History Film / Oldboy2003

* AntiHero: After his imprisonment, Dae-su suffers from some severe trust issues, and is ''brutal'' towards his enemies. One of the first things he does after 'escaping' is casually [[InfoDump ranting what happened to him for the last few years]] to a suicidal man, then walking off when the man tries to tell his own backstory, which predictably leads to the man's suicide. Later, he casually steals some sunglasses from a random woman, deliberately picks a fight with random teenagers, and tries to assault the ''woman giving him shelter.'' He's still overall a sympathetic character, however, which makes what happens to him all the worse.

* AntiHero: After his imprisonment, Dae-su suffers from some severe trust issues, and is ''brutal'' towards his enemies. He's still overall a sympathetic character, however, which makes what happens to him all the worse.

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Woo-jin gets his revenge, though he shoots himself in the head almost immediately afterwards. [[DownerEnding Nobody wins, really.]]]]

* AdaptationNameChange: Since the film is set in South Korea instead of Japan, every character's name is changed to sound more Korean (with the exception of the Japanese Mi-do).

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: [[spoiler:Oh Dae-su cuts out his own tongue to ensure he can never let Mi-do know that she is his daughter.]]

* FaintsInShock: Mi-do faints when she sees [[spoiler:Mr. Park's]] [[FingerInTheMail severed hand in the box]].

* FrameUp: Oh Dae-su is framed for the murder of his wife by a mysterious party. [[spoiler: It turns that the one responsible for the murder was Lee Woo-jin.]]
* GambitRoulette: [[spoiler: Woo-jin's plan. In fact, he spends part of the final act genuinely annoyed that it went so well, chiding Dae-su for walking right into an obvious trap by leaving Mi-do with his previous captor Park.]]
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Dae-su is left completely broken by spending fifteen years locked inside a small hotel room.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation:
** Dae-su after learning he has been framed for the murder of his wife.
** And when he finds out that [[spoiler:Mi-do is his daughter]].

* IdentityAmnesia: [[spoiler: Mi-do forgot everything about her old life due to hypnotic suggestion from Woo-jin. She doesn't even remember that Dae-su is actually her father.]]

* IncestantAdmirer: [[spoiler: After learning the horrid truth that his lover Mi-do is his long-lost daughter, Dae-su gets his memory of the revelation wiped just so he can move on and continue to happily date his child (perhaps). Dae-su knew the truth, but Mi-do never finds out.]]

* {{Jerkass}}: It's made clear Dae-su wasn't a swell guy even ''before'' his lockup. We're introduced to him absolutely sauced and goading the cops into repeatedly beating him up when the cops are just trying to do their jobs, and it's apparent that this isn't the first time he's made a drunken ass out of himself in public. He's a womanizer, too. In high school, Dae-su smoked, goofed around instead of studying, blew off teachers right to their faces, shamelessly hit on girls only to break their hearts, and also stalked said girls, which [[spoiler:is how he found out about Woo-jin's incest.]] He casually spreads a rumour that that winds up [[spoiler:ruining Woo-jin's life and making his sister commit suicide]] as easily as one breathes, and ''doesn't even remember [[spoiler:starting the rumour]]''.
* KarmaHoudini: Mr. Park makes it out alright in the end in spite of all the pain he inflicted on Dae-su due to his imprisonment. After getting his teeth yanked out, he simply visits a dentist and gets new ones, [[spoiler:and he consented to lose his hand to receive a bigger and better building so he can continue his criminal activities]]. It is, however, implied that [[spoiler:he's understandably not happy about losing the hand.]]

* MadeOfIron: Dae-su. The man spends years punching a wall until his joints and calluses make his hands into virtual knuckledusters, but that's the least of it. Stabbed, stomped on, and beaten with sticks, anything his assailants try, he'll just get up and continue pummeling his way through that hallway.

** To ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus'', including the scene [[spoiler:with the tongue]] and the [[spoiler:abuse of a sibling.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}:

* DressingToDie: [[spoiler:Woo-jin]] takes a hot shower and puts on his best suit before going into the lift to calmly commit suicide.

* ArcWords: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."

* LoveAtFirstSight: Invoked. Oh Dae-su and Mi-do fall in love with each other almost instantly - the film at first implies it's beacuse they're both [[LonersAreFreaks]] emotionally-scarred and desperately lonely, but it turns out [[spoiler:because they've been hypnotized to do so as part of the villain's plan.]]

* DropTheHammer: Dae-su's only weapon in the hallway fight is a claw hammer. Earlier, he also uses it to torture Mr. Park, the keeper of the prison.

* LoveAtFirstSight: Invoked. Oh Dae-su and Mi-do fall in love with each other almost instantly - the film at first implies it's beacuse they're both [[LonersAreFreaks emotionally-scarred and desperately lonely, but it turns out [[spoiler:because they've been hypnotized to do so as part of the villain's plan.]]

* CurbStompBattle: Dae-su vs. [[ElevatorActionSequence an elevator full of mooks.]] It's so incredibly one-sided that [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome we don't even get to see it happen]] -- Dae-su just smiles, and we cut immediately to him stepping out of the elevator over the unconscious or dead bodies of the goons he's just demolished. And this is ''after'' he just got through an entirely different, equally bruising brawl with a hallway full of guys, and still has a knife sticking out of his back [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction that he barely seems to notice.]]

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Mi-do is a happy-go-lucky eccentric sushi chef who handles the worst of Dae-su's behaviour - ranging from outbursts in public all the way up to ''attempted rape'' - with cheery breeziness and even offers to sleep with him casually and happily. As it turns out, [[spoiler:this is planned by Woo-jin: not only did Woo-jin isolate her and made her desperately lonely enough to want any kind of attachment, he also hypnotised and conditioned her into loving in love with Dae-su.]]

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: [[spoiler:Subverted. Mi-do appears to be one in the beginning, but it later turns out she was hypnotized into falling in love with Dae-su, just like Dae-su was with her.]]

* MeaninglessVillainVictory: [[spoiler:Woo-jin gets the revenge he sought for so long, only to realize that it won't bring his sister back, and now his life has no purpose. As the elevator descends, all he can do is morosely relieve his sister's suicide and her plea to let go before he puts his gun to his temple and kills himself.]]

* NeverMyFault: Woo-jin appears pathologically incapable of taking responsibility for the harm he himself causes. [[spoiler:Soo-ah's reputation was ruined because Oh Dae-su talked about her incestuous relationship -- and not because Woo-jin pushed her for sex without explicit consent. She became pregnant[[note]]which was quite likely ''not'' a fake pregnancy, as he claims[[/note]] "because of Dae-su's tongue" -- not because Woo-jin had unprotected sex with her. She committed suicide because of the rumors -- not because Woo-jin failed first to physically prevent it and then to provide adequate support to the suicidal.[[note]]And if that sounds too harsh on a high-schooler, then that's exactly why underage sex is such a social taboo.[[/note]] Dae-su was imprisoned for 15 years because "he talked too much" -- not because Woo-jin failed to find any reason to live other than misguided revenge. Joo-hwan had to die because ''Dae-su'' found the bug in his shoe -- not because Woo-jin snuck into Joo-hwan's workplace to eavesdrop on him and then failed to regulate his brotherly rage. FreudianExcuse or not, and no matter how deserving his victims are, Woo-jin is himself the root cause of all of his misfortunes, who, even in the end, chooses the easy way out rather than dealing with the fallout of his schemes.]]

''Oldboy'' is a 2003 South Korean action thriller film very loosely based on [[Manga/{{Oldboy}} the Japanese manga of the same name]]. It is the second and most well-known installment of director and co-writer [[Creator/ParkChanWook Park Chan-wook]]'s "Vengeance Trilogy", which begins with ''Film/SympathyForMrVengeance'' and ends with ''Film/SympathyForLadyVengeance''.