5. Oldboy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPUEXu6GeRw Chan-wook Park's Oldboy is an immensely enjoyable thriller that represents some of the best that Korean cinema has to offer, and it's made all the more transfixing by its utterly beguiling third reel. The premise revolves around a man, Dae-su Oh, ending up trapped in a room for 15 years before being released, having been framed for his wife's murder in the mean-time, while his daughter has been sent to live with another family. Naturally, he's going to be keen for some vengeance when he gets out, but oh, what a cost that entails... Along the way, Dae-su Oh meets a young waitress and the two fall for each other, eventually having sex. However, this is all part of the villain's sick master plan; he has been secretly hypnotising Dae-su Oh to fall for her while he was still in captivity, and then the bombshell drops, that, yes, she is his daughter who had been sent away. After exacting his revenge, Dae-su Oh goes to the same hypnotist used to entrance him previously, and asks him to ensure that he forgets that this woman is his daughter so he can continue being in love with her. The final images of the film see him meeting up with her again, and a look of anguish makes it ambiguous as to whether the hypnosis actually worked. Pretty effed up, right?
Shaun Munro
Contributor
Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.
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