Genre Debate: Would you consider Oldboy a "horror" movie?
 

Topic is coming from a discussion forming in the The Official HDC Asian Top 100 Compilation thread.

Since Oldboy is one of my favorite movies of all time and has come up in conversation time and time again on this (horror) forum, I think it's worthy of a debate:

Would you consider Oldboy a "horror" movie?

Why, or why not?

No.

Because it's not a horror movie.

Personally, I consider Oldboy a horror movie, and this is why:

I think that Oldboy most certainly qualifies as horror. With Oldboy, Park is exploring Gothic Horror (Dickensian horror) to its extremities. It's horrifying. It's pulp. And it's iconic. It's the struggle of the human condition against itself and against all odds. And there are certain twists in the film that are honestly horrifying. Oldboy has classic gothic horror themes that make the movie more than just another Asian action flick.

How is it not horror and how would you classify it?

As an action/suspense movie like many other revenge movies, such as "A bittersweet life" and "Death Sentence".



Just because you like it and you're a horror nut doesn't make it more of a horror movie.

See, that argument I can understand. It's a bit more coherent and intelligent than just saying, "Because it's not a horror movie" or "Your argument stinks."


Look at my argument. It's not just about enjoying horror and enjoying this movie. It's a well-articulated point that Park draws from Romantic Gothic horror themes and that could very well place him in the horror genre.

If you agree with it fine. You obviously don't, and that' fine too.

But don't insult my intelligence, asshole.

Go die in a fire.

I don't agree.

And i find your argument overly analyzed to the point of snobbish.

If you'd come up with the same heartfelt arguments about Visitor Q i would tend to agree with you, coz that movie is, to me, much more in between genres. But Oldboy... As much as i love that movie i'd still have to say it would never become horror in my book.


Vote Angra!

no





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I think the problem with Oldboy is that it's more "Pulp" than it is "horror" I suppose - And "Pulp" can really be a sub-genre of Mystery, Thriller, Action, and Horror genres. Though, again, I would argue that its themes make it more horror.

Re: Visitor Q

I would absolutely make a similar argument for Visitor Q: I feel as though Visitor Q is testing its audience more than Oldboy or any of the Vengeance Trilogy; I think that it's seeking out to define what horror truly is; in Visitor Q, the audience is faced with an array of human atrocities from
rape and incest to different levels of violence (from the harsh beating of the mother to the more comical kung-fu-like violence that you see in their backyard. It's very much like Blue Velvet in that the viewer is implicated in these atrocities.

Also - I think it's easier to classify Visitor Q as horror; Blue Velvet is classified as horror all the time and I think that Visitor Q is in that same vein.

No.


See, that line of thinking contradicts itself. Because there exists a line between horrifying and horror, IMO.

A big part of the plots in The Godfather and On The Waterfront are horrifying. Even Platoon and Taxi Driver have a lot of horrifying stuff which take things to the extreme.

What about Full Metal Jacket? or 2001 when HAL takes over? American History X?

Even the incest angle, in many of its knowing and unknowing variations, has been explored before in other movies too.

Chinatown? The Manchurian Candidate? Dangerous Liaisons/Cruel Intentions?

Like Doc said, Oldboy is a curious blend - touching upon many genres, but the subject matter, which matters in the end, is "a revenge thriller". Shocking, yes, impactful, surely, hard-hitting and brutal, most certainly...but horror? Nope.

it definately falls under the exploitation umbrella which is always talked about here...

i've never seen a horror forum where films like oldboy werent discussed because they arent horror ...

the list is definately going to have to include a broader range that will have to include exploitation because like Zwoti said - you're going to be hard pressed to come up with a list of 100 GOOD asian strictly horror - in the most rigid sense - films

Here's food for thought. My DVDAficionado account lists Oldboy as a Suspense/Thriller.

Select others in my collection listed under the same category:
Fight Club
From Hell
The Jacket
Open Water
Raising Cain
Red Dragon
Unbreakable

Regardless of taste (sigh all you want about Red Dragon) I think those are interesting choices to think about when considering where Oldboy really belongs.

My opinion regarding the issue I said before.....

Plus I like to add.....

Old Boy is as much a horror film as Audition or Battle Royale. The main character Dae-su goes through so many horrendous and tragic moments that he becomes the ultimate victim. He's a man who is finally freed from his incredibly long captivity, only to discover that he's still a prisoner, and one marked for more torment than any man deserves to undergo. Old Boy could...and would...become just another revenge flick if it went like "wrongly accused man gets out of 'prison' and seeks revenge on his captors", the difference between who fucked up whose life more...captive or captor...becomes rather blurred. The revenge does come in Old Boy, but by the time it does, it clearly becomes an afterthought, and the common taste of revenge becomes bitter and sour because Dae-su discovers that revenge won't give him back those fifteen years...can't give him back his daughter and wife...and won't change the fact that he is, in essence, may not a very good person.
This film can disturb the living hell out of any new viewers for many years with its themes of murder, rape, revenge, incest, and more. Old Boy is challenging, absorbing, disturbing, and ultimately gratifying a "true shocking horror" film.

Would you classify Oldboy as an exploitation movie?

How??

Roshiq - I think that you've articulated where perhaps I could not. Very well said!!



Not necessarily a contradiction. See, I would consider that, in comparison to, say The Godfather, there are more classically gothic horror themes in Oldboy than in The Godfather; this is where I think that the Angra Conglomerate are making a slippery slope argument. (The only reason why I haven't addressed On The Waterfront is that it's among one of the many "classic" movies that I NEED to see. :o )

Re: Full Metal Jacket and 2001; I would DEFINITELY consider them within the horror genre (Full Metal Jacket especially; I find the first 1/2 of it to be absolutely chilling). 2001 has too many overall sci-fi themes, though, that I would classify it more as scifi...

Which brings me to what I think most of our issue is... So movies like Oldboy (or any of the above - Full Betal and 2001 especially) have elements of quite a few genres; as I have mentioned - Drama, Action, Pulp, Thriller, Horror, etc; I think what it comes down to is the elements of the movie that speak to you most. Personally, for me, the horror themes in Oldboy stood out more than any of its other sub-genre elements. Honestly, though, I can see why other people would classify it as "action/revenge," etc. It's just that the human horror stuck with me more than anything else - The twists, the turns, the extremes that a human would go to - Is horrifying.

Thanks Flayed, seeing what the masses think can actually help when trying to stuff something into a genre. I looked it up on Amazon and...

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,949 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#1 in Movies & TV > Horror > Asian Horror
#2 in Movies & TV > Horror > J-Horror
#2 in Movies & TV > Art House & International > By Original Language > Korean

I say yes.
I typically call it a Thriller and when i think of the thriller genera i think of a slightly more realistic horror movie.

Oldboy was pitched to me as an action film, and my kneejerk reaction upon watching it was that it was pychological horror. I never for a second considered Oldboy a thriller. Of course if someone explained the premise to me I'd say "Oh it sounds like a good thriller", but it doesn't dwell on those elements.

It's constructed around the breaking down of a man through violence and manipulation, we are less focused on finding answers, less focused on a "thrilling discovery" and more on the violent and disturbing process that the protagonist carries out his search with.

It has mystery certainly, the mystery here is only used to drive the plot, thematically the entire film is about destroying a man completely.

Looking at say the examply of 2001, the idea of a computer siezing control is a horrific one, but the themes design is one of a thriller. "How can we beat it? What do we need to do to beat it?" This develops the tensions it is less about being trapped on a ship under computer control, which would be the horrific elements.

The climax of the film is hinged on the horrific, not the thrill of ending the search, not some large set piece battle, but the brutal horror of how corrupted and destroyed the lead had become.

In the end, I truly hate genre classification its a social thing designed for simplicity of description, but if I had to I can't think of a more appriopriate genre then horror for Oldboy.

I have to say no, for the same reasons that both sides have argued. Oldboy has too many other elements from other genres to classify it as just one. It's a suspenseful mystery, with murder and revenge, it's a twisted love story that pushes the will of one man. It was a great movie, that IMO, was more than a horror movie.

of course - the theme , the violence ...

the hammer scene alone

All I know is this is the most overrated film I have ever seen......

Eh?


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