Film / Oldboy (2013)

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Oldboy is a 2013 thriller film directed by Spike Lee, and a remake of the famed South Korean film from 2003, itself loosely based on the Japanese manga series of the same name. The film stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Michael Imperioli, Samuel L. Jackson, Pom Klementieff, and Rami Malek.

It follows alcoholic advertising executive Joe Doucett (Brolin) as he is kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, Joe embarks upon an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his punishment.

The trailer can be seen here (NSFW)👁 Image
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Tropes featured in this film:

• The '90s: The film's opening showing Joe being kidnapped and taken prisoner set in 1993 as well as flashbacks to his former home life in the 1990s.
• Turn of the Millennium: The film was made in 2013, with Joe's 20 years in prison captivity taking place starting from 1993 all through to the 2000s and the 2010s before his release in the present day.
• The New '10s: The film's present day setting takes place in the 2010s with Joe being released from prison in 2013 after 20 years.
• Adaptational Location Change: As with the original 2003 film, the remake moves the setting from Japan to the United States.
• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed with the Big Bad. The lengths both Woo-jin and Adrian go to in order to hurt the protagonist are largely the same, but the difference in motivations make Adrian less sympathetic. The men are both angry at the protagonist gossiping about their sister, but Oh Dae-su simply witnessed something that creeped him out whilst Joe witnessed a horrible criminal act (Adrian's father having sex with his own daughter). Neither man is justified in what they did, but Woo-jin avenging his innocent sister's suicide adds a sympathetic dimension to him while Adrian's motive is partially to avenge his father, who killed his family and molested both his children, which just further shows how twisted he is.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the original, the protagonist's confrontation with the villain's bodyguard ends with the bodyguard about to kill the protagonist, only for the villain to kill the bodyguard. In this film, the protagonist kills the bodyguard himself after a fairly brief fight.
• After-Action Patch-Up: In the hotel, Marie helps Joe change the bandages to his back wounds, leading to a tender moment between the two.
• Big "NO!": Joe screams these after Adrian reveals that he tricked Joe into sleeping with his own daughter.
• Bittersweet Ending: Adrian succeeds in his plan to make Joe unknowingly have sex with his own daughter Marie, and a horrified Joe writes Marie a letter saying they can never see each other again, which Joe ensures by using some of the diamonds Adrian gave him to pay Chaney to return him to the captivity of the hotel room, allowing Chaney to continue his kidnapping scheme untouched. On the other hand, Adrian is dead and his rampage has finally stopped, and Joe and Marie not seeing each other again is presented as the best thing to do for the situation, especially for her so as to allow her to live a normal life, plus Joe actually leaves most of the diamonds to her. This is in stark contrast with how in the original Oh Dae-su got himself hypnotized to erase the truth of Mi-do being his daughter from his memory so that he can continue having a romantic relationship with her, and even then the final shot of that film implied that the memory wipe actually didn't work.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Than the Korean movie, with Gorn being favored over Gory Discretion Shot. For example, the implied and humorous hammer kill from the original has been replaced with a hammer-claw to the face.
• Bodyguard Babes: Adrian's bodyguard is an attractive woman. He seems to be aware of it, too, as it's implied that they are in a relationship.
• Break the Haughty: What is done to Joe by film's end.
• Breaking Old Trends: This is the first Spike Lee film to not be marketed as "A Spike Lee Joint," instead being marketed as "A Spike Lee Film."
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Joe against the students on the football field.
• Dark Action Girl: Adrian's bodyguard is a woman.
• Darker and Edgier: The original film had several moments of Black Comedy and downright surreal sequences, while this film treats things much more seriously and feels more like a thriller. Subverted with the ending, which gives the film a somewhat happier and less ambiguous outcome.
• Dragon Lady: Adrian's bodyguard is a tall woman wearing a Chinese gown who tends to manhandle Joe whenever she and Adrian encounter him.
• Driven to Suicide: Adrian ends up committing suicide after completing his plan.
• Evil Is Hammy: Adrian wouldn't be out of place in a James Bond movie.
• Enigmatic Minion: Adrian's bodyguard is an silent, emotionless Asian woman who constantly dresses in black colors.
• Fan Disservice:
  • There are various shots of Joe being nude during his captivity. Given that he's disheveled and bruised during most of it it's certainly not intended to be sexy.
  • A close-up view of Marie's backside as she is tied up and laying on the couch, having been tortured and sexually harassed by The Stranger's men.
  • When Adrian allows his lover to take his shirt off, his entire upper body is covered with scars. It is not a pretty sight.
  • Once it's revealed that Joe and Marie are actually father and daughter, their sex scene becomes this.
• Fanservice:
  • Joe and Marie have sex in a hotel, and the viewer gets a good look at Elizabeth Olsen's boobs.
  • Pom Klementieff in barely there lingerie in a scene with Adrian.
• Foreign Remake: An American film of the original Korean.
• Foreshadowing: There are 3 letters in Marie's name that are M, A and I. This foreshadows and subtly hints that Marie Sebastian is Mia Doucett.
• Forced to Watch: As Adrian rebels in his sabotaging Joe's life, Joe continues to scream as he is forced to live with the knowledge that he had unwittingly been tricked into having sex with his own daughter Mia as he is being forced to watch footage of him and Marie having sex in the hotel.
• Gambit Roulette: Perhaps even more so than in the original film. Like Woo-jin, Adrian's plan depends entirely on the protagonist having a relationship with a specific woman, who turns out to be his own daughter, whom he hasn't seen since she was a baby. However, in the 2003 film, Woo-jin actually used hypnotism to ensure that Oh Dae-su and Mi-do (the Joe and Marie analogues in that film) would fall in love. No such thing is present on this film, meaning that Adrian more or less bet that Joe and Marie would have sex somehow.
• Gender Flip: The bodyguard of Adrian's counterpart in the original Korean film was a man; here, she's a woman.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Joe, when he finds out that Marie is his daughter. He lets out an anguished scream and is left a blubbering and incoherent mess.
• Heroic BSoD: When Joe realizes he's been manipulated into sleeping with his own daughter, he has one of these.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Marie's co-worker gives Joe one of these, noting Marie's Dark and Troubled Past and saying that she doesn't need more misery on her life.
• Kick the Dog: At one point during his captivity, Joe catches and befriends a mouse. Later, after the mouse has given birth to a litter, it is killed and served to Joe as a meal.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Adrian is very wealthy and has high-class tastes.
• Meaningful Name: Joe Doucett strikes the ear in much the same way as Oh Dae-su. Sadly, such a direct translation removes any potential for the double-meaning that Oh Dae-su's name held. Namely, that Oh Dae-su was named after Oedipus, the mythical character who unknowingly slept with his own mother, except here, Joe Doucett/Oh Dae-su unknowingly slept with his own daughter.
• Mook Chivalry: When Joe fights his way out of the abandoned factory after interrogating Chaney. Unlike the original, the fight does not take place in a narrow hallway.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When Joe Doucett goes into a Chinese restaurant, trying to find the source of the dumplings he ate for 20 years, the camera lingers on an octopus in a fish tank. This is a nod to the original and the famous scene where Oh Dae-su eats a live octopus.
  • Joe interacts with a woman wearing angel wings. This is a reference to Oh Dae-su's first scene, where he drunkenly puts on angel wings he bought for his daughter.
  • The severed tongue is a reference to Oh Dae-su cutting off his tongue.
• The Oner: The "hallway" fight is again mostly filmed in one take, though it's less two-dimensional this time.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Joe's reaction after he sees footage revealing that Marie is actually his daughter Mia and he already had sex with her before finding out.
• Nonconsensual Pornography: Earlier in the film Adrian watches from his surveillance cameras as Joe and Marie have sex in the motel. Later, as Adrian is being violently interrogated by Joe over the location of his missing daughter Mia, Adrian maliciously reveals that he videotaped Joe and Marie having sex in the motel and uses the footage against Joe to guilt-trip him. Not helping during this reveal is that Adrian tells Joe that Joe's girlfriend Marie is actually his daughter Mia and he had just tricked Joe into committing incest. Joe is horrified nonetheless.
• Paper Tiger: Adrian's bodyguard gives off a tough demeanor and a confrontation with Joe is built-up through the film. When they finally face off in the climax, she only manages to get a couple of licks on Joe before he slashes her throat and kills her.
• Pet the Dog: Joe befriends a mouse he finds in his bathroom and makes a pet of it, growing quite attached to it, showing that while he was/is an odious and thoughtless person, he is not truly evil.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Joe stops drinking alcohol (though not really of his own volition), exercises and practices fighting while being held captive. He's in much better shape 20 years later.
• Product Placement: There are several shots of iPhones and MacBooks, Chucky teaches Joe how to use Google, and Marie uses Shazam to identify a ringtone.
• Rage Against the Reflection: Subverted. Joe smashes the mirror because he wants to cut his wrists with the broken glass of it during his 20 years of solitude in captivity.
• Screaming at Squick: Joe can't stop screaming once Adrian plays him the footage of his daughter Mia who grew up to become his girlfriend Marie Sebastian, followed by footage of the two having sex in the hotel and Joe realizing what he has done after he puts two and two together.
• Shirtless Scene: In the hotel, Joe takes off his shirt so that Marie can change the bandages to his back wounds. Marie also goes topless as her towel falls off while she is kissing Joe.
• Shout-Out:
  • Spike Lee's brother Cinqué Lee plays a bellboy in this movie just as he did in the Jim Jarmusch film Mystery Train.
  • Adrian's (Sharlto Copley) last line, "The rest is silence" are the titular character's last words before he dies in Shakespeare's Hamlet, a play that also features revenge, suicide, a spate of murders, a dysfunctional "royal family," and an incestuous relationship.
  • The reveal of the love interest, Marie, being the daughter is a similar plot point to that of The Samaritan (2012). Samuel L. Jackson starred in both movies.
  • There are various references to the original Korean film Oldboy (2003):
    • When Joe Doucett goes to buy his daughter a birthday present, the girl working on the stall is wearing angel wings. This is a nod to the original film, where Oh Dae-Su buys angel wings for his daughter.
    • At one point, Joe looks at an octopus swimming in a tank at a restaurant and walks away, a nod to the infamous scene of Oh Dae-Su eating a live octopus from the original film.
    • Elizabeth Olsen's character has an octopus tattoo on her right arm, another nod to the infamous octopus scene in the original.
    • Near the end of this movie, Joe receives a present: Chucky's tongue. This is a nod to the original film, wherein the main character cut his own tongue off.
• Slashed Throat: In the climax, Joe disposes Adrian's bodyguard by slashing her throat.
• Surprise Incest: Marie and Joe end up having sex in a hotel — before Adrian eventually reveals to Joe that Marie is actually Mia, Joe's daughter, and not just an unrelated woman who he happened to meet.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Joe sometimes does this, such as the scene where he gets drunk and shouts, "I'm drunk!"
• Token Romance: Subverted in the case of Joe and Marie; their attraction (and subsequent sex scene) comes off as particularly shoehorned, but as it turns out it's part of the villain's revenge scheme.
• Took a Level in Badass: Joe gets much tougher after training himself over 20 years in the hotel room.
• Wham Line:
  • At the end, when Joe believes he is reunited with his daughter Mia, Adrian says this:
  Adrian Pryce: Thank you, Ashley. You can go.
  Joe Doucett: What? No. No. Mia. Mia! Mia!
  Adrian Pryce: Oh, Joseph. Joseph, that is not your daughter. Ashley is a musician and very well paid actress that I've had in my employ since she was 10 years old.
  • As Joe punches Adrian demanding the truth about his long-lost daughter's whereabouts, Adrian reveals something far more sinister to him:
  Joe Doucett: Enough with the games! You tell me where she is! You tell me!
  Adrian Pryce: Answer the question you never asked. Why did I let you go?
  Joe Doucett: (punching him) You tell me! You tell me!
  Adrian Pryce: You know the answer, Joseph. In your heart of hearts, you know. The plain and simple truth. (plays footage showing that his daughter Mia grew up to become his girlfriend Marie Sebastian) It took a while... to change her name. Her records... to find the right parents. An insensitive mother, a loving father taken from her too soon. (footage shows Joe and Mia having sex) It took 20 years to create her. A sensitive, caring woman, eager to help those in need because she herself had overcome such a troubled past. The kind of woman who couldn't help but fall in love with a man like you, Joseph Doucett.
• Wham Shot:
  • While not played up as one, the reveal that Chaney has got a dozen other people imprisoned in the same overly elaborate fashion is going to hit some people.
  • After Adrian reveals that the "Mia" Joe has seen through the film was actually an actress at his employ, he shows Joe how the actual Mia grew up, and as the pictures progress and she ages up, they reveal that the grown-up Mia is actually Marie, the woman Joe ended up sleeping with.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: After droppin' a hundred punks and finally getting that knife out of his back, Joe barely stumbles out of Chaney's place... and is immediately picked up by Adrian's people.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Joe believes he is finally reunited with his daughter Mia in The end. Then Adrian pulls the rug out under him by revealing that "Mia" is actually a paid actress named Ashley and the real Mia is actually Marie Sebastian.