I finally saw it.  The revenge movie to end all revenge movies.

Oldboy has been on many top K-movie lists and is one of the most revered Korean movies internationally.  There’s even talk about a Hollywood remake (oh please, don’t mess this one up), though it seems both Steven Spielberg and Will Smith stepped away from the project.  I’ve waited a long time to watch this one, I’m not typically a gory movie fan.  That being said, I love Gladiator and Patriot, two of the most gory war movies out there.  They provided enough character depth, beautiful camera work, awesome music, etc. to make the gore support the movie instead of take the center stage.  I felt like Oldboy was the same.  I didn’t feel like the blood was overly done to the point where it detracted from the movie.  Even more than blood and guts, I absolutely hate tasteless pornography and sex scenes thrown into movies.  Surprisingly, the one sex scene in this movie is connected to the plot so much that to take away the scene would be to destroy the story.

The main character is locked away for 15 years for a reason unknown to himself.  After randomly being let go, he tracks down his capture and unwinds the mystery.  Once the big mystery is out there, it’s pretty easy to put all the pieces together and see what’s going on.  It’s possibly my favorite revenge movie and, while I don’t believe it’ll be in my top 5, I highly recommend it.

Now that I’m all hunkered down and waiting to leave to Korea with just my job and a lot of time, I think I’m going to be watching more movies!  I guess there’s a positive side to everything.

“3-Iron” is a wonderfully done movie with a main character who doesn’t say a word and a girl who only says one poignant phrase.  The director also did “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring”, which was also, if I remember correctly, a very silent film which uses mostly visual cues to tell the story.  The story follows a man who breaks into empty houses (the real title of the film being ‘empty house’) and instead of stealing things, cleans and fixes up the house and lives like he lived there cooking food, wearing their clothes, etc.  He runs into an abused wife who decides to follow him around, sparking a silent love story between the two. Like the empty houses he breaks into and fixes, he enters her life and fixes her.  It’s a lovely story and I highly recommend watching this movie.