Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

My eternal spooning love for the film aside, I should mention that this thread was started as a declaration that the score deserves to be nominated come Oscar season. For some reason, it would irk me more were the score to be ignored, rather than the actual film.

Sparkles*_*

[itaewonguy]

[quote="Tiberious aka Sparkles1) Itaewonguy mentioned that the film doesn't have good cinematography. I cry B.S. The film was shot beautifully. It has tricks, but the tricks don't overwhelm, and it contains some of the most memorable shots and scenes in recent memory.



Oldboy is a classic film, like it or not.

Sparkles*_*[/quote]

I didnt say it wasnt good cinematography!. I thought it was just standard
and nothing really great.. but remember to win the director of photography award it doesnt matter if your film was a foreign film or not!
and that film was not beautifully shot! cinematography also means alot of exterior shots, showing nature, showing emotion, visually mind blowing!
different styles of camera work etc..
OLDBOY was just professional shooting.. nothing extraordinary..

Peter Pau for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon now thats cinematography
John Toll for Braveheart,Legends of the Fall won back to back oscars
beautifully shot movies!!
The Last Emperor, Vittorio Storaro, River Runs Through It, Philippe Rousselot, Dances with Wolves, Dean Semler, The Mission, Chris Menges
etc,.. these are cinematographers!!
these are beautiful shot movies..

OLDBOY is not in this league!!

[babtangee]

What a lame attack: Oh, you people will just hate anything Korean.

I already named several Korean movies, including Old Boy, that I didn't hate, but that doesn't change the fact that Old Boy isn't great - which is totally unrelated to my (primarily positive, though occasionally heartbroken) feelings about this country.

The simple fact of the ending alone ruined whatever the film could have achieved, in that, just like Hollywood will do again and again, it cheated an essentially good story's tragic structure.

Daesu should not have been able to be with his girl in the end. It runs against the grain of the film's structure. It's a cheat. The film built up for a tragic ending and then flipped into an up, though sombre, ending.

Yes, the VO narration did get to me. Not because it was there - the VO in many films add to them brilliantly - but because it was largely unnecessary. Too much information, which I already knew, was being reiterated in VO, while "interesting" images try to maintain my attention. And then other information, which the director for some reason couldn't muster the skill to impart through his directorial talent, was just fed to us. This is laziness. If you're gonna tell a drama (I don't agree that this was an action film) then tell it dramatically.

And worst of all was the big revelation of Daesu's 'crime'. The crime was committed by him when he was a youth, a character we didn't even know. The film built up this connection between the audience and the character, and then revealed that he was being punished for something that "he" (his character), essentially, didn't do. What he did wrong was totally unrelated to the person that he was. Whereas Othello's jealousy, Macbeth's ambition, Lears pride, Oedipus' temper are all integrally linked to their story, their character and their downfall, Daesu's gossiping has no connection to the current story/character, which cuts out any meaning through which the backstory (his 'crime') may have connected to the main plot.

This detached me from the story. While the film had me feel for the character right up to the scene where the revelation was made, the whole flashback sequence just disconnected all emotion (meaning) it had made.

The resolution just added insult to injury.

And I won't even touch on the whole "hypnosis" hooey.

Memories of Murder was a much better character story. At least... it was true to its intentions and didn't pull stuff out of the air for shock effect.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[babtangee]

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

I don't think the Mi-do/daughter revelation is that easy to see. I and everyone else I've spoken about the film with never saw it coming. It helps that in my case I hadn't heard that the film had a "twist" ending, so I wasn't searching for clues while watching it. I believed that Dae-su's daughter really was in Switzerland, and that he was going to try to find her after he had settled his business with his captor.

Of course, if I had known that there was a big surprise ending, I would have been looking for clues the whole time...and maybe it would have spoiled the film for me. I don't know. When I watched The 6th Sense, I knew there was a big twist, and it didn't take me long to figure it out.

Anyway, let's just say that we have differing tastes. I would honestly like to know what kind of cinema you enjoy. I remember from previous film-related posts of yours that you didn't like a lot of films that I find great. But so what? I did however find it curious that you enjoy 'A Tale of Two Sisters,' a film which uses a cheap twist ending.

And to clarify: I wasn't specifically pointing the finger at you and itaewonguy when I stated that some people tend to hate on something, whether it be films or soccer teams, simply because they're Korean. It is true for a lot of chumps on this board, unfortunately. My apologies if either of you thought I was singling you out.

Sparkles*_*

[skinhead]

[komtengi]

[babtangee]

[sparkx]

[babtangee]

[Bulsajo]

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]