Old Boy (2003) (nat)

To mimic Tracy's form a bit, I can't do stars and there are technically no vomit scenes in the film . . . . but I was thisclose to being ill at least 4 times while watching this one. It's about this guy (Korean, the movie is Korean and I had to struggle with the stupid DVD settings to get it off of English dubbing--that's no good at all). Anyway, this guy, Dae-Su, is taken off the street one night and held prisoner for 15 years. The action of the movie is him finding out the who and why of his imprisonment after his release. I can't say too much about the plot because it all hinges on a pretty important twist or three. But he meets this girl Mi-do who may or may not be helping him out and he runs into a lot of trouble. There are 4 places where I recommend you look away. 1. he eats a LIVE octopus. I mean squirming in his mouth. He stuffs it in head first and rips it a few times but it still squirms, a lot. And it's not like "oh, a live octopus, chomp, yum chewy, next scene." Nope. It lingers on the squirmy thing in his mouth. Yich. You lost me on ever trying any sort of octopus again, honey. Thank the Koreans for that one. 2. and 3. There are not one but two violent dentistry scenes. Both involving a hammer. And not like a ball ping hammer or a jeweler's hammer. A hammer like construction workers use. I can't take dentistry scenes. I'd rather watch just about anything than people pulling teeth. 4. Something of a dentistry scene but it's at the end so I can't say too much. Yeah. This movie as a whole is just special. Lots of moral ambiguity. Lots of just plain ignoring any and all moral sense. No "decent guy" in this one really. It's a thing and I can't talk to you about it until you've seen it. It should be seen, I guess. But probably only once.

So. Yeah. Goodness. I'm going to have to stay up way late and watch something else before I go to sleep.

Oh! Sorry-revisions. I had to add this too. So IMDB is helpful and lets me know: "Four live octopi were eaten for the scene with Dae-su in the sushi bar, a scene which provoked some controversy abroad. Eating live octopus in Korea is commonplace although it is usually sliced first. When the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the director thanked the octopi along with the cast and crew." And that the actor eating them is Buddhist and had to pray after eating each one. Maybe I should pray to Buddha to help me get that out of my head. Unfortunately, I think it's stuck in that part of my brain with Britney's vagina. Ugh.

Anyway, the one problem I had that's in no way connected to tooth extraction or octopi was the supposed ages of the characters. Dae-Su and Woo-jin are supposed to be the same age or very very close in age yet the actor who is the former was 41 the year the film was made (and looks older than that, I would have guessed 50-ish) and the latter was only 27 (and a young looking 27). Dae-Su, of course, may look older because of the imprisonment and whatnot but he wouldn't and shouldn't look more than 14 years older. Meanwhile, I think Mi-Do should have been just a bit younger (the actress was 21)--she and Woo-jin look too close in age when he should be old enough to be her father. The ages throw off the plot a little bit.