Old Boy

Colour, 35 mm
Korea, 2003, 119 min
Section: Horizons

About the film

The abduction of Dae-su took place right in front of his own home, where until then he´d lived quietly with his family. In some kind of strange house imprisonment he learns from the television that his wife was brutally murdered and that he is suspected of the crime. He spends fifteen years in a dark room, until he one day suddenly finds himself a free man. From that moment he determines to take revenge on his unknown jailer. With the help of young Mido he finds him, but the man gradually convinces Dae-su of the possible justice of his actions. This intricate drama, in which the fatal bonds are finally revealed between Dae-su and Mido, is full of tension and mystery, but according to the director is primarily a consideration about revenge, a desire which everyone experiences but few realise, because society repudiates it as negative and destructive.

About the director

Park Chan-wook (b. 1963, South Korea) graduated in philosophy from university in Sogang. Soon after leaving school he began to focus on film. From a theoretical point of view he is interested in the rules of various film genres and the phenomenon of what is described as the "cult film". He made his debut with The Moon Is…the Sun´s Dream (1992). He has so far made seven films, some of them shorts, a number which have been shown at major international festivals (Berlin, Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand). His filmography includes: Judgment (1999) and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002). Old Boy (2003), treating the theme of revenge, is loosely linked with the preceding film; it took Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes.