Two decades later, a Korean action landmark still hits like a hammer

It happened mere weeks before the COVID-19 lockdown, but it already feels like ancient history: When Bong Joon Ho’s biting class critique “Parasite” rode its critical wave all the way to a Best Picture Oscar in 2020, it was a watershed moment, not only for the international appeal of Korean movies but for all boundary-pushing films. Choi Min-sik in the movie “Oldboy.” “When ‘Oldboy’ got that award from Cannes, everyone said, ‘We finally made it,’” recalls Sangjoon Lee, a Korean-born professor and author of the book “Rediscovering Korean Cinema.” “Many people even cried.” Seoul-based American writer Darcy Paquet, author of “New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves”— which features a still from “Oldboy” on its cover — was on the Croisette that year and remembers the mixed response from festival attendees. “Some people were turned off by the violence or the octopi scene and felt ‘Oldboy’ was too much of a genre film for competition,” he says. “‘Oldboy’ provides an honest portrayal of mankind’s fundamental emotions and desires, and all of this was very much fiercely expressed,” says Park. “It was quite obvious that this was a film made in its own mold,” says Hamish McAlpine, founder of the now-defunct distribution label Tartan, responsible for bringing to Western film fans such Asian horror gems as Takashi Miike’s “Audition” and Hideo Nakata’s “Ringu.” “A lot of the scenes from it, not just the corridor fight, really stayed with us.” Tartan acquired “Oldboy” in November 2003, several months before Cannes, an obvious move for a company unafraid of “extreme” storytelling.