“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.”
I still can’t comprehend what I just watched. On a quiet Friday evening, after some serious nagging from my friend, I finally sat down to watch Oldboy. And boy, did it deliver- it left me stunned. Calling it cruel would be understatement. It’s beautiful and melancholic,exploring deep themes of love, taboo, revenge and loneliness.
This quote perfectly captures the essence of the film. The cruel world laughs with you, enjoys highs of your life but once you descend into sadness and sorrow, no one shares that pain with you. You are left alone grasping at the loneliness within.Oldboy isn’t your average run-of-the-mill revenge story- its haunting exploration of deep isolation and scars that come with it and fragile human need for connection.
A Beautiful and Brutal Story
At first oldboy seems like ordinary story about Oh Dae-su, a man who’s kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years in a private cell. He doesn’t know who locked him up or why. When he’s suddenly released, the real horror begins—not physical confinement this time, but a psychological labyrinth of revenge, manipulation, and buried secrets.
The plot unravels like a twisted puzzle. Every time I thought I understood where it was going, the story pulled the rug out from under me. It’s paced perfectly—rarely dragging, always building toward something more emotionally wrenching.
What hooked me wasn’t just the mystery of who was behind it all, but why. And when that why was finally revealed… it left me breathless, horrified, and in awe of the storytelling
The Dark Themes That Stayed With Me
This isn’t just a film about revenge— it’s a film about what revenge does to one soul. It’s about the wounds we inflict and the ones we carry, even unknowingly.
It’s hard to talk about the themes of Oldboy without diving into spoilers, but I’ll say this: it explores love, grief, and vengeance in forms I’ve never seen before—and maybe never want to see again.
The loneliness in this film isn’t the kind you get from being alone in a room. It’s the kind that comes from being unseen, misunderstood, or consumed by guilt. It made me think about the things we bury just to keep moving, and what happens when those things come clawing back.
“Be it rain of sand or a rock, in water they sink the same.”
This line stayed with me—because in the world of Oldboy, even a seemingly innocent mistake can spiral into devastation. The weight of an action isn’t always measured by intent, but by its consequences. And once the damage is done, there’s no telling what it might pull down with it.
It dares to touch subjects that feel radioactive. And I still don’t know how to talk about them. But maybe that’s the point.
Visuals and Performances That Speak Volumes
Park Chan-wook doesn’t just direct—he paints, he sculpts. The film is saturated with symbolic colors—deep reds, sickly greens, sterile whites.
The famous hallway hammer scene gets mentioned a lot, and yes—it’s a masterpiece. Oh Dae-su isn’t a superhero; he stumbles, bleeds, and barely survives. That’s what Oldboy does best: it strips its characters of cinematic glamour and exposes them as painfully human.
And Choi Min-sik… I don’t have enough superlatives for his performance. He doesn’t act Oh Dae-su—he becomes him. From drunken fool to vengeful detective to shattered soul, his transformation is believable and devastating. You see the trauma in his eyes, the madness in his laughter, the desperation in his silence.
Why Oldboy Still Haunts Me
I finished the film, turned off my laptop, and stared at the glow from my phone screen. Nothing in my room had changed. The fan still hummed. My tea had gone cold. But I felt like something inside me had been rearranged.
The antagonist isn’t just evil. He’s hurt. And that hurt spreads like a virus. Oldboy makes you ask: who’s really being punished, and who’s still imprisoned?
Sometimes, I wonder if I wish I hadn’t watched it. But then I think—no. I needed to. Because some stories aren’t meant to comfort. Some are meant to pull the ground out from under you.
Final Thoughts
And then there’s the ending—ambiguous, tragic, poetic. It left me unsettled, unsure whether to cry, applaud, or just sit in silence. The film doesn’t give you answers. It just leaves you with a question: What is worse— forgetting, or remembering?
Oldboy isn’t something you casually recommend. It’s not an easy watch. It’s brutal, unsettling, and emotionally raw. But if you’re the kind of person who seeks out stories that do something to you—that leave a mark—it might be one of the most unforgettable experiences you ever have.
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone.”
Maybe that’s why I’m writing this. Because maybe if I share how it felt, I won’t be weeping alone.
Have you watched Oldboy? If so, what stayed with you the most? And if not… would you dare?