10 Movie Characters Whose Fates Were Left Frustratingly Unresolved

This ending.... this film..... brutal and depressing don't even begin to cover it. MAJOR SPOILERS of course.

As well as being a truly fantastic movie, Oldboy is famous for its shocking twist ending where we learn that Oh Dae-su, after being locked in a room for 15 years, has unknowingly started a romantic and sexual relationship with his own daughter whom he hadn't seen since she was an infant.

When he learns this, he completely loses his mind, begging at the feet of his tormentor, and cuts out his own tongue with a pair of scissors. You can't not wince watching this scene. However, the truly soul destroying scene is saved for the movie's epilogue.

Oh Dae-su has asked a hypnotist to erase the memory of Mi-do being his daughter (she is also unaware of this fact). An unknown amount of time passes, and Mi-do finds him laying in the snow. The two embrace, he tells her he loves her. Oh Dae-su smiles before his facial expression turns into one of anguish.

Now, hypnosis had been used previously in the movie, and the audience is told that at best, it works as a means of extreme suggestion, not total memory change. For goodness sake, we don't even know if this hypnotist appearing in this random location was ever really there.

The ending is brutal any way you think of it. If the hypnotist was never there, this is a manifestation of Oh Dae-su trying any way possible to desperately rationalise this relationship with his daughter and to continue. If she did truly hypnotise him, then he continues this relationship with his daughter, whilst both are in blissful ignorance. This is the once instance where the audience being left in the dark and perhaps frustrated is a good thing. The truth might just be too much to handle.

Oldboy, you broke people.