Oldboy English Version

[Olympia Brackin]

Oldboyis a 2013 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by Spike Lee, written by Mark Protosevich, and starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Sharlto Copley. It is a remake of the 2003 South Korean film of the same name. It follows a man (Brolin) who searches for his captors after being mysteriously imprisoned for twenty years.

Oldboy was released theatrically in the United States on November 27, 2013, by FilmDistrict. It received mixed reception, with many critics deeming it inferior to the original, and was a box office bomb.

In 1993, alcoholic advertising executive Joe Doucett gets drunk after losing a major account. Before he passes out, he sees a woman with a yellow umbrella. When he awakes, he finds himself locked within a hotel room. His unseen captors provide him with food, alcohol and hygiene items, but do not explain why he is captive. He sees a news report that says his ex-wife Donna was raped and murdered and that he is the prime suspect, and that their infant daughter Mia was adopted.

Over the next 20 years, he quits drinking and works himself into shape, intent on escaping and getting revenge. He compiles a list of all those who would want to imprison him, and writes letters to eventually give to Mia. One day he sees an interview with Mia, who says she would forgive her father if she ever saw him.

Joe is drugged shortly thereafter, and wakes to find himself outside with a cell phone and several thousand dollars. He sees the woman with the yellow umbrella and gives chase, but ends up running into Marie Sebastian, a nurse who offers to help him. He refuses but takes her business card. He goes to his bar-owner friend Chucky, and explains what has transpired. While there, Joe gets a call on the cell phone from a man calling himself the Stranger, mocking him. Joe spends a great deal of effort to determine if any of the men on his list are the Stranger, but they all prove to be innocent. He collapses from dehydration, and Chucky calls Marie to help. While Joe recovers, Marie is taken emotionally by Joe's letters to Mia, and offers to help him further. She helps him identify the Chinese restaurant where some of his food came from while he was imprisoned.

Joe follows a delivery from the restaurant to the warehouse where he was imprisoned, and meets Chaney, its owner, whom Joe tortures into confessing that the Stranger arranged for his imprisonment. On his return to Chucky's bar, Joe finds the Stranger there with the woman with the yellow umbrella, his bodyguard Haeng-Bok. The Stranger tells Joe they have kidnapped Mia. He says that if Joe can determine the Stranger's identity within 46 hours, he'll free Mia, give Joe $20 million in diamonds and proof of his innocence in Donna's murder, and that he will commit suicide.

Joe learns that Chaney and his men are seeking revenge by attacking Marie, and he races there, only to be captured by Chaney. Just as Chaney is about to beat him savagely, the Stranger calls Chaney, and tells him a large sum of cash has just been left on the doorstep in exchange for Joe's release. They let Joe go.

Marie identifies the Stranger's ringtone as the anthem of Evergreen Academy, where Joe attended. They learn that many years prior, the school was bought by an anonymous corporation and closed. They break into its office and look through yearbooks. Joe recognizes one student, Adrian Doyle Pryce, and recalls tormenting his sister, Amanda, for her promiscuity, which led to the revelation that their father, Arthur, had incestuous relations with them both. As a result, Arthur moved them to Luxembourg, but later murdered his wife and Amanda, severely wounded Adrian, then committed suicide.

Joe calls Chucky with the name, and Chucky confirms Joe's guess that the Stranger is Adrian. However, when Chucky insults Amanda, Adrian, who is listening on a cloned cell phone, kills him before Joe can arrive. Joe hides Marie in a hotel for her safety, where they have sex, unaware Adrian is watching them through hidden cameras.

Joe goes to Adrian's penthouse, defeats and kills Haeng-Bok, and confronts Adrian. Adrian congratulates him, giving him the diamonds and escorting him to where Mia is. However, Adrian asks Joe to think why he had let Joe go in the first place, and shows that the interview with Mia was all a set-up, and "Mia" was a paid actress. Adrian shows Joe that Marie is really his daughter and that he had engineered events to this point to make Joe feel what it is like to lose everything. Adrian then fulfills his promise and commits suicide. Horrified, Joe writes Marie a letter saying they can never see each other again, and leaves her most of the diamonds, using the rest to pay Chaney to return him to the captivity of the hotel room.

An American remake of Oldboy (2003) previously had director Justin Lin attached, with Ernesto M. Foronda and Fabian Marquez writing the screenplay after previously collaborating with Lin on Better Luck Tomorrow (2002).[3][4] In November 2008, DreamWorks Pictures and Universal Pictures were securing the rights to the remake, producing and distributing respectively, which Will Smith had expressed interest in starring, with Steven Spielberg as director.[5] Mark Protosevich was in talks to write the script, although the acquisition to the remake rights were not finalized.[6] Smith later clarified that Spielberg would not be remaking the film, instead adapting the Old Boy manga itself,[7] which is considerably different from the original film.[8] In June 2009, the manga's publisher launched a lawsuit against the Korean film's producers for giving the film rights to Spielberg without their permission.[9] Later in November 2009, it was reported that DreamWorks, Spielberg, and Smith had stepped back from the project.[10] The producing team announced on November 2009 that the project was dead.[11]

On July 11, 2011, Mandate Pictures sent a press release stating that Spike Lee would direct a remake of the South Korean film (ignoring the earlier version's adaptation of the manga) with a screenplay written by Protosevich.[12] Josh Brolin was cast to star in the remake as the lead character, while Christian Bale was reportedly in talks to portray the antagonist character,[13] but it was later reported that Colin Firth had been offered the role.[14] Firth later passed on the role,[15] which was later offered to Clive Owen.[16] In May 2012, Deadline Hollywood reported that Sharlto Copley had officially been cast as the villain Adrian Pryce.[17] Elizabeth Olsen,[18] Samuel L. Jackson[19] and Nate Parker[20] were all later announced to have joined the cast. Parker was later replaced by James Ransone, due to a scheduling conflict.[21] The film marked Jackson's first time working with director Lee since 1991's Jungle Fever.

Oldboy was released theatrically in the United States on November 23, 2013, by FilmDistrict.[28] It was the last film to be distributed by the company, before Focus Features absorbed the company in October 2013.[29]

The film grossed $885,000 in its first five days, one of the weakest Thanksgiving openings of all time, according to Variety.[30] It opened in 18th place at the box office and finished with a worldwide gross of $5.2 million.[31][32]

Oldboy received negative reviews from critics.[34][35] IndieWire reported that the film garnered a "C-" rating on the A+ to F scale as evaluated by critics, who stated that it "doesn't measure up" to the original film.[36] On Rotten Tomatoes, 39% of 151 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Suitably grim and bloody yet disappointingly safe and shallow, Spike Lee's Oldboy remake neither surpasses the original nor adds anything new to its impressive legacy."[37] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[38]

Justin Chang of Variety said that "Lee and Protosevich have made a picture that, although several shades edgier than the average Hollywood thriller, feels content to shadow its predecessor's every move while falling short of its unhinged, balls-out delirium."[39] Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune, in a one and a half star review noted that "The revenge in Oldboy is neither sweet nor sour; it's just drab".[40]

Eric Kohn, in a largely positive review at IndieWire said: "It's been so long since Lee made such a thoroughly amusing work that fans should have no problem excusing its messiness. But make no mistake... Oldboy is all over the place, sometimes playing like a subdued melodrama and elsewhere erupting into flamboyance and gore."[42]

Like Park's version, "Oldboy" tells of a drunken, abusive lout named Joe Doucette (Josh Brolin) who's imprisoned for a long time by a mysterious jailer. He gets clean in prison, then escapes to learn the identity of his tormentor and punish him. Like Park's version, this one's a reptilian brain film, all violence and sex and fear and revenge and crying and screaming. The lighting is dark but the colors are supersaturated, especially in scenes with a lot of blood, neon, or wet pavement. The camera goes much lower or much higher than you expect it to, and peers at the characters from disorienting angles. Bruce Hornsby contributes a score in a Bernard Herrmann vein, an instrumental chorus to the modern urban version of a Greek tragedy.

Where the film's first half is a Kafka-esque fable of guilt and punishment, the second is a riff on the criminal revenge flick, with Joe working his way through the underbelly of a New York City that's been reimagined as a landscape of the mind. He joins up with a drug clinic worker played by Elizabeth Olsen and slowly begins piecing together the identity of his jailer: a rich and rather effete sadist (Sharlto Copley of "District 9") who knew Joe a long time ago, and who now lives like a drug dealer from an '80s cop thriller.

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