not go in completely blind. I had personally heard of it before, and was prepared for it to be a disturbing, gritty film. It certainly is, however, the dark sense of humor and the pathos of it keeps the film from being too hard of a watch.
Perhaps it’s just because the sense of what is disturbing has changed over time, but I was surprised at how this film seemed to have some sense of restraint. The film is violent for sure, but less gory than I had anticipated. A lot of the most disturbing content is not graphically shown, and it leaves your mind to imagine the worst parts.
The editing is very stylized, adding flair and interest to the scenes. I had only watched this film for the first time recently, yet when I watched it, parts of it seemed oddly familiar. It appears to me like the action films that I had watched had taken inspiration from this film, and for good reason.
The soundtrack is also beautiful, and it stuck with me for days after I watched the film. It makes many of the scenes that have disturbing, gross, or frightening imagery feel bittersweet. This film shows the beauty and chaos of simple tragedies, and how people can feel disconnected from those around them.
I found the many twists and turns of the mysteries in the film to be intriguing, and it kept me on my toes. The movie introduces small hints and nuggets of information, which makes you slowly understand the larger picture of what is going on.
While it takes small moments to let one rest and digest the information, it can be tricky to fully understand everything, as it feels like you’re caught in a whirlwind. Paying close attention to the droplets of information will pay off, both in terms of catching the foreshadowing and guessing the mysteries of the film, as well as understanding the film itself. Even knowing a bit about the movie beforehand, I still found myself confused at points.
I appreciated that though, as I liked that the movie gave me things to think over. Without giving too much away, the film makes you ask certain questions— is closure and knowing the truth the most important thing to you? Are there certain secrets better left kept in the dark?
After I had watched Oldboy (2003), I wanted to know what they would do for the American adaptation. After I watched it, some of my suspicions were confirmed. I had suspected that I would prefer Oldboy (2003) from what I had heard from other people, and I was correct.
Oldboy (2013) is an interesting case of an adaptation. In that movie, the main character is named Joe Dulcett, and he is a womanizing alcoholic who gets imprisoned for mysterious reasons for twenty years. The plot is largely similar, but the film comes off very differently due to the execution. Small details add up, which makes Oldboy (2013) a less impactful film overall.
However, there were some details that I did appreciate. It was quite interesting how the adaptation handled both the different time that the remake was set in (2013, as opposed to 2003) as well as the difference in culture.
In the beginning of both Oldboy films, the main character watches television constantly while imprisoned. It’s a large part of it in both movies, and was an element that really stuck out to me. The television news segments both allow a way to weave in information throughout the film, as well as to establish time passing and the cultural milestones that the protagonists only learn about through the television programs.
In both films, the television is the only source of comfort, information, love, and entertainment that he has. In his imprisonment, he is completely isolated. This is said to us directly in Oldboy (2003) by the protagonist himself.
The adaption takes this idea, and adapts it into American culture, going off of what would have been on television at the time. He watches instructional exercise programs, martial arts movies, and crucially, he watches a fictional true-crime show ‘Mysteries of Murder.’
This was an interesting shift, and it was well done. What we watch on television can really tell us what our culture was like at the time, as in the era of cable broadcasting, we simply did not have the wealth of options that we do now. There was a shared culture at the time of what large portions of us were watching and experiencing at the same time, and both movies showed this well.
There are also some disturbing scenes unique to the remake that I thought added to the sense of despair and psychological torment that Joe, the main character, was experiencing throughout his imprisonment. I did think that the storytelling was at its best in the 2013 film through the part where he was confined, gradually losing his mind and his sense of self.
Nevertheless, as a total product, I would truly not recommend Oldboy (2013). In the original, the atmosphere is surreal and it feels bizarre. The stylization and the outlandish things that happen make one accept the more odd points in the plot.
There is something lost in the remake, as Oldboy (2013)seems to want to make more logical sense than the original. Odd one-off scenes are cut out, such as the man committing suicide with his dog in the beginning, or the insect hallucinations.
However, something is lost without these surrealistic touches. Oldboy (2013) feels more grounded and safe, and in that sense, it also cuts less deeply due to being more tame. Although both films are thrillers with disturbing scenes, the original has a sense of sentimentality that the remake was not able to capture.
Additionally, these odd scenes contribute to the major themes of the movie. The sense of sensuality and longing for connection is less present in the remake. When Dae-su is released from over a decade of imprisonment, he asks for the sushi chef, Mi-do, to bring him something alive. Then, he eats the living octopus, as Mi-do gently caresses the tentacle.
It’s a bizarre scene, and yet, emotionally, it speaks to something real. It shows his desperate longing to feel something real and alive under him, to feel the impact of something even if he’s hurting it. Mi-do caressing the tentacle shows that she too understands the longing for connection, and it shows that the two have an odd pull towards one another.
The soundtrack of Oldboy (2013) is also too basic and uninspired. It’s functional, but nowhere near as bittersweet as the original is. When you listen to some of the tracks in Oldboy (2003), your heart will ache. It’s a tender, beautiful pain that stays with you. Nothing in Oldboy (2013) captures that feeling.
The themes in Oldboy (2003)are about duality, past versus present, fact vs fiction. Who are we? Are we defined by our past actions, or are we made who we are by what we do now? How sure can we really be of what we know of the world around us, and what others tell us?
By softening the complexity and strangeness of the original, the remake loses some of what makes these themes cut deep. It’s a decently produced film, and it manages to be entertaining. Yet, it does not reach the same heights that the original manages to reach.
Oldboy (2003) and Oldboy (2013) can both be watched on Apple TV. It also appears that both are scheduled to be available on Netflix soon as well.