Where to watch Oldboy (2003)

Trivia & production notes

• The famous corridor fight scene required seventeen takes across three days to film and was shot as one uninterrupted take, with only the knife in Oh Dae-su's back added via computer effects.
• Four live octopuses were used to film the scene of Dae-su eating a raw octopus, as the squirming movement comes from postmortem nerve activity rather than the animal being alive.
• Actor Yoo Ji-tae reversed his decision to include full male frontal nudity in the film after the scenes had already been shot.
• Director Park Chan-wook stated he felt more sympathy for the octopuses used in the film than for the actor who had to eat them.
• The snowy final scene was filmed in New Zealand.
• Park Chan-wook deliberately crafted an ambiguous ending to generate discussion, leaving viewers to interpret questions about time passage, character motivations, and future relationships.
• Park Chan-wook named the protagonist Oh Dae-su to evoke Oedipus from Greek tragedy, while designing Woo-jin's yoga pose to mirror Apollo as a visual parallel to Sophocles' play.
• Roger Ebert gave Oldboy four out of four stars, praising it as a rare thriller where violent action makes a thematic statement rather than serving merely as entertainment.
• The film drew critical distinction from Korean viewers who centered the Oedipus Rex connection as a major theme, while English-language critics largely treated it as a minor element.
• Park Chan-wook cited Franz Kafka's influence in shaping the film's absurdity and surrealism, describing it as a portrayal of irrational human phenomena that resist logical explanation.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Oldboy (2003 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.