Oldboy

Movie Details:

Cast & Characters:

• Choi Min-sik as Oh Dae-su, a businessman who seeks revenge after being held in a mysterious prison for 15 years. Choi Min-sik lost and gained weight for his role depending on the filming schedule, trained for six weeks, and did most of his own stunt work.
  • Oh Tae-kyung as young Dae-su.
• Yoo Ji-tae as Lee Woo-jin, the man behind Oh Dae-su’s imprisonment. Park Chan-wook’s ideal choice for Woo-jin had been actor Han Suk-kyu, who previously played a rival to Choi Min-sik in Shiri and No. 3. Choi then suggested Yoo Ji-tae for the role, despite Park believing he was too young for the part.
  • Yoo Yeon-seok as young Woo-jin.
• Kang Hye-jung as Mi-do, Dae-su’s love interest.
• Ji Dae-han as No Joo-hwan, Dae-su’s friend and the owner of an internet café.
  • Woo Il-han as young Joo-hwan.
• Kim Byeong-ok as Mr. Han, Woo-jin’s bodyguard.
• Yoon Jin-seo as Lee Soo-ah, Woo-jin’s sister.
• Oh Dal-su as Mr. Park Cheol-woong, warden of the private prison.
• Oh Kwang-rok as Suicidal man.

Storyline:

The film follows the story of Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), who is imprisoned in a cell resembling a hotel room for 15 years without knowing the identity of his captor or his captor’s motives. When he is finally released, Dae-su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and violence as he seeks revenge against his enigmatic captor (Yoo Ji-tae). His quest becomes tied in with romance when he falls in love with a young sushi chef, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung).

About Movie:

Oldboy (Korean: 올드보이) is a South Korean action-thriller film directed and co-written by Park Chan-wook. A loose adaptation of the Japanese manga of the same name. It stars Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, and Kang Hye-jung in the main roles.

Oldboy was theatrically released on 21 November 2003, and attained critical acclaim and accolades worldwide, including winning the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it garnered high praise from Quentin Tarantino, the president of the jury. In the United States, film critic Roger Ebert stated that Oldboy is a “powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare”. The film’s action sequences, particularly the single shot corridor fight sequence, also received commendation for their impressive execution.

The film’s success led to two adaptations: an unauthorized Hindi remake in 2006 and an official American adaptation in 2013. As part of Park Chan-wook’s The Vengeance Trilogy, it serves as the second installment, following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and preceding Lady Vengeance (2005).

The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time and has been included in numerous “best-of” lists by many publications. In 2008, Oldboy was placed 64th on an Empire list of the top 500 movies of all time. In 2020, The Guardian ranked it number 3 among the classics of modern South Korean Cinema.

In the United Kingdom, the film was watched by 300,000 television viewers on Channel 4 in 2011. This made it the year’s most-watched foreign-language film on a non-BBC television channel in the UK.

Budget & Box Office Collection: