Oldboy

Woody acting and product placement ruined this movie for me. i'm not sure how he did it, but spike lee even manged to make 20 years in captivity feel rushed and uneventful. to elaborate further, there was ZERO character development, everything felt pushed along, including the 20 years in the room. he was just a pitiful alcoholic for YEARS, then "EPIPHANY", a five minute montage of getting clean and getting in shape annnnd he's out. there was no passion to it, there was no empathy that you get from the original, you don't feel sorry for him. he's just a sociopath on a revenge spree. although, i think the big ending twist was done well, the overall movie was a snooze fest. they even managed to make a pivotal scene, the hallway fight, BORING and pushed along.

everything the main character is, is because of that room, his life, his persona, his transformation, and his realizations. it had no heart. the subtlety and nuances of the original are just lacking. like i said, you you don't care about the characters, you're just waiting to see what happens next...and what made it even worse, is that i KNOW what's going to happen next, but dammit, i wanted my money's worth.

I admit, I watched this film with half a mind on the original and hence it should have been doomed before the opening credits had rolled by. Reading various other reviews, the film was never going to be a hit with the so called "connoisieur" However, once I got over my own pomposity, I was pleasantly surprised and, admittedly with a nod to the original, don't think a much better job of a remake could have been managed.

The remake is not as good a film as the original. That out of the way - as a stand alone and to the viewer who does not know about the 2003 film, this is very good viewing.

The fight scenes were entertaining. Acting good. Good pace. Story good. Basically,nothing bad. I actually thought the photography better than the original. (I also liked the nod to the original's octopus).

In summary, if you have seen the original you are always going to be judging one against the other and Korea will win. Also dismiss me as a Philistine but I don't enjoy subtitled movies as much as English speaking ones. I don't have the intellect to understand every (or indeed any) foreign film without having to miss half the cinematography reading.

If you haven't seen the original, watch this. It is good. It's just that some critics have got there heads so far up their .............!

One of my all time favorite world cinema is the Korean version of this movie. Remakes are okay, but some movies won't suit for recreation because of its masterpiece value, believing that won't come close for the second time. Just like Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Birth of Venus, The Last Supper and other arts, it should have left alone untouched. Like Japanese did, because it was their story after all. This American version was good, but very much commercialized with the fast pace approach kind of ruined. If I had not seen the original, probably I would have liked it. I knew the twist so I did not get the excitements in those parts. So those who are not familiar with the 2003 movie can definitely have a good time.

It was not a copycat from frame to frame, many things were altered in this movie. The most laughable was to see gangsters fighting with knives, hammers and bare-hand like the Korean style. What I know in American gangster theme is that they take a gun and bang bang. The first poster where Josh Brolin comes out of the large wooden box was kind of funny, gives the impression of a comedy movie. I liked Josh Brolin in 'Labor Day' and yet again he was not bad in this film except if you compare him with his counterpart from the Korean movie, Choi Min Shik. It is one of the best role he has ever played, sadly the movie was not received well due to many other reasons than him.

This was the first version of the film I watched as I didn't know about the Korean Original (I was just scrolling through Netflix) and on the first viewing, I just enjoyed it as a decent B movie.

However today I saw the original "Oldboy" in the cinema and I have to say, as a stand alone film this version is alright. But compared to the Korean original, it's just absolute garbage.

I'm glad I saw this version first as when I watched the original, I wasn't as shook up as I may have been with how the plot unfolds. The Korean version is in every way superior and much more dark, but this film is a much more simplified version of he story and a decent B movie if you haven't seen the original.

It's worth watching, but watch the original too.

Remakes are generally a bad idea. The percentage of remakes that are equal to or better than the original is probably less than 1%. However, English-language remakes of foreign films (or vice-versa I suppose) are a slightly different story. The percentage is still low, but maybe not quite as low. Anyway, all of this is to say that while I was skeptical of an Oldboy remake, I was not 100% against it. The benefit that a remake of a foreign film has over a regular remake is that you are pretty much forced to make things different, at least a little, simply by virtue of different tastes and filmmaking styles between cultures. That's a good thing, in theory, because all of the good remakes I can think of changed things from the original. The cookie cutter shot-for-shot remakes are the worst. Oldboy (2013) is, unfortunately, not a good remake.

In some ways the movie smartly avoids trying to copy some things from the original that would not fit with an American version. There's no hypnosis, no guy cutting his own tongue off, and no octopus scene. It's when the movie tries to copy its Korean roots that it fails most. I'm speaking particularly of the comedy and action portions, which feature Josh Brolin trying to mimic Choi Min-sik with embarrassing results. Obviously the biggest problem is that the twist that the first movie relied so heavily on is going to be spoiled for a large portion of the audience that will even want to see this one. Worse, this remake seems to telegraph the twist in ways the original didn't. I watched the movie with friends who hadn't seen the original and they all figured out the twist and none were particularly shocked by it. Finally, it ends with the type of bizarre "happy" ending that plays to the worst stereotypes of Hollywood filmmaking.

Josh Brolin was probably a weak choice to play the lead. He's not awful but just very unimpressive. Sharlto Copley, however, is terrible. Absolutely horrid. Yoo Ji-Tae was so good in the original film. He gave a sympathetic performance that actually made you feel for his character, even when you're being repulsed by his actions. In contrast, Copley is a completely unsympathetic foppish cartoon villain. To make matters worse, Samuel L. Jackson also appears in the movie in a villainous role and, of course, his huge personality makes Copley appear all the more underwhelming. The only real bright spot in the cast is Elizabeth Olsen, who continues to impress and is definitely headed for bigger things than this. Spike Lee's direction is workmanlike and uninspired. The less said about it the better. Yes it's a poor remake but, more importantly, it's a poor film altogether.