Oldboy 2003 vs Oldboy 2013 (Spoilers)

Oldboy 2003 vs Oldboy 2013



I'm going to be comparing the original Korean movie, Oldboy to the 2013 american remake of the film.

The lifetime gross of the original Oldboy reached an impressive $14,980,005 (Box office mojo), almost quintupling its original budget of and estimated $3,000,000 (IMDB), over time it has grown to become a cult classic around the world.
The movie has been nominated for and won countless awards in the time since its release, being praised for its acting, directing, lighting, music and cinematography. The film was received incredibly well by audiences who gave it a score of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes as well as critics reaching 80%.


The remake on the other hand bombed in the box office make a measly $4,861,022 (Box Office Mojo) after splashing out an estimated budget of $30,000,000 (IMDB). In comparison to the original Oldboy 2013 was received poorly by audiences and critics alike, scoring only 42% among critics and 32% from the audience.

Although the stories of these two movies are incredible similar, there are some differences that may have contributed to the originals success and/or the remakes downfall.

Plot
Directed by Chan-Wook Park, the plot of the 2003 Oldboy is a very dark, grim, twisted and violent one. The protagonist, Oh-Dae su is kidnapped and held hostage in a prison for 15 years, only to be inexplicably released from captivity, to discover why he was imprisoned and more importantly why he was set free. Along the way he meets Mido who he falls in love with.
After uncovering that the reason Woo-Jin Lee imprisoned him was because of the death of his sister who he was in an incestuous relationship with. Woo-Jin Lee blames Oh-Dae Su for her death, as he was the one who started the rumour of their relationship. As his final act of revenge he Woo-Jin Lee reveals that Mido is actually Oh-Dae Su's daughter

Directed by Spike Lee, the remake has a very similar story, the protagonist, Joe Doucett is imprisoned for 20 years, he escapes and meets Marie, who he falls in love with. The main difference between the 2013 remake and the 2003 original is that the antagonist is that for some reason it was decided that the back story for the original antagonist was not strange enough and instead replaced an incestuous brother, sister relationship, with one between father, son and daughter. After being discovered by Joe and him spreading the rumour throughout his school, Adrian's father attempts to murder his family before taking his own life, but Adrian survived, and began to plan his revenge on Joe for revealing the truth about his family.

Protagonists

Oh-Dae Su, the 2003 protagonist is quickly presented to us as a flawed man, a drunk, and not the best parent. This is all explained to us within a few minutes before he is kidnapped, we don't get a lot of time to connect to the character that he is before that. We then get much more time to get to know Oh-Dae Su as he grows as a character and battles for his sanity in his prison. Through voice overs we get a good insight as to what is going on in his mind and how that translates into the things he does. He is a character that has clearly made mistakes in his life, but never particularly wronged anyone to an extreme extent. Because of this, sympathy and empathy for this character comes very easily to the viewer.

Joe Doucett on the other hand is given much more time to be fleshed out earlier in the movie, and does not come across as a simple delinquent, instead he comes across as completely despicable, perverted, alcoholic, disrespectful, annoying and uncaring. Because of this even after trying to redeem himself its very hard to sympathise with this character. Especially when later in the movie we get an insight into his school life through flashbacks and how he was just as cruel as a teenager as he was as an adult.

Antagonists
Woo-Jin Lee is portrayed as a suave and cool bad guy that uses emotional and mental manipulation to toy with the protagonist. Although being an evil with a twisted sense of justice, Chan-Wook Park doesn't let us forget that, despite being cruel, he still is human, giving depth to his character, making his actions even more unsettling.

Adrian Pryce from the remake was portrayed quite differently. With a somewhat over the top English accent and a cold unexplored personality that makes him a fairly basic villain that we may have seen far too many times in cinema to find interesting. Copley's acting is somewhat over exaggerated making his character seem cartoon-like and it doesn't fit with Spike Lee's attempt to make a grittier, more realistic movie, than the previous one.

Cinematography
There's a lot to be said about the visual style created for the original Oldboy. The cinematography is unique, quirky and beautiful. The camera is rarely still and never fails to be interesting throughout the entire movie.

The most notable scene in the original is the iconic hallway fight scene which takes place in a single shot that lasts almost 3 minutes. Spike Lee created a similar fight in the remake in a shot lasting almost 2 minutes, he does a good job of the making same scene, while putting his own twist on the camera angles.

Although the cinematography in the new Oldboy is good it still doesn't live up to its predecessors incredibly well crafted shots.

Over all I think the remake of Oldboy was an unnecessary one. It brings nothing new to the table and although it makes a good stand alone movie, it fails to surpass or live up to the original, which it will never not be compared to, in almost every category. The movie is a remake of a movie that didn't need to be remade, because it still stands up 11 years later as a fantastic movie that would be incredibly hard to improve upon. The only reason you could possibly have to watch the remake instead of the original is that if you don't speak Korean and don't want to read subtitles, which is still a pretty poor reason at that.

All too often Hollywood remakes a foreign film loved by movie goers only to have the English speaking version fall short of everything the original was revered for. Some movies do not need to be remade, in my opinion, Oldboy is one of those movies.