Oldeuboi

A Corridor of Blood: How Oldboy’s Fight Scene Packs a Punch By Manher Kaur“Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.” Chained to the wall of a police station on his daughter’s fourth birthday, a drunk and disoriented Oh Dae-Su finds himself arrested. Immediately after he manages to get released from prison, only to get snatched away by a bunch of men. For the next 15 years, he eats Chinese takeout, watches television, and journals about his life while engaging in imaginary training. All inside a dingy hotel room with a carpet and wallpaper so thoughtlessly ugly as to seem horrifying. A place that took 11 years for him to get used to. One day, just as mysteriously as he was captured, he is released. Only this time he’s dressed in a black suit, carrying a briefcase, and forced to return to the “real world.” Once he is out, he wants nothing more than revenge. In Park Chan-Wook’s films, nothing happens by chance, as everything ties into his stories, either leaving deliberate loose ends or concrete trails. For a person who hadn’t tasted a thing other than fried dumplings for 15 years, Dae-su’s first request was to slurp down a “live thing.” The scene keeps the discomfort going when he shoves the living octopus into his mouth, with its tentacles grabbing at his face in an attempt to escape. The film breaks down and explores the human psyche in a way that no other film does. At several points, we are made to contemplate the inherent evil that lies in the crevices of man and unleashes itself through uncontrollable rage. That is the first moment we realise how consumed with hate Dae-su was that his thirst for revenge will always exist but cannot be easily quenched. He has made himself into an instinctual killer. Park’s film uses gore to portray its storytelling in the best way possible. It makes us feel like we are too trapped, as the film constantly keeps us on our toes yet circles us back to the same central point. Contrary to the “thrillers” that we are accustomed to seeing, they mostly exist for entertainment and for creating diversion — so much so that it’s a shock to find a movie in which the action, no matter how violent, has both a purpose and a reason. After a long wait of 15 years, what stood between him and the answers he was looking for was a corridor full of weapon-wielding guards. The incredible fight scene is choreographed in a way that reveals the raw imperfections within a seamlessly flawless action sequence. Dae-su, resembling a wounded animal, makes his way through the corridor with only a hammer in hand. He slips, gets hit, and also a stab in the back, yet slashes each of his opponents one by one. Shot in a wide, unbroken single-camera take, it engrossed us to an extent where we stopped being the spectators anymore. The unsettling music further elevates the scene; it builds tension when it needs to and keeps taking our focus in and out of the film. The tracks having short spoken lines from the start of the film suggest the film’s bittersweet closure in all its pain and irony. It leaves us in a sense of devastation, long after it is over.