10 Film Heroes Who Totally Failed In Their Quest
8. Oh Dae-Su - Oldboy
The Quest
Simply, get revenge on the sick bastards who imprisoned him inside a sealed hotel room for 15 years.
What Happens?
Throughout Chan-wook Park's insane thriller, protagonist Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik) is taunted by his unseen former captor, all while embarking on a romantic relationship with a young woman, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung).
Dae-Su eventually comes to learn that the man responsible is Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), who attended the same high school as Dae-Su, and who Dae-Su caught having sex with his own sister.
Dae-Su telling others about this incident caused Woo-jin's sister to commit suicide, prompting Woo-jin to hatch a supremely f***ed up, slow-burn revenge plan, the horrifying truth of which Dae-Su only learns at the end of the film.
Why Did He Fail?
Dae-Su discovers that Mi-do is in fact his own daughter, and in addition to having unknowingly stuck it to her for most of the movie, this situation was masterfully manipulated by Woo-jin.
He hypnotised Dae-Su into meeting and falling in love with Mi-do, forcing Dae-Su to feel the same pain of incest that he did.
If that's not enough of a fail - and it really, really is - Dae-Su doesn't even get to kill Woo-jin in revenge, as he shoots himself in the head mere moments after dropping the incestuous truth-bomb.
Though our "hero" attempts to hypnotise himself once more in order to forget that Mi-do is his daughter, the final scene implies that it probably didn't work, and he's destined to forever be haunted by the knowledge that he's been banging his own child.
The bad guy may have ended up dead, but if this isn't the definition of the villain completely and utterly owning the "good guy", what is?