Oldboy (2003)

My Grade:  A

Sex and violence seem to intersect on a regular basis in film... probably because sex sells and violence usually implies action which also sells.  In Chan-wook Park's 2003 violent thriller, Oldboy, sex and violence are at the heart of it.  Oldboy is based on a Japanese Manga (comic book) written by Garon Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi.  It also has an American remake in the works to be directed by Spike Lee.

A regular guy named Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) gets kidnapped and imprisoned on his daughter's birthday for seemingly no reason.  While in captivity he learns a lot of random facts from TV, learns how to fight by practicing punches and kicks against the wall, and slowly works toward escaping by scraping away at the walls with a chopstick.  After fifteen long years, however, he gets released for seemingly no reason.  He makes it his mission to find the people that kidnapped him and kill them for what they did to him and the things he learned in prison will prove very valuable.

As his past becomes more clear to him and he begins to uncover the truth about his captors, he finds out a lot of things he doesn't want to know.  He also realizes that someone has gone through a lot of trouble to manipulate him and seek revenge for something he did a long time ago.  Then, the actual truth is something that he, nor an audience could have seen coming.

Oldboy keeps you engaged for its entire two hours and will keep you guessing until the very end.  That is a testament to the strong writing.  If nothing else, this story is unique.  At first, it is a little hard to buy into because it's not clear as to why someone would imprison a man for no reason.  As the layers unfold, though, you will move to the metaphoric edge of your seat and never scoot back.  It's engrossing.

What helps this film be so captivating is the outstanding performances by its award-winning leads Min-sik Choi (Dae-su) and Hye-jeong Kang (Mi-do).  Min-sik Choi is especially good, having to show an incredible range and intensity throughout the film.  He actually won Best Actor at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival in 2004 for his performance in Oldboy.  

The cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung is also stunning.  Chung's camera expertly captures the grittiness of the world that Dae-su has to navigate and enhances the brutality of the narrative when necessary.  There are also some surprisingly gorgeous scenes that give a much needed break from the dirt and grime.  Two particular shots stick out as being especially good.  First, there's a long shot of Dae-su pleading with his captors from the slat through which they feed him while in prison (also a great moment in Min-sik Choi's performance).  The more impressive shot, though, is a fight scene that lasts about three minutes (that's just a guess about the time, it could be longer) and involves Dae-su versus at least twenty others in a hallway.  The camera pans back and forth as the fight takes place and never cuts until Dae-su has successfully finished off his attackers.  Epic.

Overall, Oldboy is a wonderfully done foreign film.  But, being a foreign film, it may not be for everyone.  It is done very artfully but very differently from much of American cinema.  Also, the brutal violence, disturbing nature of the plot, and nudity makes the film a little harder to watch than some films but is certainly worth checking out if you are into the thriller genre or foreign films in general.

Pan's Labyrinth

My Grade:  B-

Art direction, cinematography, and makeup are three of the key things that make a film look amazing.  When a film wins the Oscar in all of these categories, it's a pretty good guess that the film is gorgeous.  Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno) did just that and, yes, it does look great.  It was also nominated for Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Foreign Language Film (it's in Spanish).

There are two stories going on in this film, both involving a young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero).

The first involves Ofelia and her pregnant mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), moving in with Carmen's new husband, Captan Vidal (Sergi Lopez).  He and his troops are in the midst of a battle with some guerrillas in the woods surrounding their compound.  Carmen and Ofelia move in because Vidal wants to be nearby when his son is born.  Vidal is an awful human being, though, involved in torture and other appalling acts.

The second story (and main focus) is Ofelia's interactions with a Faun (Doug Jones) in an old labyrinth that sends her on various quests in a strangely beautiful fantasy world.  She must complete certain tasks to discover the true nature of her origin and identity because she may not even be of this world...

While Pan's Labyrinth looks great and includes some breathtaking (and sometimes terrifying) imagery, it doesn't feel like a very focused film.  The plot meanders somewhat aimlessly throughout its two hours.  It does, however, keep you engaged despite not focusing on its point.  This film shows that you can't escape life's dark realities through fairytale-like fantasies.  It shows this through its two stories, but those two stories don't intersect as much as they should.  They only really come together at the end which is probably what makes the film seem so disjointed and unfocused.  The strength of this film is in the bleak but beautiful fantasy world that Ofelia is plunged into, but the film spends most of its time showing how brutal Captan Vidal is.  And the film only sort of finishes the story with Ofelia and the Faun with the ending of that story feeling tacked on and rushed.  

The entire basis of Carmen's marriage with Captan Vidal makes you dislike Carmen.  He is a despicable guy, but she's with him because "he's done so much for [them]."  Even though Carmen is sick through most of the film, Vidal is in the same room with her maybe twice.  If he actually loved her, he would want to be by her side and make sure she got better.  But he really only cares about having a son.  Carmen ends up being unlikable because she married this abomination of a man for selfish reasons.  So while she's sick, you may find yourself not caring if she dies except that you don't want Ofelia to be sad.  Since that portion of the film's narrative is weak, it makes you want more of the fairytale... then you don't get as much as you want.  It's frustrating.

While this film has gotten tons of critical acclaim for more than just its awe-inspiring visuals, I feel it is overrated in almost every other aspect.  It is very, very good from a visual standpoint, though.  Even though the imagery is borrowed (stolen sounds so negative) from Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, and The Chronicles of Narnia, it is still wonderful and even terrifying at times.

Infernal Affairs

My Grade:  B

Ever heard of a film called The Departed?  You probably have, seeing as how it was directed by one of the all-time greats, Martin Scorsese, and it won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2007 (along with 3 other Oscars).  Have you ever heard of a film called Infernal Affairs, though?  It is the 2002 Chinese crime thriller directed by Wai-keung Lau and Alan Mak that The Departed is based on.  It stands to reason that The Departed is as good as it is because of strong source material, right?

Infernal Affairs uses a simple but very interesting premise:  a mole for the mob in the police department squares off against a cop that goes undercover in the mob... each of them is supposed to find the other one.  That's all you really need to know about the film's story.  It's pretty basic.  The mob plans to sell some cocaine to some Thai people and the cops are trying to take down the mob.  But the real story is about the mole for the mob trying to figure out who the undercover cop is and the undercover cop trying to find out who the mob's mole in the police department is.

You'll have to watch it to find out what happens.  You may think that you already know what happens because you've seen The Departed... but you'd be wrong.  Infernal Affairs is slightly different and certainly worth the watch.

Some people can't deal with having to read subtitles for an entire film.  But, if you can get past that, Infernal Affairs is a good watch.  It is almost impossible to review this film without comparing it to The Departed (especially since The Departed is one of my favorite films ever) but, taking it on its own, Infernal Affairs is a very good film.  It's stylishly directed with cool shots, great editing, and a story that is refreshingly simple but unique.  There are many films about a dirty cop or an undercover cop... but seldom do you see them together or see them hunt each other.  It's good, tense stuff.

Having seen The Departed first, Infernal Affairs seems like a less fleshed out version of The Departed.  It's actually the opposite, though... The Departed is really a more fleshed out version of Infernal Affairs.  And "more fleshed out" refers to almost everything in the film; especially the characters.  The characters in Infernal Affairs are rather weak.  I didn't empathize with them or really get to know them like I hoped to.  Also, the very beginning of the story makes very large jumps in time that make the film start off very unevenly.  It works itself out, though, and becomes a well-paced thriller.

Let The Right One In

My Grade:  A

Vampires, these days, have gone soft.  What happened to the hard-core, scary as hell vampires of old?  Vampires should be in horror films, not romantic dramas... well, not all the time.  Tomas Alfredson's (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) 2008 film adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel, Let The Right One In, is mostly drama with horror and romance tossed in... and it's terrifying at times, but touching at times.  It's also Swedish, in case you were wondering.  If you haven't heard of this film, you may recognize the American remake named Let Me In (2010) directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield).  Let The Right One In did not make it on the Oscar's list of Best Foreign films but it did win a stunning 62 total awards from various film festivals and such from around the world.

Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is sick of being bullied by his classmates.  He wants to fight back, but doesn't have the guts to do so.  But when he meets the new girl that moves in next door, Eli (Lina Leandersson), everything starts to change.  He finds her strange at first because she goes barefoot in the snow without being cold, she smells funny, and she considers herself "Twelve [years old]... more or less."  He looks past this, and they become friends.  Eventually, though, he falls in a 12 year old's version of love with her.  Unfortunately for him, she's a vampire. This obviously puts a strain on their young relationship and threatens to drive them apart forever. 

This is one of the best foreign films you will ever see.  It is very different from American cinema, however.  The pacing is a little more slowly paced than modern American films, the shots are longer, some of the phrasing is different, character interactions are more European (obviously), and the films does some shocking things that probably wouldn't cut it in American cinema.  But it's fantastic.

The locales are distinctly bleak but also beautiful.  The snow falling in most shots even adds a dream-like quality to the look of the film.  It's a decidedly dark dream, but it gives you a fantastic suspension of reality while the action that takes place is in your face and brutally gritty.  Even though Eli is a vampire and vampires aren't real (unless you ask some crazy people), the film feels very realistic.  It is also something a lot of people can relate to because everyone has felt inadequate at some point in their life and has needed someone to step up and help make them stronger.  That's what Eli does for Oskar.  And their young love is equal parts adorably touching and strangely twisted.

The Loved Ones

My Grade:  A-

Other than found footage films, torture films have become very prevalent in the horror world. It’s sometimes even tough to call them horrors, though, because they aren’t actually scary; they are simply disturbingly disgusting. And they all seem to be the same. Sean Byrne’s feature directorial debut, The Loved Ones (2009), is not just like the rest. It actually hit the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009 and won the People’s Choice Award. It hasn’t won any other awards, but certainly could have. It may have been overlooked because it was released in Australia, or because it is a very low budget indie horror... which are a dime a dozen.

Popular high schooler, Brent (Xavier Samuel), gets asked to the end of school dance by the very strange Lola (Robin McLeavy); he immediately says 'no'. She doesn’t deal with this very well. That’s an understatement because she seeks a brand of revenge that rivals any revenge ever taken in a film... ever. This film redefines sick and twisted. Will Brent be able to escape? Or will Lola get the revenge she seeks?

If you can get past the disturbing nature of Lola and her father’s plan... which is a big if... then you will thoroughly enjoy this film. The most memorable thing about it is how it’s shot. Lola’s version of the end of school dance is shot exactly like you would see a real school dance shot in the movies. And the way Byrne’s camera treats Brent and Lola evokes feelings of a sappy love story. But this is a very twisted story. It’s a wonderful paradox that is extremely well done.

Most importantly, however, Robin McLeavy is disturbingly good as Lola. She brings a childlike innocence to the character while doing some of the most disgusting and terrible things you will ever see someone do on film. This just adds to the gut wrenching paradox that defines this film. Be on the lookout for more of Robin McLeavy because she has a promising career ahead of her if she can be this good in other types of films.