Being trapped in a building with no hope of
escape must be horrible. Some people are held hostage by terrorists where they
have body parts hacked off and posted back to their loved ones. Others are kept
locked up by deranged family members who use them as sex slaves for decades at
a time. I had a similar experience to this myself once when I'd ordered a
package off the internet and then had to wait in all day for the postman to
deliver it. It… was... horrific. Enduring the experience with me was a close
friend who I shan't name because firstly he doesn't come out of this story too
well and secondly anybody that knows me will already have guessed that I'm
talking about Graham. So the postman was meant to drop our shit off in the
morning but made us wait presumably in the knowledge that his delivery was
essential to the continuation of our existence. We thought the wait was getting
bad after two hours... If they had told me then that it would be seven hours
would it have been easier to endure? Or harder? As the madness set in I turned
to my friend and both jokingly and rhetorically asked, “How long do you think
we'd have to be locked in a room for before we just went mad and started
fucking each other?” Without even skipping a beat, he turned to me and with a
completely straight face answered, “At least a couple of days”... A couple of
days? I was thinking more along the line of years or decades not forty eight
fucking hours! In the time it would take
for most people to get a bit antsy, he'd have already gone mental and started
seeing me as a huge, greasy, slab of hump meat! The reason I tell this is
because it just goes to show how quickly the effects of enforced confinement
can set in and how extreme the reactions can be. Having said that I'm pretty
sure my friend is secretly also a bit of a bummer too.
Old Boy is a
South Korean thriller that was released in 2003 to critical acclaim and which
quickly became one of my all time favourite films. It tells the story of an
anonymous pisshead named Oh Dae-Su who is randomly picked up off the street and
then locked away in a small room for an undisclosed duration. He doesn't know
who has imprisoned him, he doesn't know what he's done to deserve it and most
importantly he doesn't know why he gets released after fifteen years of
captivity. Basically, all I can say is that his kidnapping initially presents
so little explanation that every possible detail has mystery spunked all over
it. Once free, Oh Dae-Su only has a few days to answer all of these questions
which is a puzzle he decides to crack with the use a blood stained fuck-off
claw hammer. I watched this film for the first time on a portable DVD player
when I was about fourteen years old and whilst sat between my parents on a long
and cramped aeroplane journey. The film contains scenes of wanking, shagging,
torture, violence and a few blatant titty shots. What an awkward fucking flight
that was.
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| This looks like a man who has his shit together! |
Although the film is based on a Japanese Manga
series the style and direction here is clearly the fault of director Park Chan
Wooks twisted cinematic vision. From the face slapping musical outburst at the
beginning to the mind-blowing one shot corridor fight and via a tooth
crunchingly genius use of Vivaldi, Old Boy is a complete masterpiece. With
names like Big Sleep and Breathless, the film’s soundtrack hints
towards an appreciation of old school classic noirs which is also echoed by its
gothic gloominess and a suffocating sense of bleakness. However if this is
influenced by the mystery films of yesteryear then thanks to Wooks direction,
it's more like watching a Humphrey Bogart thriller through the bleary eyes of a
drunken rage.
However even amongst all of this chaotic
insanity perhaps what lingers the most is not just the tongue snipping horror
but also the epic journey of Oh Dae-Su as he falls into a mindfucking pit of
soullessness. Sure this is expressed through the still-bat-shit-surreality of
Kafkaesque giant ants and the trance induced repression of a schizophrenic
reflection but that doesn't make the journey any less human. In essence I
suppose one of the most prominent themes running through Old Boy is that
which was previously summed up by Nietzsche in this handy little quote, “He who
fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a
monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you”.
In honesty I've never read anything by Nietzsche but I figure I'll sound
smarter if I keep dropping his shit into conversation.
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| This film is dedicated to our friend Squiddly Diddly. |
However, although I have a need to eat, I
don't have a need to see films that in anyway harm or encourage the
mistreatment of animals. I've pretty much decided to never see Cannibal
Holocaust because I'm aware of the abuse and death performed on several
creatures which is something I find so morally repugnant that it sickens the
tits off me. The octopus scene here bothers me but I cling to the knowledge
that eating them live is simply something that's done in South Korea that we in
the West just don't do. Therefore although the octopus was murdered I suppose
it was a fate that the poor bugger was always going to face and not one that it
endured simply for the sake of the scene. I'm also aware that the characters
motivation for eating the thing was due to him being so starved of life. This
is obviously different to Cannibal Holocaust in which creatures living
in the wild were caught, hacked up and mutilated solely for the titillation and
entertainment of a heartless audience of screwed up cunts.
Horrific cruelty aside though this film is,
in conclusion, sheer genius. It's taken about ten years to rehash but finally
Hollywood has smelled its waft and decided to try and make a quick buck from
shitting something out and then relying on brand awareness. I remained
optimistically optimistic about the remake on the grounds that they were
firstly going back to the original manga rather than the 2003 film and secondly
it was to be directed by Spike Lee who at least isn't usually a turd.
Inevitably though the new film has finally been squeezed through the lubed up
hoop of unoriginality and according to all of the terrible reviews it is sadly
not very good. I personally haven't seen the film and so can't say for myself
but apparently it simply copies all of the beats from this original and then
tones down all of the weirdness that made the story great in the first place.
If you're wanting to make a mainstream film then perhaps this twisted tale of
insanity, violence and freaky fucking might not be the place to start. If
however you want to see something fresh, shocking, funny, cool and that champions
a use of the underrated word “dick shit”, then Old Boy is your place to
go!
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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