[Old boy] The shocking glance is not just a moment of shock

It feels like "Old Boy" is a peculiar movie, maybe it's because I haven't seen such an unconventional movie in too long. It is a story about revenge, but different from the ridicule and humor in "The Princess's Revenge", the story of "Old Boy" was shrouded in strong suspense from the beginning, and it must be fascinating to find out. From this point of view, the director Park Chan-wook has done a very good job, because he attracted me for nearly two hours without daring to leave the screen half an inch, for fear of missing a bit of excitement because of missing a key place. From the beginning of Wu Daxiu's inexplicable imprisonment, the distorted mentality of hysteria in prison, and then the plot to escape 15 years later. I immediately think of "The Shawshank's Redemption", which is also a great prison escape. Does this film take the opportunity to pay tribute to it? But the sharp camera switch, the skilful narration, the weird prison atmosphere, until he muttered repeatedly that he could leave here in one month, and then the hypnotist appeared, and he woke up lying in a box , When there is a green grassland around. I was puzzled, but I also immediately believed it. It is not as simple as imagined, it is far more than that. After escaping from prison, Wu Daxiu's personality has undergone earth-shaking changes. He became violent, calm, and distrusted of anyone. At the same time, 15 years of prison fighting training also showed his power in a fight. However, like the audience, he has a question that cannot be answered: how did he come out, who let him out, and what did he let him out for? The director always uses this bait to induce the audience, and he also uses a special way to show the truth. This kind of disclosure is not the kind of trembling, meticulous, and meticulous consideration for the audience from time to time, arranging a plot from time to time to avoid being overwhelmed, but being like a god with the most confident lens language and his own strong style. Squandering his talents, every shot that I didn't care about seemed so natural, so peculiar, and so full of some kind of information. The director sneered and watched us as the audience manipulated in his hands or laughed or surprised or cried or angered. This is the real control of everything. The more I look back, this feeling gets stronger and stronger. Revenge, the man's only option after 15 years of imprisonment for no reason. Incest is the root cause of this tragedy. Different from other directors' performance methods, Park Chan-wook has brought the vengeful violence into a state of madness, but it is not like most directors who use excessive sensuality to express incest. He deliberately suppressed the distraction of these plots on the theme, and the few erotic dramas are also reasonable and reasonable. The most amazing thing is that in the film Wu Daxiu suddenly recalled everything that happened when he was a child, a fragment of general memories. The protagonist will not appear in it, but the director arranges the show and uses his eyes to describe the past. The switching of shots, the flashback of characters, and the change of scenes all drive the memory of the show to be restored step by step. A kind of hazy illusion but not abrupt, perfectly reaching the trance and awakening state of memory recovery. This performance is the first time I have seen it. It really surprised me. Finally, when the perverse and sinister Li Youzhen played by Liu Zhitai slowly told the truth in a calm and chilling language, Wu Daxiu was completely crazy, and his world collapsed because of this trap. He is taking revenge, but he doesn't want his revenge to be a link in other people's revenge plan. He revealed a secret because he saw an incestuous relationship. He didn't want to have an incest with his daughter 15 years later because of this secret! The price for Li Youzhen's plotting of this conspiracy was to use all inhuman means to torture Wu Daxiu spiritually with the cruelest reality. He has taken this as the full meaning of his life, in other words, he has already discarded the soul of a normal person. The tragedy caused by falling in love with his sister was actually himself, but the shadow of his sister's death had already destroyed his will. He did not dare and did not want to admit his inescapable self-blame. With such a mentality, he can only rely on his own pain to be transferred to Wu Daxiu who leaked the secret as a reason for his survival. So when he completed all his plans, it is not difficult to understand that he shot himself. He died after his sister committed suicide. What has supported physical activity these years is just a heart of revenge. One thing I have to mention here is Cui Minzhi’s performance into the realm of God. From the sluggish, somewhat crazy, terrifying face in the first shot, he has already conquered me. The best performance is still the unstoppable madness, anger, powerlessness, fear, grief, begging, trembling that appeared after the last learned the truth. All emotions are mixed together, but they are written in him in layers. Distorted face. His last psychological line of defense was completely breached, and he could make his daughter Mei Tao kneel to beg for mercy, lick other people's shoes, and learn how to barking because of the last step - not knowing the truth. Faced with this fact, what is dignity!! What makes me heartache the most is his expression when he called Mei Tao. He wanted to caress but couldn’t touch it. He wanted to protect but couldn’t do anything. Her life was connected to the unopened box, and that box was manipulated. In the hands of the man who begged before him. At that moment, he could only intermittently tell her not to be afraid with a trembling voice, but even this sentence was so weak. The film once appeared twice: "You laugh, the whole world laughs with you; you cry, only you are crying." The first time he appeared when Wu Daxiu was just released from prison, he was still grim. Full of calmness. The second time it appeared when he found that terrible fact when he flipped through the album. With the appearance of this line of words, his face was filled with astonishment and fear. This kind of contrast is Li Youzhen's ridicule of him, mocking his initial ignorance, mocking his self-righteous indulgence, and even mocking his weakness and paleness at this time. And this kind of ridicule, do you know that it is a kind of tingling? It turns tears into child's play and nightmares into reality. "Old Boy" was adapted from a Japanese manga, which I learned by accident after watching the film, which also gave me a lot of confusion. It is normal for such extreme stories to come from Japan. Although Park Chan-wook used his superb director skills and the unique warmth of Korea to package this story full of perversion and criticism, there are still several scenes in the film that I personally think that female audiences may not be able to bear it (in fact, I can't accept it) . For example, the raw swallow jellyfish at the beginning, the tooth extraction in the middle and the tongue cut at the end are full of Japanese cult film style. But these shots are more reasonable if they combine the protagonist's distorted personality and the long-term isolation from reality. Incest, hypnosis, revenge, violence, action, suspense, cult film style, surrealism, thinking on transformation, and discussion on human nature. A film that can perfectly combine these complex factors together does not make people feel cluttered but makes people feel fresh and profound. Is there a reason not to watch it? Of course, I was more than that touched, but also the touch of warmth at the last moment. The director did not make human beings feel that life is meaningless like Kubrick did. He showed us a fairly soft ending. Wu Daxiu told us: Even if I am a beast, don't I have the right to live? The evil half of him has completed its only 70 steps in the illusion, and what is left after that is not only forgotten, but returned. Abandoning all the hatred and guilt, he finally returned to the calm mood of love. "I love you, uncle!" In this soft voice, I actually saw the trace of a fairy tale after such a tragic voice: a pair of mutually dependent backs, watching the sunset on the mountain side in the falling snow...

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