0:02

If they had told

0:04

me this podcast

0:07

was going to be 15 years

0:10

long, would it have

0:14

been easier

0:27

to endure? That's funny. Thank

0:29

you. This episode is going

0:31

to be 15 years long. I'm calling it right now. Yes,

0:34

we have to do the kind of experiential. People

0:37

love it when we do. We

0:40

met, remember, remember in the

0:42

prestige episode? We can check in

0:45

with this guest. When my twin subbed

0:47

in for a second. Oh yeah, I definitely

0:50

remember that. Well executed. Seven

0:52

years ago. We bring a hammer, which is

0:54

so disappointing.

0:55

We're trying all these things here. We're trying to get

0:57

an inception. We did podcasts in a podcast. 127 hours.

1:00

We were 127 hours long and that

1:02

worked out really well. And so I'm saying let's just

1:04

do

1:06

as long as we can get dumplings. Yes. Oh

1:08

yeah, right. We will have dumplings delivered every

1:10

day. That would be nice. Yeah.

1:13

No, we can check in 15 years later. That was

1:15

like Richard Linklater style. So what's that? Let

1:18

me do the math.

1:20

Oh, yeah. So we'll meet back here. Yeah. Or

1:23

like the Wet Hot American Summer. Right. Right.

1:26

I'm busy that morning, but afternoon I could do. come

1:28

back to and go, pretty good. Pretty good app. What

1:30

are you doing? David's his new favorite bit of prop comedy. Playing with the big

1:32

tape measure. He likes the big tape measure. This is set up

1:34

in a later episode. Okay. All right.

1:37

That's

1:37

a tease. 15 years

1:39

later. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to

1:41

be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going

1:43

to be able to do this.

1:56

who

2:00

have massive success early on in their careers and

2:02

are given a series of blank checks to

2:05

make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes

2:07

those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

2:11

It's a miniseries on the films, a part time

2:13

look. And it's

2:15

called I Am A Podcast, but that's okay.

2:17

That's right. That's right, jerks.

2:20

It's not called Podboy. No. They

2:23

keep calling them jerks. We put the poll

2:25

up on Twitter. Yeah, and they said fuck you, you're a

2:27

penis. They voted against this and we decided... We

2:31

asked for them to choose. We decided against their

2:33

choice. Yeah, we're teaching them a lesson. They

2:35

chose sympathy for Mr. Podcast and we decided that was boring. And

2:38

we had no sympathy for them, fuck off. Right. All

2:41

right.

2:41

Today we're talking about Old

2:43

Boy, his most famous film. Is that

2:46

still true? Probably. I think it has to be. The

2:48

Handmaiden is probably the only challenger, I would

2:50

say. I don't think Handmaiden comes anywhere close to

2:52

this in terms of legacy. I agree. I

2:55

agree. Yeah, that's my favorite of his film. I just think

2:57

he will kind of always be the old boy guy. And

3:00

this was a film that changed things.

3:03

Yes. Hard to make one of those. Yeah,

3:05

and it's also like so much of its era. It's

3:07

a kind of era defining. Yes,

3:10

it is. This

3:12

is sort of like the graduate for

3:15

modern South Korean cinema. You know where

3:17

you're like, well, that's like an inflection point. I think

3:19

it's just also a big movie for extreme cinema

3:21

in general. Like

3:25

Western audiences being exposed to extreme

3:28

cinema. I think this movie crossed over

3:31

more than

3:31

most films of the 2000s did

3:36

into the United States. Most films of the series?

3:39

You mean like foreign films? Foreign language films.

3:42

Yeah, not immediately, but I just

3:44

think this movie just kept fucking growing. And it also

3:46

introduced people, I think, it

3:48

was people's introduction, a lot of people to South Korean cinema.

3:51

Yeah, 100%. And it has an idea and a scene. What's

3:53

going on here? And especially

3:55

then it kind of the whole scene got associated

3:57

with being like gnarly, extreme.

3:59

Absolutely. Yeah, that is all true.

4:02

It's like like did it make a lot of money in America

4:04

like in theaters? Not at all. No,

4:06

no, no, no, but like it was huge on DVD.

4:09

Exactly. It just had this kind of like

4:12

long reputation or like

4:14

like college kids or what you

4:16

know all that in the know if

4:18

you were like a suburban You

4:20

know a suburban teen who became a college kid like

4:22

you would show off your sophistication with

4:24

like Well, oh boy also so

4:27

much of you know, the

4:29

fact that this movie is so fucked

4:33

It is though. No it is. I'm

4:34

not saying it. I'm not right No,

4:37

but we were kind of like that in 2005

4:40

I feel like and now I'm watching and I'm like good

4:42

Lord. This is so fucked up I think

4:44

this movie's legacy for a while was like

4:47

someone has the DVD in their dorm room and they're like have you

4:49

fucking seen this? Like people want to show it

4:51

to friends to see their reaction to it

4:53

in a way that was more of a like VHS

4:55

error Horror thing I think

4:58

where it's like Oh, you never seen Hannibal

5:00

Holocaust I gotta show you this fucked

5:02

up thing Right and then you could kind of progress

5:04

from there if like old boy was like the entry level

5:06

and then you could get into Like flowers of flesh and blood

5:08

and like all kind of like the stuff that was like even more

5:10

esoteric

5:11

right tartan extreme era That's

5:14

the I tried so hard. Yeah,

5:17

so hard to get to get a job at heart Oh

5:19

to get a job doing when I was right out of college.

5:22

Yes It was like my number one like

5:24

I want to work at tartan do like what like

5:26

marketing or like what? Take

5:29

me in entry-level job. I had an interview

5:32

there and

5:33

I think you know they

5:35

appreciated my enthusiasm and eventually we're just sort of like

5:37

this kid does there's no work experience Like

5:40

really like can we just say that extreme

5:42

was a masterstroke for those who don't know tartan

5:45

distribution Home

5:48

media company, but they started

5:50

putting out certain titles under the tartan

5:52

extreme label And I feel like

5:54

old boy having that tartan extreme and big

5:56

letters on top made people go

5:59

what so what? And

6:01

then it was sort of like anything else with the tartan extreme

6:04

on top was like, well, maybe it's like old boy. And

6:06

I do think that branding alone

6:08

being tied to this movie exposed a lot of people

6:11

to a lot of films they wouldn't watch otherwise.

6:13

It was really

6:15

cool. And very, very cool.

6:18

And obviously they did Battle

6:21

Royale as well, which I feel like is the other early

6:23

2000s piece of Asian cinema. But

6:26

it's earlier than this. It's like 2001 maybe? I think

6:28

so, 2000, 2001.

6:28

Audition

6:31

was... Right. Battle

6:33

Royale was 2000. I think Audition is 2001. No, 99.

6:37

Sorry. Thank you. I saw Audition

6:39

recently. I mean, obviously I say these are the

6:42

numbers on them, but they came to the

6:44

west a little later, usually. But

6:47

I think Old Boy is benefiting from a

6:49

couple years of tape trading

6:52

of Battle Royale and Audition. It is.

6:56

So you guys know about Japanese cinema?

6:59

Sure. You know about Hong Kong, kung fu movies? Sure.

7:01

But do you know about Korean movies? What do they

7:03

do in Korea? Like, wow. I think fucking Open

7:05

City. Yeah. But

7:07

I think there was that thing of like,

7:10

yes, coming from different countries, but those couple

7:12

of movies we just listed

7:14

circulating with intense

7:16

film bros, right? Right. And then also

7:18

because of like tartan extreme, I think a lot of them ended

7:20

up at your like Hollywood video. And

7:23

like those were standards in the international section. And

7:25

so if you were like looking for something that

7:28

felt really provocative, right? Really

7:30

inflammatory. You could go find them at like most

7:33

like chain places. You know, they were accessible.

7:35

Yes. Sometimes in slightly cut down versions.

7:39

Sure. I do feel like you look at home video

7:41

releases and you're like, oh, there was like a blockbuster version

7:43

of Old Boy. You know, like that era

7:45

still where certain chains would demand

7:48

versions just for them. But

7:50

they were also like they just cared so much less

7:52

about international stuff, which was like the kind of secret

7:54

of all of those chains. Right. Like if it was not

7:56

rated in the first place, then they're like not really paying attention.

7:59

Yeah. Oh

8:01

boy, oh boy our guest today of course

8:04

from vulture from the prestige episode

8:06

where the world's greatest bit happened I

8:12

don't think we did any bits in that though Because

8:18

we did realize oh it's been a stupid

8:21

amount of time since we had Allison on Embarrassing

8:26

you're back embarrassing Yes

8:31

Nice to see Spots

8:41

Hang

8:47

like a back like that green room

8:50

at the bellhouse They

8:53

always have those tortilla chips Yeah,

8:56

very nice. Right? There's there's

8:58

the vegetable and hummus platter

9:01

where the plastic little most never gets taken off

9:03

to the point Where almost every time I go there, I'm

9:05

like is it one? By

9:07

open this is it plastic? Yeah, actually. Yeah,

9:09

how long can they stretch that one out before they're like now? We

9:12

got to throw this one away offense to the lovely bellhouse,

9:14

of course We

9:16

loved and of course, I'm sure it's

9:18

fresh Daisy

9:22

Here we are

9:24

today to discuss old boy. Certainly.

9:26

Yeah one of the big boys In

9:29

this filmography and a

9:31

seminal film and I think it's certainly let's

9:33

also do it is the old boy of this filmography

9:36

The

9:40

big boy this filmography it also is undeniably

9:42

the old boy of this his from my it's the only movie

9:44

he made called old boy

9:46

That's true. That is accurate. You can't

9:48

push back on that David. Sorry. What were you gonna say?

9:50

I don't remember I don't know

9:54

Right before we started recording

9:56

Allison you asked if any of us knew

9:58

what

9:59

the definition of old boy

10:01

is. Yeah, like the kind of terminology old

10:03

boy is not something that comes up for me very often.

10:06

Yes, I have to assume because the film

10:08

is, so for one it's based on a

10:10

manga, a Japanese manga,

10:12

correct, called old boy. Fairly loosely

10:14

adapted. Yeah, we don't talk about that, but you know, but the

10:17

same title. And then the Korean

10:20

title is also old boy. Like

10:22

it's in Korean obviously, but it's not like

10:24

this movie is called old boy in America and it's called

10:26

like the man who had a hammer in Korea

10:29

which sometimes that happens. It's like, oh, the title just

10:31

means completely different.

10:34

The man who fucked his daughter, wait,

10:36

what? They gave away the title? I

10:38

thought that was a spoiler, but no. Yeah,

10:41

let's offer some spoilers for a 20 plus year

10:43

old movie. This is very much a

10:45

family film.

10:46

It is, it's

10:48

for the whole family. Old boy and the

10:50

old boy network is sort of the terminology.

10:52

Go on, yeah. Especially

10:57

if you went to like Eaton or whatever, you went to like a very fancy

10:59

British school. And then you graduate,

11:01

you're called an old boy. I guess

11:03

just meaning like you were once a boy and

11:06

now you, you know, when you were at that school, you were a

11:08

boy and now you are an old boy. Ben pointed

11:10

out that a lot of

11:12

British sort of greetings are

11:14

like, hey, they're old chum. Old

11:16

boy, watch old sports. Yeah,

11:20

but I don't know. In

11:22

England, you just call it the old boy network,

11:25

like disdainfully, like you're referring to that

11:27

podcast sort of, yeah,

11:29

they got some good ones. They got a David

11:31

Cameron and Boris Johnson,

11:34

all those guys. No, they

11:37

just dainfully referred to like the ruling class. You know,

11:39

all these guys went to these like schools. I

11:41

see the old boy network I've heard of. But the idea of being like, you're

11:43

an old boy. I think I would technically

11:45

be referred to as an old boy from last year. I think

11:47

you all, they don't use the word alum or whatever.

11:50

It's so funny to me that I never

11:52

for a second ever thought, what does that title

11:55

mean? I just sort of was like, what's a movie about old

11:57

boy? Like I know his character's name

11:59

is not.

11:59

I know they never call him that, but

12:02

I was just like, well, yeah, I don't know. Like Spider-Man,

12:04

he's old boy. It was one of those things

12:06

where

12:07

back in the day, I guess we had the internet

12:09

in 2003. I don't know what your guys' experience were

12:11

with this, but we had the internet.

12:13

We did, yeah. I can't remember that far back, sorry.

12:16

And like there was a Cannes film festival.

12:18

Now this film had actually, I think, already come out in

12:21

Korea, but then it went to Cannes. Awareness

12:23

of this movie was entirely, for better or worse,

12:26

based on Ain't It Cool pumping this up for like

12:28

a year.

12:28

Oh, it was definitely in Ain't It Cool. It was a

12:31

huge, in it cool. I didn't realize

12:33

that. Hey, you know what? Good for them,

12:35

like, or whatever. You know, like that was what Ain't It Cool did,

12:37

I guess. They

12:38

created those culty, you know, avenues. But

12:41

it was one where they just sort of like, everyone

12:43

put their chips down, where like, we're telling you this is a major

12:45

work. So by the time... Obviously he'd already

12:47

made, you know, Sympathy for Mr. Moo. So he was,

12:49

yeah, he was getting some kind of a JSA. The

12:51

time it plays at Cannes, I was like, I need to fucking

12:54

see this thing now. Everyone is talking

12:56

about... I remember just all the online

12:58

skull of buttock Cannes was, Tarantino

13:00

wants to give this, Tarantino was the jury president,

13:03

wants to give it to Oldboy. Like

13:05

it's the perfect Tarantino movie. It's

13:07

an Asian film, like, that's

13:10

like sort of from a pocket of culture that Americans don't

13:12

know as much about and it's super extreme and fucked

13:14

up and crazy. The transgressive postmodern

13:16

noir. Yeah. And then it

13:18

went to Fahrenheit 9-11. Maybe the worst Cannes

13:21

decision ever?

13:23

quite

13:25

jury. Quite possibly. Yeah.

13:28

That movie is awful. Yes. And

13:30

obviously it's total vapor. Like, it's like

13:32

we're going to watch that movie now. We're not talking about

13:34

it now. It had no impact on anything.

13:37

I know it made like $100 million. Like

13:40

it was a big deal. I'm sorry. You

13:42

say it had no impact on anyone. A

13:44

lot of shoulders got bruised.

13:46

People fucking patting themselves on the back.

13:49

Sitting there buying a ticket. Yes. Like,

13:53

you look at the

13:55

lineup that year and it's kind

13:57

of a janky lineup. Sure.

14:00

But like 2046 was in competition.

14:02

Which I love. I know, I think it

14:04

was in a slightly unfinished version.

14:06

Maybe there was a whole thing with 2046, but anyway.

14:09

Fucking, you know, Lucretia

14:11

Martel's The Holy Girl, that's a great movie. That is a

14:13

movie I think is a masterpiece. Nobody

14:17

knows the Corrado movie. The nomination movie.

14:19

The movie's crazy. Old Boy, Tropical

14:21

Malady, which I think got maybe the jury

14:23

prizes. Like, you know, that was the beginning of him getting

14:26

some attention. Irma P. Hall got a special

14:28

award that year. Was Lady Killer's in competition?

14:31

It was. That's wild. Lady

14:33

Killer's just in competition and she got a special

14:35

award. It was sort of the Samuel Jackson, we're

14:37

giving a supporting performance.

14:39

Because they gave actor

14:41

to the lead of Nobody Knows and they gave actress to Maggie

14:44

Chung for Clean, which is like, not the

14:46

best movie, but like pretty good and she's amazing

14:49

in it. Yeah, sort of like

14:51

not a film role.

14:53

Maggie Chung? Yeah, it's been a long time for

14:55

her. Has she never ever?

14:57

It's been a long time. Only

15:00

cameos after that, you know, a couple cam.

15:03

Weird. So good win. So like,

15:05

not, and he fucking gave it to fucking Michael

15:07

Moore. But anyway, so that was when I

15:09

was like hearing about, Old Boy, it was like, this is

15:11

the movie that's been anointed by Quentin Tarantino.

15:14

Now, obviously that's

15:15

a little patronizing and ridiculous, but 17

15:17

year old David, that was my awareness.

15:19

For me, it was like, that was being added on to

15:22

a year of online drumming for

15:24

this thing, where then I was just, I

15:27

mean, I think I saw this like opening

15:29

weekend, if not opening day when it played at

15:31

the Angelica,

15:32

because by the time it came out, I was just like, well, this

15:34

is like the Phantom Menace

15:36

of international cinema. I've been reading like 18

15:39

months of breathless hype on this thing.

15:41

What about you, Alison? What's your experience with Old Boy?

15:43

I cannot remember the first time I saw it. Like

15:45

I cannot remember the context. This feels

15:48

also, I can, it feels like a movie that would

15:50

have been in the New York Asian Film Festival. You

15:52

know, like it's absolutely like that. Like that festival

15:54

also had

15:55

an incredible run in like the kind

15:57

of mid aughts where they were just showcasing

15:59

like. all like so many

16:01

movies from like what we've talked about the kind of part in extreme

16:03

era um and they were just like an amazing

16:06

way that those movies got surfaced here but I

16:09

I cannot remember when I first saw it I just remember

16:12

being so intrigued by it because of how

16:15

edgy it was supposed to be in terms of content you know and I

16:17

just like I'm an easy mark for that if

16:20

something is supposed to be just like truly incendiary

16:22

I'm

16:23

like sign me up I'm gonna watch it I

16:25

you know I have an incredibly high tolerance

16:27

for all of that but I'm also just very easily

16:30

intrigued by it yeah and this movie

16:32

has a I don't know it's not like the it

16:34

did it it's not like it

16:36

is alone in this regard right but

16:40

it has a combination of like there are scenes

16:42

in it in which things happen on camera that

16:44

are so extreme you won't believe it

16:46

and also narratively where this

16:48

movie goes is so extreme you won't believe

16:50

it right like you're going to be equally disturbed

16:53

by ideas and images whereas

16:55

I feel like often in that sort

16:57

of extreme cinema realm it's like maybe more

17:00

one than the other yeah absolutely

17:02

I think also you know this has

17:04

this the old boy has this incredibly

17:06

potent combination of

17:09

gorgeous filmmaking and then someone's

17:11

tooth getting removed in close-up with

17:13

the back end of a hammer yeah and that

17:16

is something that I don't

17:18

know there's something I don't want to say that's my sweet

17:20

spot because that's so so sociopathic

17:23

but I do feel like I love thumbs

17:25

up a gorgeously made movie that

17:27

is also just really out

17:29

there in terms of where it's willing to go but

17:31

yeah like the thing for me re-watching

17:33

this on

17:35

a sketchy pirated streaming

17:37

site because it's not possible to stream right now not available

17:40

yes you know we have physical

17:42

versions that we bought but I thought

17:44

I had one as well but I couldn't find it did

17:46

you watch it on f.movies.com

17:48

it was something it was one of those ones where it's like one

17:50

two three four movies dot net dot you

17:53

know co.rotton.com dot cossavode yeah you

17:57

know where you're like oh what's this doing to my computer

17:59

But that having been said, David, we

18:02

both watched on physical copies. You, I believe,

18:04

bought an out-of-print American set. I

18:06

did. I bought an out-of-print American steelbook set

18:08

of the Vengeance trilogy. And I bought the Arrow

18:10

set of the Vengeance trilogy, which is pretty new, but

18:12

obviously was not

18:14

commercially released in the United States. Right. I

18:16

don't think there is any North

18:18

American physical release of this

18:20

movie currently in print.

18:22

There's one coming soon, though.

18:25

Well, right. They are re-releasing it this August.

18:27

Yes. Which is probably why it's

18:30

not streaming right now. They're trying to...

18:32

Right. So it'll probably have a physical

18:34

release after that or whatever. Yeah. But

18:36

to know it is annoyingly and confusingly

18:39

considering its reputation. I forgot

18:41

to mention, or to stream, I forgot to mention one other

18:43

film, of course, that was at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival,

18:45

Shrek 2.

18:46

Of course. We all remember.

18:49

Shrek 1 was at Cannes. Yeah, I knew that. Shrek

18:52

was a big deal. Shrek 2.

18:53

Was it also in competition? In competition.

18:56

Wow. Amazing. Really?

18:58

What a time. For three. Do you think Katzenberg was just

19:00

like, it's a done fucking deal. Three's

19:02

gonna win. The third's getting in. It's

19:05

winning. Final. We're over-gonna get to the first game moment. We played the

19:07

runway. Yeah, exactly. You

19:09

know, Pomdora loves giving out

19:11

that trophy to the third film in a trilogy.

19:15

Just waiting. Guys, you were...

19:17

No, you weren't at Cannes. Were you at Cannes? No, you weren't

19:19

at Cannes. No. I wish I was. Two

19:21

more times. Were you, Kat? Shrek

19:24

the third wasn't even out of

19:26

competition. Sad. Wow,

19:28

a shocking rejection. Shrek the third was banned from

19:31

France. They revoked its passport.

19:34

Old boy, yes. I think

19:36

I saw this in theaters when

19:39

it finally did make it over to

19:41

me

19:42

because of all the hype.

19:45

And I think at the time I was like, this

19:47

movie is crazy. That's how I feel about this

19:49

movie. When I was a teen or...

19:51

Yeah, I was like a late teen. I was like, well,

19:54

this movie is crazy and I can take it. That's

19:56

like a sign of what a mature... Sure, sure. You

19:58

can handle it. I smoked.

19:59

to blunt and then watch this movie 100% in high

20:02

school. And

20:04

I had my fucking mind blown. Now you

20:06

did that yesterday. If

20:08

I did that yesterday, I wouldn't be here right

20:11

now. I can't do that anymore. And yeah,

20:13

I watched it. And I'd say if we've

20:15

seen it again, I rewatched it at some point.

20:18

And this is my third viewing of

20:20

Old Boy, I think. So I've talked

20:22

about this in other episodes leading up to this. I have

20:24

always struggled with this movie. You didn't

20:27

really like it on release. I ran into it with all this hype

20:29

and did not like it. Why didn't you like

20:31

it?

20:32

Well, let me unpack it because I rewatched

20:34

it last night for the first time in 20

20:37

years, basically.

20:39

And I still really struggle

20:41

with this movie. And it's not

20:43

a thing where I'm morally

20:45

offended by it in any way. It's not like I

20:47

have objections on that level.

20:50

And I think my tolerance

20:52

is pretty fucking high for things that

20:54

happen in movies.

20:55

Like I, you know, I'm

20:57

the guy who fucking stumped for Star 80. I'm

21:00

like, there are a lot of movies that I really

21:02

love that I think are truly like staring

21:04

into the heart of darkness. Or depicting

21:06

like incredibly uncomfortable things, whether thematically

21:09

or visually or whatever it is. And this

21:11

is just one of the few movies. And

21:13

perhaps it does have to do with the fact that it is just

21:16

empirically well-made.

21:18

So everything it's doing perhaps hits

21:20

a little deeper. But I just like

21:22

really find this movie unpleasant. I

21:25

don't say it pejoratively, but

21:27

I also can't say I ever enjoy

21:31

watching it.

21:33

Yeah, I think that's very fair. Yeah.

21:37

All of his other movies other than the first two, I'm

21:40

like so on board with Park in general.

21:43

And this one is like always a roadblock.

21:46

It's very unpleasant. Yeah. I

21:48

also like feelings about, well, my feelings

21:51

about him in general, I

21:53

like him sometimes a lot

21:54

and I don't other times. But

21:56

this movie I think is like, it's

21:59

thrilling. I think there

22:01

are just like heart, pulse pounding moments

22:03

in it, genuinely rousing, messed

22:06

up moments. And I do

22:09

think it gets at something about throw

22:11

your life away rage and resentment. And

22:14

it's ultimately about these two incredibly sad

22:16

dudes destroying

22:18

themselves.

22:19

And I also think that a lot of the

22:21

plot is just so dumb. It's

22:24

just so dumb. It is a silly movie.

22:26

That's why I like it, because it's very,

22:28

very silly. I also don't say this pejorably. Somewhat whimsical,

22:31

yeah, yeah. But it is this weird balance that I just, I

22:33

get very icked out

22:36

watching it. And not just by the obvious

22:38

icky things. The whole thing just kind of

22:40

makes my skin crawl. It has a very grotty,

22:42

to use a British expression, aesthetic generally.

22:45

Yes, it is a, it's one of the great wallpaper

22:48

movies. Oh God, some nasty

22:50

wallpaper. Just tons of wallpaper. Everyone

22:53

in this movie is like, you know what I need in my apartment

22:56

and or secret private prison?

22:59

It's just mold, but also incredibly

23:01

busy wallpaper. Yes. I

23:05

watched the Arrow vengeance

23:07

trilogy set has this two hour long documentary

23:09

called, I believe, Old Days.

23:12

That's like a 15 plus

23:14

years later, reminiscing on the movie

23:16

from all the key creative contributors.

23:19

About old boys, specifically. Yes, no, no, no,

23:21

no, just about old boy. The

23:23

DP on this film remind me his name.

23:26

Isn't it Chung Chung

23:28

Hoon, I believe. I believe that's where.

23:30

Chung Chung to use the, you know, I believe that's his

23:32

usual, yes. He said he

23:35

very strategically wanted to make sure that every

23:37

single shot in this movie had green in it. And

23:40

a good amount of green. And I feel like the most putrid

23:42

shade of green. Very like mossy kind

23:44

of dank green, yes. And he said

23:46

it was because green was historically

23:49

the color that reproduced

23:52

least easily on film.

23:54

And people would, especially in this era,

23:56

just stay away from green if you can. You don't want too much

23:58

green.

23:59

went towards the thing that was gonna

24:02

produce an unpleasant result on camera.

24:04

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

24:06

this is a pretty grimy movie. It's also

24:08

interesting, you know, in comparison to Decisions Leave,

24:10

which also has a lot of epic wallpaper, but

24:12

it's like gorgeous, dreamy,

24:15

like symbolic

24:17

and modern. Hand-made in two, obviously, has beautiful,

24:19

you know, painted- Yes, ominous wallpaper

24:22

type.

24:22

No, but you're right. Decisions Leave in general

24:24

is very like antiseptic. Yes. Yeah,

24:27

intentionally. Right. This movie is very

24:30

sensual. This movie is sweaty and nasty.

24:32

Yes. And this man has been in a hotel

24:34

for 15 years and you really feel it.

24:37

It's also like, he starts out

24:39

awful. The movie starts and you're like, I

24:42

gotta watch this guy for like two hours, and they're like, no, no, no,

24:44

don't worry. He's gonna get a lot worse. He'll get worse, but

24:46

it's kind of better. His soul's gonna die. Right, right,

24:48

yeah, he's gonna turn into a weird ghost. He'll

24:50

sober up a bit.

24:51

Yes, all right,

24:54

Old Boy, let me get you some context. Please. All

24:56

right, so I assume no one has read the manga Old Boy. It's very,

24:58

very different. I mean, it's

25:00

a long series. I read three

25:02

years. One of those like Sparks

25:04

Notes

25:04

style summaries of it, just

25:07

to confirm that a certain major

25:09

plot point seems to be absent. It's not

25:11

in it at all. I believe the whole

25:14

concept is completely different of like why

25:16

he did this to him. The thing

25:18

I heard Park say in the documentary

25:21

was,

25:22

I was much more interested in

25:24

not why someone imprisoned him for 15 years,

25:26

but why someone would let him out.

25:29

Right, right, right, right, right.

25:31

Because imprisoning someone for 15 years is punishment?

25:34

Sure. That would be a punishment

25:36

that I would not want. But why would he release him and

25:38

what are you trying to accomplish and what are you trying to prove? What's

25:40

the final chapter of this? And then obviously

25:42

his whole thing, he loves about how vengeance

25:45

and violence, all these things curdle and destroy

25:47

us, these urges and all of that.

25:49

And I think he just really went like, incest

25:51

is pretty much the most shameful thing in society. Just

25:53

go for the hottest plot. Understandably. That

25:56

could be the root of everything. We'll talk about,

25:58

right. Okay.

25:59

from the original is it's more just like,

26:02

I don't know, they had this interaction

26:05

in school that he was embarrassed by, that the

26:07

villain was embarrassed by. And

26:09

so even though the villain

26:11

became successful and powerful, he wanted to

26:13

humiliate this man and turn him into a bad person.

26:16

And like, that's kind

26:19

of it. So like the discovery at the end is

26:21

kind of anticlimactic. He was like being searching

26:23

this whole time for like, what did I do to

26:25

this person to make them hate me so much? And it's like,

26:27

yeah, you embarrass me when I fell

26:29

emotional or something like that. Yeah. Right.

26:32

Which I can't imagine. Huge Iron Man 3 vibes.

26:34

I guess so. Sure. Guy Pierce is,

26:36

you're remembering? Yeah, he says, I'll meet you up at

26:38

the hotel room. He doesn't show up and Guy Pierce is like,

26:41

I'll spend the next 20 years trying to destroy

26:43

you. Glowing up, probably destroying

26:45

your life. I like that though. You know, I like

26:47

a long, like all consuming campaign of spite.

26:50

Well, because of course, because like, yes, if someone did that

26:52

to me and I finally met them, they probably would be like, don't you

26:54

understand? And I'll be like, I definitely don't.

26:56

This is a one-sided adversarial thing.

26:59

There's no way I feel the way you do about

27:02

me, about you. So

27:06

there's, you know, this thing exists

27:09

and a movie producer, Lim Sun-Young, finds

27:12

the manga, likes

27:14

the idea,

27:17

and also apparently just sort of like is flickering

27:20

through it and thinks the character

27:22

looks like Troy Minsick, this

27:25

actor, the lead actor.

27:27

Again, I apologize for, you know, my pronunciation.

27:30

I'm not sure. Troy Minsick is, you know. And

27:32

I don't speak Korean, so I cannot really

27:34

help you out. I'm looking for

27:36

help, but I'm not expecting it. So

27:39

for whatever reason, that's the trigger thing.

27:41

It's just kind of like, I don't know, this guy kind of looks like, you

27:43

know, this could be something. So he takes it

27:46

to Park Chen-Wook,

27:47

who is intrigued

27:50

as this, he likes this sort of like mythological

27:53

old fairy tale,

27:54

Pandora's box, but modern

27:57

thing. He

27:59

likes it. It's kind of a fantasy, which

28:02

it is. It really is kind of like a fairy

28:05

tale. It feels like it's like an Arthur story. For

28:07

sure. Right, like, oh, you know what happened to Sir

28:09

Blah? He got locked in a castle for 15 years

28:12

because he pissed this guy off. Not an Arthur, the Arthur

28:14

story. That's the whole thing with King Arthur, where they're like, and let me

28:16

tell you about this night and what's up with that.

28:18

Like the Green Knight is one of those. So

28:21

it's not about an old drunk guy

28:24

Arthur story. It says a lot that Ben went to

28:26

Dudley Moore Arthur and I went to Eric

28:28

Brown Arthur. He's

28:31

called Odessu, right?

28:34

That's the character's name, which

28:37

is a reference to Oedipus. Oh,

28:41

sure. So again, thinking of this as like, you

28:43

know, tragic Greek myth, right? And

28:47

apparently because they're

28:50

casting Troy Minsic,

28:51

who I guess is just a very big

28:54

actor at the time, I think he had had his

28:56

breakthrough in the 90s and just become a very big

28:58

star.

28:59

He kind of needs to be

29:01

quote unquote heroic in the movie, even

29:03

though he is gonna be a mess. He'll

29:06

be like fighting. Okay. You

29:08

know what I mean? He is kind of like iconic. He's cool.

29:10

Yeah, his hair is cool. You need to make him into a little

29:12

bit more of an action star, even if it's a weird version

29:15

of an action star. And

29:18

they had to talk him into the hairstyle.

29:20

It's

29:20

an iconic hairstyle. Which is totally

29:22

the right choice, but I can assume why they were

29:24

like, look, you'll look like Albert Einstein. Like it's

29:26

great that he was like, they

29:29

show a bunch of the hair and makeup tests. And they also

29:31

in this documentary, and they also, he talks

29:33

about a present day and he talks about it as if it is

29:35

still an act of trauma as he's recounting the

29:37

moment apparently they did the test on him.

29:40

We basically gave him a big perm, I think. Like they'd like wrap

29:42

his hair in foil for like three days to make him

29:44

look like he'd like been in the microwave. Yeah,

29:46

hair does not do that normally. It

29:48

looks like a rat's nest. Like it's all matted.

29:51

But it looks like a drawing also. Like it really does

29:53

look like something that would be on the page

29:55

where someone is just like a puffball. There's

29:57

that animation principle of like,

29:59

design your character so that

30:02

they all work in silhouette.

30:04

Blacked out, you can always tell just from

30:06

the shape of their body without the details. We're

30:08

like, every Simpsons character works purely in silhouette.

30:11

A lot of Disney movies function that way. They all

30:13

have a certain shape. No one else looks like

30:15

this guy. And the hair helps

30:17

a lot, but even just the fit of his suit and his

30:19

posture and everything.

30:20

Right. His joints feel like they work

30:22

weirdly somehow. Something has gone on. And

30:25

the smile, obviously. The smile, which

30:27

is just,

30:28

you would not be surprised if the first time

30:30

he did it, just like blood started seeping in

30:32

between the like, brothers' gums. We'll talk

30:34

about the final shot of the movie. We're very crucial

30:37

how he expresses himself facially.

30:41

This is an astounding performance. It really

30:43

is. He's amazing. I've only seen

30:45

him in a few movies. Obviously, he

30:48

popped up in what, Lucy? Like he did eventually

30:50

do a couple English language movies. But I feel like

30:53

he is largely, he's in sympathy

30:55

for Lady Vantage. One, I'm forgetting. Was

30:57

there one other sort of Hollywood foray?

31:01

Not that I

31:03

can see. But

31:06

you know, I was looking around. He's done a lot of theater.

31:09

And like when you look at his theater career

31:12

in Korea, it's like

31:13

Equus, our town. Yes.

31:15

The Pillow Man. He does a

31:17

lot of like Western plays that like, which, so

31:21

I think he's like a very venerated sort

31:23

of like. Serious actor. Exactly.

31:25

Oh, it's just, I was just thinking if I saw the devil,

31:27

which is obviously not a Hollywood film, but

31:29

was a huge crossover years later. I thought it

31:31

was a huge

31:32

hit, right? That was like a number

31:34

one box office hit. Humongous hit. Such

31:36

a messed up movie. I've never seen it.

31:38

I know it to be nasty. But

31:41

that was, talk about a movie that's like

31:43

benefiting from. That's the Taylor

31:46

Swift Sisters guy, right? Yes.

31:48

But it's got that sort of like, well, it's like the old boy

31:50

guy in another movie that's fucked up. And

31:52

that worked. People fucking bought the DVD. Apparently

31:55

then, OK, so there's a press conference announcing this film,

31:57

which I think is commonplace in the Korean industry.

31:59

And they're like, so you're doing another movie about vengeance? You

32:02

just did a movie about vengeance. And

32:05

Park impulsively is like, maybe I'll do a third

32:07

movie about vengeance. And hence we have a vengeance

32:09

trilogy. But I don't think he was like

32:12

in

32:12

his studio being like, I must explore

32:15

vengeance. I'm imagining him

32:17

doing a Kevin Feige press conference

32:20

announcing the faces of the vengeance trilogy

32:22

in advance. And have we ever wondered

32:24

about lady vengeance? Whoa. So,

32:28

okay.

32:30

You know, here's some

32:32

quotes from him. The reason I want to show shocking things

32:34

is that they always pose an ethical question. When we're

32:37

confronted with extreme situations, we forget about

32:39

moral issues. We simply act and

32:41

then must accept

32:42

the consequences. I want to show the moral issues

32:44

involved in everyday life by heightening them. Now, Alison,

32:47

you've interviewed him. I have. And

32:49

it's just like from all these dossiers we're getting, like he

32:51

really talks in these like blocks of

32:53

text that are quite

32:55

academic or how, I don't know how to describe

32:58

it, but like he's not really like a punchy

33:00

talker. Like he's very, very, very thoughtful and long

33:03

winded.

33:03

So I was supposed to interview him

33:06

for like a New York magazine rubric that is

33:08

in conversation, right? Which is like back and forth

33:10

kind of like Q and A style, but like longer

33:13

piece. And you know,

33:15

like two things that really don't make for in

33:18

conversation are one going through

33:20

translator.

33:20

Yeah, what is his, does

33:22

he speak English at all? He could clearly

33:25

like pick up some of it, but like he uses

33:27

a translator and you know,

33:31

in general, I think I shouldn't

33:33

have done this interview. Like someone who is

33:35

an actual Korean speaker should have done this interview. You

33:38

know, going through a translator is always going

33:40

to lead to what like a weird rhythm

33:42

and also just like losing context. Yeah,

33:45

I was going to say also, I mean, him speaking in large blocks,

33:47

it's like the few times I've had

33:49

to do something through a translator,

33:53

you are like, I'm not going to do one

33:55

sentence back and forth. You're going

33:57

to do a big question. And a big answer. But

34:00

I do also think that he just

34:02

has this kind of like sturdy

34:04

intellectual reputation. Yeah.

34:07

Well, like,

34:07

so I, the first time I interviewed

34:09

him like twice or three times, I can't remember, but

34:11

like the first time it was in person and I asked

34:14

him what I thought was like a softball

34:16

like question to get a say.

34:18

How are you doing today? It was like, or something like that. And then he,

34:20

and then he answered for like 10 minutes.

34:22

Like he talks and then the translator

34:25

translated and then he talks more and the translator translated

34:27

and then he talks more and the translator translated. And I

34:29

was like, oh no. But

34:32

you know, yes, he is very,

34:35

very intellectual about, you know, how he

34:37

talks about his films and like

34:38

very considered, but like very,

34:40

very serious.

34:43

Which is funny. I think sometimes when you

34:45

look like his movies are like goofier

34:47

sometimes. This movie is pretty goofy. I think of

34:49

him as consistently goofy. Yes. Like

34:52

pretty much there's pretty much humor in all of his

34:55

movies, strange humor or just

34:57

yeah. Like fanciful twists of sort

34:59

of. I think that is Dory. One of the

35:02

things that put him on the map and

35:04

then with this movie made him sort of like, Oh, this

35:06

is a director. I know what I'm getting when

35:08

I'm going to see a Park Chan book film. His name means

35:10

something is this very bizarre

35:12

mix of tones. He has on top of the sort

35:15

of thematic concerns and

35:18

the aesthetic proclivities and,

35:20

you know, the intensity and all that sort of shit.

35:22

It is like, how can this guy balance

35:25

this sort of incredibly goofy comedy with

35:27

serious action sequences with like

35:30

overcrank drama? Yeah. Right.

35:32

Yeah. Alison, I read your

35:34

most recent interview.

35:37

My brain is not working today. The

35:39

one you did when decision to leave was coming out. That was

35:41

the one where I spoke to him three times for that

35:43

altogether. And yeah, I was like, I want

35:45

to I want to see what you say. Alison's coming

35:47

on the show. I should read this interview. And I was like, why

35:50

is all of this familiar? And I realized basically

35:52

every single answer he gave JJ

35:55

used in the

35:55

dossier for our first episode. So if you want to

35:58

invoice JJ, you. basically

36:00

wrote that dossier for him. I mean, that's

36:03

nice to hear because I was worried. It was hard

36:06

to get him to talk about things that I

36:08

feel, you know, he's especially when you're going through some

36:10

like past work, like they just have

36:12

a bunch of stories that they've already told and

36:14

they just kind of like fall into that as

36:16

much, you know, like there's. But

36:18

but I think there are some things, especially with

36:21

regard to when he said like

36:23

after this movie, he felt

36:25

bad about how Mito,

36:27

the like female character, was left

36:30

like not having all

36:32

the information about, say,

36:35

her relationship. Everyone

36:37

that just happened.

36:38

Like a little laminated card being like, by

36:41

the way. Yeah.

36:42

Yeah. Yeah. Fuck you, Dad. No,

36:44

but that he made several films

36:47

after this that were all attempts at correcting. Exactly.

36:49

Yes. The lack of agency, the lack.

36:51

Right. I mean, it's not a surprise to go straight from this into

36:54

Lady Vengeance and Handmaiden and Decision

36:56

to Leave. He was saying in your interview,

36:58

like those were both still him trying

37:00

to address what he felt were shortcomings

37:03

in Oldboy. Yeah. And he works

37:05

with female screenwriters now.

37:07

Like he makes a point of that. And I think like

37:09

his family gets kind of also like gives

37:11

more feedback. And but,

37:13

yeah, certainly in this movie, it's

37:15

like very glaring. He seems

37:18

very aware of it. I just especially the handmaid.

37:20

And I feel like he was really like, I have

37:22

like

37:23

feel like I'm much more of a feminist than I was 20 years

37:26

ago. I just think we'll talk about it when that movie

37:28

comes around. But it's probably it's one

37:30

of the things that x me out

37:32

about this movie. And I'm not saying this in like a morality

37:35

police, you know, kind of way.

37:37

But it is just like

37:39

everything in this movie is awful,

37:41

right? Basically, every character is despicable.

37:44

Everything everyone's living through is horrendous.

37:46

Right. And I, you know, I'm usually

37:49

very tuned into everything is terrible.

37:51

Everyone's the worst movies because

37:54

that matches my basic viewpoint

37:56

on the world.

37:57

But this

37:59

character. in particular, you're just

38:02

like, I feel so fucking bad for

38:04

her. She's kind of the only person

38:06

who in no way has this coming.

38:09

Yes. You know? And she just

38:11

gets so fucked in so many ways

38:13

while also not really being given any

38:16

narrative agency or interiority where you're like, this

38:18

whole movie, she's just hypnotized. Right. And

38:21

then like, I mean, you get that one glimpse of her like

38:23

in the past and she's just crying alone

38:25

on the subway. Right. You're like, man,

38:28

like even before, before you

38:30

had this encounter where yeah, you

38:32

were hypnotized into this thing. Your

38:34

life was filled with misery.

38:37

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. She's

38:40

a bit of a bummer. Yeah. She gets a

38:42

raw deal. I mean, everyone does. I mean, I do think this, this movie,

38:44

I do think is like very much about like all

38:47

encompassing, specifically masculine rage

38:50

and the rest of the world just

38:52

kind of gets swept up by kind

38:54

of idiocy in the sense. Yeah. I

38:56

just feel so bad for her at every

38:59

moment in this film, to

39:01

a point where it does just sort of start to

39:03

like affect my view. Yeah, you just don't

39:06

want to watch it. No, I get that. It's

39:08

sort of the way you now, David, like talk about when we watch

39:10

movies where there were like small children or babies,

39:13

small children, babe. Right. Exactly.

39:15

Right. I just don't like

39:17

to think about it. It's like, I can process

39:20

it, but I just don't want to think about

39:22

it. Now sometimes I'm going to have to. Yeah.

39:25

This is my job. I got to see movies

39:27

where children are in peril or whatever,

39:29

but I hate

39:32

it. But I usually like almost

39:34

love thinking about horrendous things to the extent

39:36

where you just say, Griffin, stop thinking about that. Maybe you

39:38

don't though. Maybe you're realizing this about

39:41

yourself.

39:41

I don't know. Like that was the thing was

39:43

watching this when it came out,

39:45

knowing its legacy was so great, being

39:48

excited to rewatch it for this. I was like, I

39:50

might just watch this and be like, oh, I was like 14

39:52

when I saw this, whatever. Sure.

39:54

Yeah. But it was, it was interesting

39:57

in a way. I do have to absolutely

39:59

commend. in this movie for, it still affected me as

40:01

viscerally. Yeah, I mean, rewatching

40:04

this, and I hadn't seen it for years, it

40:08

is, I think, that relationship,

40:10

and that is

40:12

the stuff in the movie that is more upsetting

40:15

than any of the violence. Knowing

40:18

the twist going in on a review,

40:21

every scene just becomes worse.

40:29

Who's at the door? Click. Hello. Hi.

40:32

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40:36

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40:49

Okay, but give it a little life. All right, how many Oscars

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do you have again?

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I'm a doctor. I'm

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not Jeffrey Rush the actor. I'm a doctor whose

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43:03

time. Okay, bye. Yes.

43:06

Uh, you know,

43:08

the writing process is complicated. There's like three different

43:10

writers. Park Chan-wook is doing a lot of

43:12

rewrites. Troy Ben-Sick

43:15

is very involved. They're like running all

43:17

kinds of stuff by him.

43:19

He, for example, comes up

43:21

with the octopus eating scene, even

43:23

though he is like a Buddhist vegetarian

43:26

who does not usually eat live octopi.

43:29

And you say not usually

43:31

what like once a month. Exactly.

43:34

Yeah. Right. I do think that is

43:36

people do eat live octopus. That

43:38

is a concept. And they get they chop

43:40

it up for you. Right. Like

43:42

the whole day. It's like still like it's still kind

43:44

of twisting around. Kind of like like

43:46

yeah. Like nerve ending stuff. But

43:49

like, yeah, you're not like, yeah, it's being served

43:51

like here it is, an octopus and that. Right.

43:55

There's like a clip from some DVD

43:56

extra behind the scenes that's

43:58

on YouTube that you can see. where he

44:00

like apologizes to the octopus each

44:03

time. That's nice. It

44:06

had to do with like four times. Yeah.

44:09

Yeah. Octopus is good.

44:12

I mean, delicious, but complex. I

44:14

know. I feel bad because they're pretty

44:16

smart. I mean, not that that has stopped me from eating

44:18

other animals that are supposedly

44:21

smart. Look, this is a long road we can go down.

44:23

Yeah, I guess, yeah. You know, ethically

44:25

compromised, that's me. But

44:28

yeah, I think what makes that scene beyond

44:30

shock values so seared

44:33

in my brain is that the tentacles

44:35

keep twisting around his face. That's what

44:37

I was going to say. That was a scene

44:40

where I had been told that

44:42

was obvious. It was one of the three things you heard

44:44

about the movie. There's this scene where he fucking

44:47

smashes everyone with a hammer. There's a scene

44:49

where he does, and he eats an octopus

44:51

whole. And I just remember being like, I don't

44:53

know what you're talking about. Like, I cannot

44:56

see them. And

44:58

so what I imagined was horrible. And

45:00

then the movie is at the rare time

45:03

where it's actually kind of more disturbing than

45:05

what you could imagine.

45:07

But it's also like of the moments of like just really

45:10

this like nihilistic jolts. I'd

45:13

say

45:14

that like the scene where he's walking away and

45:16

the guy falls on the car behind him, and he

45:18

like crins, has that same energy

45:20

as the octopus.

45:21

There are a few moments like where you're just that

45:23

you really I feel like that is what the film wants

45:26

to offer more than anything is this like,

45:29

like look at how fucked up this is, but

45:31

also, isn't it thrilling?

45:33

Like you've never seen this before. There was an anecdote,

45:35

maybe it was from the producer,

45:38

the DP, saying they when they shot

45:40

that day where he does the smile after the

45:42

guy falls on the car,

45:43

that might've been the first day of the movie or if not was very

45:46

early on in the shoot.

45:47

And he said like, I want you to give me a smile

45:51

where I can't tell if you're about to laugh

45:53

or cry.

45:54

And he did that and like parked,

45:56

like rubbed his hands together and he's like, we have a

45:58

movie. Yes. It was sort of like, that's

46:01

the tone I'm trying to achieve. We've got

46:03

it in that shot. Now I know what to

46:05

pursue. But yes,

46:07

no, the octopus thing is wild.

46:09

Biggest problem Park has with the screenplay

46:12

is the ending,

46:13

which I think is probably initially hewing more to

46:15

the original. Okay. Didn't

46:17

like the ending, had to think of a new ending. And as you

46:19

say, he

46:21

basically is just kind of like,

46:24

well, incest is

46:26

the worst thing imaginable. Most shameful.

46:29

Yeah. I

46:34

think that really, he says he came up with

46:36

it while he was going to the bathroom.

46:38

I don't know what that means, but he basically

46:40

like came out of the bathroom at some restaurant and like

46:42

said to his producer, like I've got a great idea. Like

46:45

here's what we're gonna do.

46:47

He thinks it's quote unquote

46:50

a happy ending, but he sort of means that I think

46:52

in a tragic horrifying way.

46:55

He did ban his daughter, his oft

46:57

mentioned daughter from seeing the

46:59

film, he

47:01

deemed it too awkward for her to see

47:03

it. Yeah, certainly. He talks all the time,

47:06

Alison and these dossiers about

47:08

like the movies he makes where he's like, I made it for

47:10

my daughter. And you're like, you did? Like

47:12

Stoker is one where he's like, I

47:14

wanted to make a movie about a 19 year old girl.

47:17

These are episodes. Yeah, coming up. Yeah,

47:19

we'll talk about it later. But this is the one where you're just

47:21

very relieved to hear he did not make it

47:23

for his daughter. That he in fact said

47:25

my daughter is banned from seeing this movie.

47:28

But yeah, so old

47:30

boy, let's talk about it. It's

47:36

about a businessman

47:39

who is arrested for public drunkenness. He's being

47:41

a bit of a rascal. You open with the rooftop scene where

47:43

he's holding the guy by the time. He's holding a guy by the time being like,

47:45

you wanna hear my life story bro? Yeah.

47:48

And you're like, who the fuck is this guy? And then

47:50

it cuts to him as a drunken

47:52

businessman where he looks so

47:55

radically different, not just in obviously

47:57

how he styled, but also just like, oh,

47:59

this guy.

47:59

has life in his eyes. Yeah, but he also

48:02

like, he's, he gained lost weight, right?

48:04

Yeah. For this role and he clearly is like bigger

48:06

in that. Absolutely. Like deliberately. Yeah.

48:09

His face is different. Uh-huh. Very, very different.

48:11

The first time I saw this, I thought we were cutting to a different

48:14

person. Right. I remember taking

48:16

me a little while to realize once he gets

48:18

into imprisonment, oh, it's the same guy from the opening

48:20

and then they bring his back around. But yes, he's

48:23

drunk. It's his daughter's birthday. He's fucking

48:25

up.

48:26

He's not getting home in time. His

48:28

best friend is trying to help

48:30

him out. Right. He's

48:33

at the police station, right? With this drunken disorderly.

48:36

Yeah. He's picked up for public drunkenness. He

48:38

misses his daughter's birthday.

48:40

Kind of very depressing pay

48:43

phone, phone call apologizing.

48:46

Right. Yeah.

48:47

He's got the angel wings like as a present, right?

48:49

Yes. Yes. And

48:54

he is, gets picked up by his friend

48:56

and I guess he's going to go home and then he gets

48:59

kidnapped and put into a weird

49:01

hotel room with a pet door and

49:03

immediately don't really like this guy.

49:06

You're like, this guy's annoying.

49:07

He's like falling all over the floor.

49:09

He's like such a buffoon. Yeah. And

49:11

so like self amused. Like this is the guy where he gets on

49:13

your subway car. You move to a different subway car. Yeah.

49:16

Also the scene where he disappears.

49:18

It's like this kind of looks like a crayon shot, right?

49:21

Like it's like, there's something which is like so

49:23

like part of what, yeah, where he has

49:25

this kind of like

49:26

moments like this kind of classical, like,

49:28

you know, just like in terms of how he

49:30

frames things and like moves the

49:32

camera in the middle of this movie that

49:34

also then. Wait, is it in this

49:37

or in, because we're doing all these movies out or like one

49:40

shot where like the camera goes between two people

49:42

and around. And I was just

49:45

like, I don't know how you did that. It

49:47

doesn't look handheld. Like I just am watching

49:49

it being like, what is this? What did

49:51

you do?

49:52

There's not enough space for you to like lay a track,

49:54

but I don't, anyway. Yeah. Every

49:57

movie of his has some shot like that. Where you're just like, I

49:59

don't understand this.

49:59

I do think there's something decisionally

50:02

full of them. I know that's a lot of visual effects and stuff But

50:04

we talked a lot about in the first episode

50:06

how he grew up At a time where

50:08

there wasn't that much of a South Korean cinema

50:11

and he is mostly seeing films from other countries

50:13

He's

50:14

not going to the theater much. He's seeing whatever's

50:16

on TV It's a lot of classic Hollywood and it's

50:18

a lot of new wave French films

50:21

and I'm sure they were subtitled You

50:23

know, but he's young it makes

50:25

sense cinematically in terms of how

50:28

his

50:29

Sense of language develops visually

50:31

right that this is a guy who's probably getting

50:33

a lot more from

50:35

The cinematic technique as a child and understanding

50:37

the nuances of plot points, right? Yeah

50:39

Yeah, like he's sitting there watching grown-up

50:41

movies with his parents on TV

50:44

and

50:45

He's really going like why is the camera doing that

50:48

right? You know, why why what is

50:50

getting taken with the images of stars? I don't

50:52

think I thought about that until I was older

50:55

like a teenager or something When I'm a kid, I don't

50:57

think I was like, what's the camera doing?

50:58

Yeah, like I was just trying to follow narrative

51:01

But yeah, you can see it all over his work

51:03

where he just like absorbed so much

51:05

of this Yes and in this really in

51:07

a way that I think It's

51:10

not deployed in the same way that if you had just gone

51:12

to a film school, you know Yeah that

51:14

like that you would kind of have learned

51:17

Maybe a more narrow path for that,

51:19

you know, he kind of deploys them really in

51:21

ways that are very unexpected I just think there's something

51:24

to this generation that he's

51:26

part of of South Korean directors who didn't really

51:29

have a local National cinema

51:31

culture to grow up around and everything they were digesting

51:34

was imported from other countries, right?

51:36

They're

51:36

not seeing cinema reflect their

51:39

daily existence their culture and

51:41

it's not in their language It all

51:44

feels a little foreign and alien to them

51:46

And so they're processing it and kind of maybe a little

51:48

bit of a backwards way where the technique is

51:50

coming through first and foremost

51:53

The you know film stars Trojman sick. The

51:57

villain is played by this actor Yuji

51:59

Another incredible performance.

52:02

An amazing performance. However, that

52:04

man is also significantly younger

52:06

than Troy Minsic and it's not hidden

52:09

in the movie. It makes no sense that

52:11

they would be classmates

52:12

to the point that you're almost like, what's the further Trist

52:15

here? And it's like, no, no, no, they just were classmates. Don't think

52:17

about it. Right. I think the closest they come to

52:19

addressing is being like, well, he was like two years below

52:22

him. This guy was 15 years. Two

52:25

dog years below him? And

52:28

Park wanted to cast this actor Han Suk

52:30

Kyu, who is the co-star of Troy

52:33

Minsic in this film, Number Three, and

52:35

another film called Sheary, both of which were like smash

52:37

hits. Yeah, Sheary was like a blockbuster

52:39

video standard also. Probably just trying

52:41

to be like, hey man, let's skip

52:42

the game together here. But Troy Minsic

52:45

is like, no, cast this younger guy. I really

52:48

like his vibe and he is amazing

52:50

in the movie. And I think the overall

52:53

thinking on the age thing was like, who cares? Like

52:55

this movie is so chaotic. Let's just

52:58

embrace it. Sure. And be unconventional.

53:00

Like everything else about the movie is so unconventional.

53:02

He also like has such this like rarefied

53:05

wealthy person life that you can just kind

53:07

of accept that like, Oh, like life

53:09

is just less hard on you. Exactly. You know,

53:12

the way that rich people

53:14

we all know. Yeah. Um, I also, we were

53:17

talking about this off mic. So it's

53:19

really weird that you've referred to that. What

53:21

do you mean? We all know that we all know we were

53:23

all normal. Yes.

53:27

And to be clear, we were talking about it off mic because we'll

53:29

do it. Of course. That's

53:30

why we look so beautiful with bouncing

53:33

skin. And yeah, just glowing.

53:35

Anyway, I was going to say there was that one shot where

53:37

he is like doing that like yoga

53:40

move where he like lifts his legs

53:42

up and he has headphones on and is crying

53:44

and you just see his like miserable face as

53:47

he like impossibly lifts like

53:49

half his body off the in the air.

53:51

It is just such an indelible

53:53

image. Like that is actually alongside

53:56

the octopus. Like one of the scenes I remember the most.

53:58

Absolutely. And it is like

53:59

hair helmet. He has like the firmest

54:02

raised, slick back hair. Super gelled.

54:05

Yeah. Like you feel like you could snap it off. Yeah.

54:07

They said that the, the, whatever

54:09

the gel, whatever the product they use was so strong

54:11

that to get it out, they would

54:13

like end up removing clumps of hair.

54:16

That

54:16

by the end of it, he was like patchy and

54:19

it took a while to grow back in.

54:21

Um, I think there's something

54:23

to the fact in terms of their age

54:25

gap. And I don't think this was intentional

54:28

at all, but

54:29

it's part of why I may be like, uh, accept

54:31

it in some sort of a static truth kind of way

54:34

where it's like, well, our lead character

54:36

has been in

54:37

imprisonment for 15 years

54:40

and it's been a rough 15 years where he

54:42

aged harder than most. And it's

54:44

sort of like this guy is the exact

54:46

same age. He was when he imprisoned

54:49

the other guy, right? It's like one

54:51

of them has sort of stayed exactly the same and the other

54:53

one has aged twice as fast.

54:55

All right. So right. The part of the movie, right? He's in the hotel

54:57

room.

54:58

Um, he's being fed dumplings every

55:00

day via pet door.

55:02

They gas him. They gas him. Here's

55:04

the thing with the gas. No good.

55:06

It's definitely not good,

55:09

but as someone who has trouble sleeping,

55:11

I was a little bit like, what if there was a fucking

55:18

switch in my room where

55:20

I could gas my ass. A big boxing glove that just like, and

55:26

then you're like, well, I do like that too.

55:28

I do like that too. Peaceful.

55:29

Like they, he's often in bed already.

55:32

And then it was just like, Oh, like,

55:34

yes, but it's one of those things. It's not

55:36

the bleeding edge of being like, what if I just

55:38

died? Interesting

55:41

points. There's something let's, let's explore

55:44

that. No,

55:46

I wouldn't be surprised if I heard like that's another

55:48

thing, uh, crazy rich people do is like bathe

55:50

in blood, use those empich, gas themselves to

55:53

sleep. So you get a solid 10. Basically

55:55

what Michael Jackson was doing, right? He had to be like, yeah.

55:59

TikTok. And I always, so

56:02

just prolific and cool. Lady Gaga has total gas

56:04

phase right now. I don't know if you've noticed. It's one of my favorite concepts

56:06

in Inception is the people who

56:08

are like, yeah, we've done Inception too long to

56:10

actually be able to go to sleep, so we have to be put to

56:12

sleep by the machine now. I think about that scene all

56:14

the time. Just all the people like lying out there.

56:17

for one scene, it doesn't factor back

56:20

into the plot. Yep.

56:21

So yeah, so he goes crazy.

56:24

He starts imagining ants crawling over himself.

56:26

He tries to kill himself. He starts ditching

56:28

lines into his hands. He

56:30

sort of sort of manually tattoos

56:33

himself. He has the line, I butchered, which

56:35

would it have been easier if going in, I knew it was gonna

56:37

be 15 years, which is right off the bat,

56:40

you see him imprisoned. You don't know how long it's

56:42

gonna be. He says that line before we're

56:44

basically seeing the time lapse of all this time. So

56:46

you're just like 15

56:47

years, holy fucking shit. And

56:49

it is a good question. Is it easier

56:51

to survive if you think every day I might

56:53

get out tomorrow, or if you know

56:55

it's gonna be 15 years, I just gotta ride this

56:58

out?

56:58

He's trying to dig a tunnel, but

57:01

he is on like a high floor.

57:04

Yes. It's also

57:06

taking an incredibly long time. So yeah, no. And also

57:08

like he's being watched, which I feel like he sort of knows.

57:10

Absolutely. He gets TV.

57:13

He does get TV. So he watches. I do

57:15

love that montage

57:16

of like all the historical events that happened,

57:19

some of which I'm like, well, sure, 9-11, Princess

57:21

Diana dying, and others are like

57:23

presidents being elected and like the

57:25

reopening of Hong Kong and things like that.

57:29

So let's mention the other thing he gets from the TV

57:31

is that he has been framed for his wife's murder. Yes.

57:34

Yes. He gets that right away.

57:36

Right.

57:36

Right. And then one

57:38

day he gets out. He wakes up in a

57:40

suitcase. He wakes

57:43

up in the middle of the night to a woman hypnotizing him.

57:45

Well, first there's that, sure. Yes. Right.

57:47

And then the next thing he knows, he's in a suitcase in the middle.

57:50

Which was the central marketing

57:53

image of Spike Lee's remake of this film. Which is fascinating.

57:55

Was the suitcase. Not a bad image, to

57:57

be clear. No, it's a great. I mean, like it's. especially

58:00

it's like shot from above and you don't, and

58:02

then you understand that you're not in a field, you're

58:05

on a rooftop and you know. How

58:07

do you never seen that? No, I haven't seen it. Have

58:09

you seen it? Oh no. I, well, do you know

58:11

what? Actually, I think I may have, but I have retained nothing.

58:14

Like I, it's gone. Like it's gone from

58:16

my head. I

58:16

know it has this reputation of

58:18

like, there's actually a decent cut

58:20

of it that never went out. They posted 105

58:23

minutes. Berlin said Spike Lee's cut

58:25

was a 140 and was good. Right.

58:28

I have no, who knows? But a

58:30

truly

58:32

like forgotten thing is that

58:34

that happened, made zero

58:36

money. It was released by like film district. Right.

58:39

Starring Thanos and Scarlet Witch. Right. True.

58:42

And like, as far as I know, that movie

58:44

is basically identical plot

58:46

wise. Like it has the incest twist. Yes.

58:48

Though I think at the end,

58:50

they don't end up together. No, I think he like checks

58:52

himself back into the prison. Right. Maybe

58:55

the one different. He puns himself. He has none

58:57

the, nonetheless in that movie had sex

58:59

with his dog. Yes. Like that is certainly

59:01

in the film. No, the wild thing is, cause when

59:04

this came out,

59:06

by the time it finally came out in the United States,

59:08

I remember already being announced, obviously with all of

59:10

its hype, with Khan and everything, Justin

59:12

Lin is going to remake this with Nicolas Cage. Right.

59:15

I went into it

59:16

thinking, how will Nicolas Cage

59:18

do this movie? I remember the whole time watching it. I do remember

59:20

the Cage thing. And then you get to the end and you go, well, they're

59:22

never going to let this happen in an American film. Right.

59:25

Yeah. And then a couple of years after that, Spielberg

59:28

and Will Smith are going to make it. Yes.

59:31

I remember the Will Smith thing. And that's a public announcement. And

59:33

then it came out, like we're actually doing a different

59:35

adaptation of the comic. We're not looking

59:37

to remake

59:39

Park Chan-Wook's film.

59:41

We will be changing the plot. Right.

59:44

And then it kind of came out that

59:46

they had gotten the rights

59:49

from the Korean company that had

59:51

made the Park Chan-Wook film, but that

59:53

those rights didn't

59:56

enable them to be able to sell the underlying

59:58

comic rights.

1:00:00

So they were like the only thing you could do is remake

1:00:02

the film literally at which moment Spielberg

1:00:05

and Smith tap out and suddenly it's Spike

1:00:07

Lee

1:00:08

Yeah, and Josh Brolin is his tenth choice and it's

1:00:10

like one of the only films that is a

1:00:12

Spike Lee film not a Spike Lee Joint

1:00:14

because he it's like his version

1:00:16

of taking the Yeah,

1:00:19

but but it's wild that yeah, then they just had

1:00:21

Spike Lee remake it pretty

1:00:24

Straightforward Lee

1:00:26

with all the fucked up shit, right? It's

1:00:28

in New Orleans, right? Yeah But

1:00:30

yeah, I think it is a basic retelling.

1:00:32

Yes, but yeah, whatever When

1:00:35

I watch this version go god, Toronto Copley

1:00:37

would really lend that's true. That's

1:00:39

actually the worst curse It was made during the brief

1:00:41

like total accomplish in everything. Yeah,

1:00:44

and he does the same thing in everything Listen

1:00:49

to me

1:00:50

Oh B

1:00:59

Episode is brought to you by movie

1:01:02

a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating

1:01:04

great cinema around the globe. Listen, I'm

1:01:06

listening I will pull it up But they

1:01:08

want to me to tell you about some of

1:01:10

the stuff they have coming up in July Well, I'd love to hear

1:01:12

it.

1:01:13

So I first they've got synecdoche New York one of our favorite

1:01:15

movies one of my favorite movies of all Yep,

1:01:17

July 5th. They got Mia

1:01:20

Hudson loves film a

1:01:21

pure spirit I've

1:01:24

never seen that one. I haven't either

1:01:26

in short documentary line spots In

1:01:30

they've also got coming up throughout

1:01:32

July of various one car why films 20

1:01:34

years Ashes of Time Redux,

1:01:37

which is cool His is sort

1:01:39

of you know revamp take on ashes of time the

1:01:41

Grandmaster Mm-hmm,

1:01:43

and you've got a double bill from Robert Altman California

1:01:45

split in Kansas City. I've never seen Kansas

1:01:47

City David Kansas City you rule I

1:01:50

know that and it's very hard to see that one I'm

1:01:53

trying to think if it's my hmm if

1:01:55

it's your what favorite 90s Altman.

1:01:57

Well, the players pretty good and shortcuts

1:02:00

But I'm like, I really, Kansas City I think is really

1:02:02

good. Never seen it, have always wanted to. Jennifer

1:02:04

Jason Leigh, right? Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda

1:02:06

Richardson giving an unbelievable performance. And

1:02:09

the great Harry Belafonte, who just lost us. It's, it

1:02:11

left us. We just lost Harry Belafonte.

1:02:13

We lost us.

1:02:14

We lost him. We did. He left

1:02:16

us. It is perhaps his greatest

1:02:18

film performance. Listen. He's incredible.

1:02:21

He plays a villain. He, I love

1:02:23

Harry Belafonte. Against type. All right, I'm going to watch all

1:02:25

that stuff. You can try Mubi Free for 30 days

1:02:27

at Mubi.com slash blank check. That's

1:02:30

M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for

1:02:32

a whole month of great cinema for free. And of course, always

1:02:35

worth pointing out as we record these episodes,

1:02:37

that Decision to Leave,

1:02:38

the most recent film by Park Chun-Wook is

1:02:41

exclusively available on Mubi. Do they have the

1:02:44

other Vengeance movies on right now? They did recently.

1:02:46

I'm not sure. Griffin.

1:02:49

That's why I asked.

1:02:52

I'll put his name in and see. They do have

1:02:55

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Well. And Lady

1:02:57

Vengeance. Look at that. They also have his short

1:02:59

film Judgment. Hey, now. Which people keep

1:03:02

telling me to watch. Including a certain

1:03:04

social media editor who's sitting right next

1:03:06

to me. Nodding vigorously.

1:03:09

And we're done. Bye.

1:03:14

Old boy. OK, so he gets out. And

1:03:16

yes, who is this man on the roof?

1:03:19

He's going to commit suicide, right? It's

1:03:21

just a guy who just happened to be there. Just happened to be there.

1:03:23

A depressed man. He thinks his

1:03:26

life's bad. Right. Right. Wait till he talks

1:03:28

to this guy. I hate that he has this dog. I

1:03:30

know. I was upset about that, too. I hate that.

1:03:32

That's the thing that's upsetting for me. That

1:03:34

dog did not do anything to deserve this. Maybe the dog

1:03:36

wrote a suicide note as well. Maybe the dog was

1:03:38

like, hey, please, can you? I can't get to the

1:03:40

top of a building by myself.

1:03:42

We hate this joke. Go on, David. No. Griffin.

1:03:45

We hate this. The whole room. Here's the thing, Griffin. Absolute

1:03:48

disaster. Show is canceled. Look, obviously,

1:03:51

I don't love animal cruelty in films. But

1:03:53

like. I don't either. No, no, no. But I.

1:03:56

It does not bother me. I'm not a pet owner.

1:03:58

Sure. And I do feel like I'm.

1:03:59

I'm like, well, yeah, it bounces

1:04:02

off me a little better, first of all. And I know there's

1:04:04

some people who are like,

1:04:05

you have to tell me, like, hey, did you see that

1:04:07

movie? Did you have to tell me what happened to the dog?

1:04:10

You know, like, because they know, like, I won't be able to hack

1:04:12

it. Sam Ruggale, one of my best friends, past and future

1:04:14

guests, loves the John Wick franchise more than

1:04:16

anything. Every time a new one comes out,

1:04:18

he does an all day marathon, which now takes

1:04:20

a while. And he skips the dog killing. And he's just

1:04:23

like, when the first one came out, I was not

1:04:25

a dog owner. Since then I am, it's my

1:04:27

closest relationship with my wife. And I've been

1:04:29

in my life more than my wife. And he's like, I now

1:04:31

just start John Wick,

1:04:33

you know, 20 minutes in, or I skip that one

1:04:35

scene. Yeah, I mean, Forky has seen

1:04:37

John Wick three or four times and she definitely has never watched

1:04:40

that scene. She just leaves the room.

1:04:42

Anyway, right, so he

1:04:44

recounts things to the rooftop

1:04:46

man, goes downstairs. I

1:04:49

bet you're wondering how I ended up here. He gets in the full house. And then

1:04:51

the rooftop man does kill himself. And he's

1:04:53

kind of like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, they

1:04:55

also have that funny bit where the rooftop man's like, now let me

1:04:57

tell you my story. And he's just like, nope, funny stuff.

1:04:59

He's like, yeah, I don't care. I

1:05:01

don't know what he thought this was, but this is not what we're

1:05:04

doing. No. And then pretty much

1:05:06

right away, he ends up in the sushi restaurant.

1:05:09

Not a Chinese restaurant, sushi restaurant. The Chinese

1:05:11

restaurant is later. That's how he figures out. Yeah,

1:05:13

the sushi restaurant. Well, because

1:05:15

he's been hypnotized, right? He's like,

1:05:17

they're like. He has, as we later

1:05:19

know, he's been essentially subliminally

1:05:22

told to go into his restaurant. I have forgotten, not having

1:05:24

seen this film in almost two decades, that she was

1:05:26

hypnotized as well. And I was just like,

1:05:28

this is really a big ass that she falls for

1:05:30

him this. Oh yeah, no. Because he's not

1:05:32

appealing. No, he's in fact aggressively

1:05:35

unappealing.

1:05:36

And also treats her terribly. Not

1:05:38

very nice. And eats a giant octopus. Have

1:05:40

to imagine he smells terrible. Like everything

1:05:42

about this guy. They gave him a new

1:05:44

suit and everything. So he might actually

1:05:46

smell okay. Fresh linen. But

1:05:50

yes, no, she's just immediately

1:05:52

touching him. Oh man, that guy who just came

1:05:54

in here and you know, octopus.

1:05:57

That's what I want. And then like slammed his head against.

1:05:59

counter after taking a phone call.

1:06:02

Let me bring him back to my place. Yes. Brings him

1:06:04

back to her place and

1:06:07

she wins him over. But again, all of this is

1:06:09

pre-programmed in a way. So it's

1:06:11

almost silly to talk about. But also, he tries

1:06:14

to assault her, right? Immediately. While

1:06:16

she's on the toilet, he just walks into the bathroom

1:06:19

and tries to start making stuff happen. Yeah.

1:06:21

And all of nothing dissuades her. Nothing.

1:06:25

Her response to that is, we don't

1:06:27

know each other's names yet. Obviously, I want

1:06:29

to have sex with you because I invite you back to my place. Let's

1:06:31

just do this in the right order. Whereas I would

1:06:33

be like, get out of my place, but I'm not a hypnotized.

1:06:37

Hypnotized. I'm not a hypnotized. And

1:06:40

I feel like, yeah, fairly quickly, they

1:06:42

start to zero in on like, okay, well, who is delivering

1:06:45

the dumplings? That's how we'll figure

1:06:47

out. This actress

1:06:49

who plays...

1:06:51

Mido. Mido.

1:06:53

When she was auditioning... Kang

1:06:55

Ha-jung.

1:06:56

Yes. She had to audition with

1:06:59

the sushi restaurant scene, and she came

1:07:01

in with a giant sushi knife

1:07:03

and did her audition with the knife.

1:07:06

And then obviously, no other price. She's not like chopping up food,

1:07:08

but she was just acting with a knife in her hand. She had a

1:07:10

prop. And they were like, you brought the knife all the way

1:07:12

from home for the audition? And she was like, no,

1:07:14

I realized on the walk over here I should probably have

1:07:17

a knife. So I just kind of jumped into

1:07:19

a restaurant and asked if I could borrow one.

1:07:21

And they were like, what do you... They were like, borrow

1:07:23

knives at restaurants. I personally

1:07:25

have never asked to borrow a knife at a restaurant.

1:07:27

I've never been like, can I take the check? And also, can you

1:07:30

lend me a knife? Well, especially those

1:07:32

are probably really expensive knives. Thank you. Yeah, they're fancy.

1:07:34

So she was like... Keep them sharp. I was just like,

1:07:36

they have a ton of them. She's very charming.

1:07:39

Right.

1:07:39

Her mind was they have so many of them. They'll

1:07:42

be fine letting me take one for 45 minutes.

1:07:45

And they were so astounded. They said that then

1:07:47

Park Jung-wook went over to the restaurant and

1:07:49

said, can you just verify this story for me?

1:07:52

And I think like the fact that that was so compellingly

1:07:55

weird was basically the reason they cast her. Yes.

1:07:58

He was also a parent.

1:07:59

Yeah,

1:08:02

no, it's basically like

1:08:04

she's so like without shame

1:08:07

and without, you know, you

1:08:10

know, guile, I guess, like to do

1:08:12

something like that is so crazy. My brother

1:08:14

once when he was young got hired, he probably

1:08:17

shouldn't tell the story, got hired

1:08:19

for a job.

1:08:20

And then like a few weeks later,

1:08:22

one

1:08:24

of the people at the job

1:08:26

was like, yeah, it's so crazy you got this job after

1:08:28

the almonds. And my brother was like, what do you mean? And

1:08:30

they were like, in the middle of the interview, you just

1:08:32

opened a pack of almonds and started eating

1:08:34

them without addressing the situation. Like

1:08:36

without being like, Hey, by the way, I'm really hungry

1:08:39

or I have to eat almonds to

1:08:41

live or just do Joey, Joey,

1:08:43

just like casually. I think

1:08:46

that's a power. Exactly. I think you and

1:08:48

the guy was like, and we just had no idea what why

1:08:51

you did that. And we did discuss it. And

1:08:53

I do think

1:08:54

it's incredibly powerful. It's

1:08:57

like this. It's just insane and confidence.

1:08:59

My brother's 100% was just like, Oh, I was just

1:09:02

hungry and I had almonds in my pocket. Like

1:09:04

I think that's the package.

1:09:06

He

1:09:08

didn't just pull out some loose almonds. Yeah, that would be

1:09:10

too far. It would just be there. Oh, this is

1:09:13

the one man. Yeah. Um,

1:09:15

okay. So yeah. So

1:09:17

they figure out the Chinese restaurant, uh, that is

1:09:19

making his prison food.

1:09:21

Uh, and so through that, they

1:09:23

get to the prison. He's like, I want answers.

1:09:25

I'm on the case now. I want to find out

1:09:27

what happened to my daughter. Want to find out who

1:09:29

in prison. She's read his journals too.

1:09:31

And she's kind of

1:09:33

gotten invested through reading

1:09:35

his life story and really

1:09:38

wanting to help. To be fair, a pretty

1:09:40

nuts story. Yeah, it's a story. Um,

1:09:44

she, uh, she's also like got the weird

1:09:46

chat room thing. Yeah,

1:09:48

that's a kind of very underdeveloped, uh,

1:09:51

little thread in there where she's kind of in there chatting

1:09:53

with someone online who turns out to be very

1:09:56

important to this story. Yeah. I

1:10:00

don't know how there's a thing about this. I don't remember. But

1:10:02

basically, yes. With her

1:10:05

gumption and his

1:10:06

hammer skills. They can do anything. They're

1:10:08

an indefeatable team. Pretty quickly,

1:10:10

she finds what she thinks

1:10:13

is information about his daughter. Right,

1:10:15

and that's the thing, they dismiss the daughter thing pretty quickly. She was

1:10:17

adopted by a couple in Switzerland.

1:10:19

Sweden. Sweden. That's it. Yeah. You won't find

1:10:22

her, but she's fine. Right, yeah.

1:10:24

They kind of just swipe that away. They give a piece of paper with an international

1:10:26

number and a Swedenized

1:10:28

name and everything, and he's

1:10:30

just like, you know what? I don't need to fucking interrupt her life.

1:10:33

Right. Yeah.

1:10:34

So they go to the prison,

1:10:37

which is just one of those. And it's a good thing, by the way, they

1:10:39

push the daughter out of the plot because then we just never have to think about

1:10:41

that ever again. It's just. Ah, it's just taken care

1:10:43

of. Go to the prison, one of those

1:10:45

classic hotel prisons. Guys like,

1:10:48

I fucking run like 20 of these

1:10:50

rooms. Easy. Dumplings. I really just

1:10:53

have so many questions. Gas. Yes.

1:10:55

I have all the permits.

1:10:56

It's just like, if we could have just like covered

1:10:58

there for like a half an hour in the middle

1:11:00

where he just explains the business model and the workings,

1:11:03

it would have been amazing. It is the physical thing. I would

1:11:05

love a spin-off workplace sitcom about

1:11:07

this. Yeah, well, especially because he mentions, he's

1:11:09

like, you know, some people, they do the business

1:11:12

with people who need bodyguards, but like, we don't

1:11:14

do that. Like, you know, our

1:11:16

niche in the private hotel prison

1:11:19

business would be like thriving

1:11:21

industry. Really? Some people do that? How

1:11:24

do you find,

1:11:25

like where this guy is like, I need to punish this

1:11:28

man. Can you call, can you

1:11:30

find anyone who, you know, like in between

1:11:32

floors on a building. Right. Runs like

1:11:35

a sort of seventh and a half floor kind of vibe.

1:11:37

We also, there's one part where he's on the phone

1:11:39

to a client and he says like, you know, well, if it's a stay

1:11:41

for longer than six months, transport is free, which

1:11:43

presumes that they're comparing prices and deals.

1:11:45

Absolutely. Yeah. It's a

1:11:47

competitive business. 15 years, you're going to rack

1:11:50

up quite a bill. Do you think they make him put down a card

1:11:52

for incidentals? Definitely. Yes.

1:11:55

And you know, they email him every year. Cards expiring.

1:11:57

Yeah. Great.

1:11:59

of real thing that exists in the world. Ben.

1:12:02

Well, there's another movie about

1:12:04

a hammerman that has sort of that, I think

1:12:07

rich people do shit like this. You're never really

1:12:09

here. Oh, yeah. Also has like the creepy

1:12:11

person, obviously that's sex trafficking kind of thing.

1:12:13

It's the Bordello version of that. Right,

1:12:15

right, right.

1:12:16

Yeah, I don't know, in terms of just like a revenge

1:12:18

prison where you're like, I don't

1:12:19

know. But

1:12:21

you know what, David? That's a great counter, like that's

1:12:24

a deeply disturbing movie that I'm obsessed

1:12:27

with and watch compulsively. I mean, I think

1:12:29

that movie is very good. I don't

1:12:31

think you should be watching it compulsively.

1:12:33

I study it like the blade. No,

1:12:36

but I think that's one of my favorite movies of the last 10 years.

1:12:39

That movie speaks to a very sort of nasty

1:12:41

idea of what life

1:12:43

is like right now.

1:12:44

Right. But also, that is another movie where

1:12:46

the main character is kind of cast

1:12:48

as like a creature almost. There's something

1:12:50

very like animal, like Troy

1:12:52

Minsink, his character in this movie describes

1:12:55

himself as a monster constantly. And there is something

1:12:57

of the monster to him. And I think in

1:12:59

that movie too, he's like a

1:13:00

beast. I wasn't thinking of the comparison.

1:13:03

And perhaps this is something I need to litigate

1:13:05

with my therapist tomorrow. But I don't

1:13:07

know why I'm like so all in on that.

1:13:10

A movie I've like recommended to certain people and they're just

1:13:12

like, that's just too much for me. And it is, that

1:13:14

movie is much. Absolutely. It's very much.

1:13:17

And it features a hammer. Yeah,

1:13:19

yeah. That's what I'm saying, another hammerman. Hammerman.

1:13:22

But that movie is like,

1:13:23

it's just like all of the kind of brutality

1:13:25

is so concentrated. And this movie, it's so

1:13:27

like lurid and kind of gothic.

1:13:30

There's something like, it kind of revels in

1:13:32

it in a different way. Maybe that's part of it.

1:13:35

Like it really kind of licks its

1:13:37

lips over some of this stuff. Yeah, whereas

1:13:40

you were never really here, it's pretty mopey. Yeah. Yeah.

1:13:43

Oh, right. So yeah, he interrogates the hotel

1:13:45

guy, right? In this scene, he uses his

1:13:47

hammer to pull his teeth out. First

1:13:50

you get that great moment where he like turns

1:13:52

around and there's the hammer and he gets the

1:13:54

dotted line. Like

1:13:57

that's the guy's bodyguard or whatever,

1:13:59

right? Like we don't.

1:13:59

I don't even see him hitting with a hammer. He's just working in

1:14:02

the hole. That is so good. And

1:14:04

so fucking French New Wave

1:14:06

or whatever. So delightfully out of the air. That's

1:14:08

the moment where Tarantino must have like jumped out of the chair.

1:14:11

Exactly. That's like the square. But then

1:14:13

number two, I feel like, is Tarantino's probably like,

1:14:15

fuck, this guy actually puts the hammer in

1:14:17

the tooth in a close-up. I

1:14:20

couldn't do that in Reservoir Dogs or whatever.

1:14:23

Tarantino always does that thing of, the

1:14:25

best movies made since I started making

1:14:27

movies, he always has this qualified list

1:14:29

of like,

1:14:30

well, from the moment I become a filmmaker, I view films

1:14:32

differently, right?

1:14:34

And I feel like this is one of very few films

1:14:36

he cites

1:14:38

that was made since he became a director that he is

1:14:40

jealous of. Whereas like Battle Royale,

1:14:42

Matrix, this, like these are the

1:14:44

movies where I was like, I don't know how the fuck these guys did this. Right,

1:14:46

right, right. Yeah.

1:14:48

That dotted line moment

1:14:50

makes me think of Looney Tunes, where

1:14:52

I wanted it to be like, Hammers. Like the

1:14:54

coyote. Yeah, like. Yeah,

1:14:56

like, do it for you. Tooth smashes, or whatever. A

1:15:00

crazy thing in the

1:15:02

documentary, just a tiny little thing, they

1:15:04

were talking to the actor, the hotelier,

1:15:07

about that scene.

1:15:11

And he said like, it wasn't painful at all,

1:15:13

it's just a sponge they painted silver and

1:15:15

cut into the shape of the back of a hammer. And

1:15:17

then they cut in the shot again.

1:15:20

And it's crazy where if you're looking at it and

1:15:22

you know to look for that, you're like, yeah, that no way

1:15:24

looks real. But in

1:15:26

the moment, within context, you get

1:15:28

so caught up on it, and it's such a tight close

1:15:31

up, it's not like they're cutting away from it quickly.

1:15:32

His tongue is like there,

1:15:35

kind of flapping in the shot. It's so fucking nasty.

1:15:37

And it's rigged with blood spurting out and all

1:15:39

of this. Tooth stuff,

1:15:42

I feel like the only thing that's worth is like eye

1:15:44

stuff. Eye stuff is really nasty. Eye

1:15:46

stuff is the worst for me. I have come to feel

1:15:48

better about eye stuff because I'm just like,

1:15:50

for some reason I've seen enough of it that I'm like,

1:15:53

this is fake. Because

1:15:56

there's just always that moment where you're like, well now

1:15:58

it's fake. There's a bunch of goo. getting

1:16:00

squirted out or whatever. Also, I don't love it.

1:16:02

I love having eyes. I love having eyes.

1:16:05

And also one time, you know, I got Lacyk

1:16:07

like a few years ago and Lacyk is like the most body

1:16:09

horror.

1:16:13

Like it's like 20 minutes of just like

1:16:15

full on Cronenberg, like awfulness.

1:16:17

And then, um, yeah, it was a really just emphasized

1:16:19

for me how bad I

1:16:22

don't want it. Um, absolutely.

1:16:25

But yet pulling teeth out, I

1:16:27

don't know. Don't don't like that at all. Fingernails

1:16:29

get me. Yeah. See

1:16:31

some fingernail stuff when you do. It's usually

1:16:34

really, really horrible. There's

1:16:36

some big film where they do fingernail torture

1:16:39

that I feel like I watch for a reason.

1:16:40

Yeah. I feel like I saw something recently too, but I

1:16:42

can't remember what it was. Oh, Super Mario

1:16:44

Brothers movie. Yeah, that's right. Um,

1:16:48

so, uh, you know, right after

1:16:50

this pretty much is, uh, he tells

1:16:52

him he was put in prison for talking too much.

1:16:55

I feel like that's the big revelation really. But

1:16:57

after this is the hammer fight. The two most

1:16:59

famous things about this movie apart from the twist are

1:17:01

in the first sort of like 40 minutes of the movie.

1:17:03

I feel like the

1:17:04

octopus and the hammer fight.

1:17:07

It is a fascinating, uh,

1:17:09

thing where like

1:17:11

this, this is a movie where in theory

1:17:14

recommending it to people should be difficult because you don't

1:17:16

want to spoil any of it. Right.

1:17:19

But then there are these like couple of extreme

1:17:21

things that happen early on that no way

1:17:24

have to do with any of the twists or turns that

1:17:26

you can just pitch to people. Yeah. This

1:17:28

guy fucking fights a bunch of people with a hammer

1:17:30

and

1:17:31

he eats an octopus live and they're like, and

1:17:33

what's it about? And it's like, I can't tell you anything.

1:17:36

I

1:17:36

mean, the thing I love about the hallway fight

1:17:38

scene beyond just that it is one

1:17:40

take it's just, it's

1:17:43

so awkward, you know, it's,

1:17:45

it's just, there is this people

1:17:47

who have vague ideas about how fighting works and

1:17:50

maybe some experience, but like still

1:17:52

are not, you know, like

1:17:54

John Wick. We

1:17:56

programmed into a computer the puzzle

1:17:59

of like a man. moving through 12 people

1:18:02

with such balletic grace or whatever.

1:18:04

No, it's just like a bunch of people charging. Just like. Lurching

1:18:07

at each other. I mean, and then. Being out of

1:18:09

breath. Yeah, they're tired. Big, chunky, sweaty guys.

1:18:11

Like some of the guys are obviously more scared than others

1:18:13

halfway through and they're just like reluctant to try

1:18:16

it. And then I had forgotten that he

1:18:18

gets like stabbed halfway through and they're all like leaning around

1:18:20

being like, is he dead? And then he like lurches

1:18:22

back up. And they're like, ah, yeah. Trance,

1:18:25

which we talked about in the podcast, has

1:18:27

fingernail stuff. I

1:18:30

knew there was something we talked about recently that

1:18:32

fingernail stuff. That's a wild movie. I

1:18:34

think it's pretty normal.

1:18:36

What's about normal things?

1:18:38

That is the single biggest influence of this

1:18:40

movie. I think even though you're saying it's very different

1:18:42

than John Wick, I'm like, I do think there

1:18:44

is a long tale effect of

1:18:47

this sort of like, you want to just watch a person

1:18:49

move through a space, right?

1:18:51

And even just the lack of cleanness

1:18:54

of the choreography of just

1:18:56

like, this is more behavioral.

1:18:59

And there are actual kind of character

1:19:01

beats within it. I still feel like this is kind

1:19:03

of what people are striving for all the time.

1:19:05

Yeah, and a bunch of people have tried to rip it off or

1:19:08

pay homage to it over the

1:19:10

years. To the extent that like the hallway fight

1:19:12

has become its own thing. Right,

1:19:14

very much. Like put a lot of people in an enclosed

1:19:17

space and then you have like atomic blondes, like we did

1:19:19

that on a staircase or whatever. You know, like

1:19:21

we're going to find different versions of an enclosed

1:19:23

space. The Marvel Netflix shows would each have

1:19:26

one per season. That was basically the big

1:19:28

moment. Daredevil had the most,

1:19:30

yeah. And I'm sure Iron Fist

1:19:32

had one because I watched all of that one.

1:19:35

The elevator opens up and his smile.

1:19:38

And then to cut to then the

1:19:40

elevator opening again. To not give

1:19:42

us another action sequence, to be like, you get

1:19:45

it.

1:19:45

The arrow box that I got

1:19:47

is the elevator.

1:19:49

That's cool. And it's like the box

1:19:51

is split vertically down the middle and you open

1:19:53

it up and then it's just him.

1:19:55

It's pretty good packaging design.

1:19:58

Something else I appreciate. We talked about he does

1:20:00

look cool. He gets to do cool action stuff. He gets

1:20:02

to beat up some dudes in the beginning, randomly

1:20:05

just to try out. But I like that

1:20:07

even though it is established that he has been like shadow

1:20:10

boxing and punching a wall for, I don't

1:20:12

know what, 10 of those 15 years or something, like

1:20:14

somewhat long time,

1:20:15

that really his like superpower is just

1:20:18

like this intense determination

1:20:20

and not caring about anything else. That

1:20:23

is the thing that actually gets him through this is just

1:20:26

a full willingness to dive into a group of

1:20:28

like 10 dudes and be like, let's just get

1:20:30

through this. He needs to know why and he needs

1:20:33

to

1:20:34

have his revenge.

1:20:35

How is it then revealed who his captor

1:20:38

is?

1:20:40

How do we then, because he comes in pretty soon

1:20:42

after that. He reveals himself to him. Is it

1:20:44

after that fight scene where he helps him get the

1:20:46

cab and then, He's got the bucket hat on

1:20:48

and he puts him in the cab. He thinks it's just a friendly pedestrian.

1:20:51

And he's basically like, look,

1:20:53

if you can figure out why I did

1:20:55

this, I will kill

1:20:57

myself. If

1:21:00

not, I will kill me though. Also

1:21:02

like that first scene where like he picks him up on

1:21:04

the sidewalk and puts him in the cab. He does

1:21:06

his own smile, like his own sinister smile.

1:21:09

And it's just like framed like very deliberately that

1:21:11

you don't see the top of his face first. So

1:21:13

this is a real battling of like broken smiles.

1:21:15

He is very frightening. It is my favorite.

1:21:17

But also very handsome. Yes, very, very attractive. It's

1:21:20

my favorite narrative conceit of this movie is

1:21:22

just like, you assume it's gonna be

1:21:24

a film where he's spending two hours to get

1:21:26

to the answers.

1:21:27

And instead like halfway

1:21:30

through the guy is like, it's me. It's me

1:21:32

and I want you to know it's me. And

1:21:34

now I'm testing you.

1:21:36

I'm not hiding from you. And

1:21:38

the film can cut away to him.

1:21:40

We're not keeping him narratively in

1:21:42

the shadows. I've set up

1:21:45

this game. Yeah. But now

1:21:47

even outside of the controlled

1:21:49

prison environment, you're still

1:21:51

within this

1:21:54

system I've developed and designed. Cut

1:21:56

to like his henchmen briefing him on

1:21:58

the updates and whatever. Just like, what

1:22:00

is it this guy's trying to make happen?

1:22:03

To what end? Yeah. His weird

1:22:05

penthouse apartment that's also just filled with hench

1:22:07

people all the time. I mean, I'm not even sure. There's

1:22:09

the blonde henchman who's kind of the number one henchman,

1:22:12

he's a good henchman. Like he's like a peroxide

1:22:15

blonde henchman. Yeah. It's always good

1:22:17

to have one of those guys where

1:22:18

you're like. You gotta have your guy who's like incredible

1:22:20

at fighting. Right, who's like in a track suit

1:22:22

or something. He's got kind of like a thing. He's kind of

1:22:24

like, that guy's gonna die last. Like

1:22:27

if I'm doing action. Right, he's got that

1:22:29

great final moment where he just starts weeping.

1:22:31

Yeah, he's honestly really, really

1:22:33

good. I don't know the actor, but

1:22:36

Kim Byung-ook. Yes,

1:22:39

at this point is when he has

1:22:41

sex with Mido, right?

1:22:45

Yeah, now I'd say the sex scene is

1:22:47

uncomfortable the first time.

1:22:49

Very uncomfortable even before you know

1:22:51

the choice. She is in physical discomfort and keeps on communicating

1:22:55

that she is actively uncomfortable

1:22:57

but wants to do it for him. And also even

1:22:59

before they have sex, when she is like, we'll

1:23:02

have sex eventually. I will

1:23:04

sing the song so you know that I'm ready.

1:23:06

But also it may still fight

1:23:08

you. You've just gotta keep pushing through

1:23:10

which is an incredibly disturbing thing

1:23:13

to say as a preface. All this is because

1:23:16

she's like

1:23:17

hypnotized, right? Like is that the implication

1:23:19

of all of that?

1:23:20

It's very strange. Now

1:23:23

of course it's also intentionally

1:23:26

disturbing I feel like because it's going to be played

1:23:28

at him later.

1:23:30

It was a very conventional

1:23:33

sex scene. It

1:23:34

needs to hit in this insane

1:23:36

way at the end of the movie. Insane way

1:23:38

is the point. I mean, you could just have it be a romantic

1:23:41

sex scene in which they're saying, I love you. And if you

1:23:43

replay that, that still is fucked up. It would be really

1:23:45

weird, but I think it's just, it's all part of the complete

1:23:47

kind of alien quality of this.

1:23:50

When it's played back, it's her saying, I'm

1:23:52

in immense pain. Is that

1:23:54

much worse? Yeah, and then like kind of wailing.

1:23:57

Right, but I'm doing it for you.

1:23:59

And he still looks like a complete freak

1:24:02

to be clear. He looks horrible I

1:24:05

don't mean to shame He

1:24:08

looks very bad

1:24:10

Appreciate that even I'm forgetting the

1:24:12

name of the villain uh Even

1:24:14

he is disturbed at this point. You're

1:24:17

going up to this place Yeah, where he's like, you know,

1:24:19

do you think they're in

1:24:19

love already? Like really like was that just like

1:24:22

all it took?

1:24:23

Is kind of putting them together Yeah, find

1:24:26

out later like they could hypnotize him to the

1:24:28

point of getting them to meet each other He

1:24:30

was hoping they could orchestrate the events to make him fall

1:24:32

in love

1:24:33

and you sort of get the sense that he's like That's like four

1:24:35

months ahead of schedule

1:24:37

That's how it happened. I thought it happened

1:24:39

this fast. He's not aware of his powers. Yes,

1:24:42

so then right He's eventually gonna figure

1:24:44

out what it is. Now.

1:24:46

Does he recognize this guy right away? No, he

1:24:49

doesn't Right. I mean he didn't know

1:24:51

this guy really right? He you know, that's the thing

1:24:53

right? He he just saw him one

1:24:55

time and said something and that's

1:24:58

that's all it is Yeah, right by the way I set

1:25:00

this chain of events emotionally as no concept

1:25:02

of you said you said the thing about our villain threatening

1:25:04

to kill himself Or saying he promising he

1:25:06

will will kill if you figure out the mystery

1:25:08

I will kill myself But the part of this is

1:25:10

that he had heart surgery and

1:25:13

he has a pacemaker and he asked them to install

1:25:15

the pacemaker With a kill switch and

1:25:18

a remote control So he can

1:25:20

at any time if he wants

1:25:21

to push the button and just fucking

1:25:23

detonate his life immediately But

1:25:25

that's all like a red herring, right? Yeah, it's

1:25:27

made up It is made up The

1:25:31

button at the end of the movie before the guy is shot right and

1:25:33

it triggers

1:25:35

I mean the thing is that seems totally

1:25:37

reasonable compared in the scale of like all of

1:25:39

the other things What 38

1:25:47

So I think also another important

1:25:50

point that I it never quite like

1:25:53

Come like cemented for me until I saw this most

1:25:55

recent time is that?

1:25:56

Like he doesn't know

1:25:59

that he's witnessing inside

1:25:59

He just thinks he's seeing,

1:26:02

when you see the flashback, he's like, he's

1:26:04

this girl he knows, he's this girl he knows,

1:26:06

and she's hooking up with a guy. And

1:26:09

that is the rumor. It's not like the rumor

1:26:11

was ever like this brother and sister were like, well.

1:26:13

Yeah, he is not aware of the

1:26:16

accusation he's making, essentially, by saying

1:26:18

that.

1:26:19

He has seen something much more ruinous,

1:26:21

but actually all it takes to kind

1:26:23

of destroy this girl is a rumor

1:26:26

that she was hooking up with someone.

1:26:28

Right, supposedly she got a phantom

1:26:30

pregnancy or a hysterical pregnancy,

1:26:33

and thus they

1:26:34

thought, it

1:26:36

was an incestuous pregnancy

1:26:38

and she killed herself, and that's why he's

1:26:40

doing all of this. And that's what's going on.

1:26:43

Yes. Oh boy. Right,

1:26:45

and so as punishment, he has tricked

1:26:47

him into fucking his daughter.

1:26:49

That's right, he is. And so

1:26:52

it's like this movie builds to a final half

1:26:55

hour that's all basically

1:26:57

in this spa apartment.

1:27:00

Right, well she's being held by one of the henchmen at

1:27:04

his or her grimy place. No, she's

1:27:06

back at the

1:27:07

hotel room. Where is she? Yeah,

1:27:10

right? So Dessu takes her

1:27:13

to the prison, the hotel

1:27:15

prison, because he thinks

1:27:17

that now the prison, the hotel guy is

1:27:20

on his side, like the enemy of my enemy. So he's like,

1:27:22

this will be a safe place. Right, his hand.

1:27:24

Oh right, there's that whole sequence

1:27:27

where the hotel guy's about to kill him, and then gets

1:27:29

paid a giant suitcase of money to not do it. And

1:27:31

then later they get his hand delivered with

1:27:34

the ring on it. Yes. And

1:27:36

she says something to him when he's now

1:27:38

got the fake hand that his hand

1:27:40

rotted and they threw it out. But they gave

1:27:42

him the ring. They're like, we took the

1:27:44

ring off, here you go. So sick. Yeah,

1:27:46

but so that's why he's like, this will be a good place

1:27:48

to keep her safe here. And

1:27:51

just good memories, good time. Right, exactly,

1:27:53

she was

1:27:54

like being here. That's

1:27:56

what my pandemic apartment felt like. I

1:27:58

got the same money.

1:27:59

Yeah, it's hard not to think about

1:28:02

being locked inside. Like sitting there getting delivery

1:28:04

and watching TV. And that was, obviously,

1:28:06

our experiences during the pandemic were exactly

1:28:09

like Daesu's experience as an old boy.

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The last half, I just feel like you're watching this

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movie and you're like, there will be some kind

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of epic combat or something.

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And instead, this movie just completely subverts

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expectations every time of like, you're not

1:30:24

going to know the twist. And then he's like, Oh

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wait, I think I figured out the twist. Yeah.

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Oh, you reminded me. Yeah, I knew this guy

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or I saw this guy. And like

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then, and then, so you're like, Oh, okay. So we

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figured out the mystery here. I guess now there's

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just going to be a final showdown. And so he

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shows up at this guy's insane loft with,

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with water. Sure. I

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just think it's a cool set, you know, with

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the, the, the shell, you know, the things

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that open and close were filled with clothes,

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you know, the incredible wardrobe.

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Yes.

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Also his showers kind of in the middle of

1:31:00

the place too. I like the vibe. He's like, what do you

1:31:02

mean? Why does the shower need to be in a special

1:31:04

room? Right. He's got a, a loft living is a way to go.

1:31:07

A tight tush. And then he's got a tattoo

1:31:10

of a knife

1:31:11

pointing down to his crack. Yeah. Yeah.

1:31:13

It does. No, it's a tramp stamp basically. Yeah. But

1:31:15

as you said, uh, uh,

1:31:18

his, his closet is like four

1:31:20

pillars. It's like Darth Vader's anti-chamber

1:31:23

thing or whatever. He steps in the middle of it. It

1:31:25

splits apart. It kind of unfolds it. Yeah. Yeah.

1:31:28

And he's basically like, yeah, you figured it out,

1:31:30

but what you haven't figured out obviously is that

1:31:32

I brainwashed you into, you know, having

1:31:34

sex with your daughter. Because from Purple Box inside is a photo

1:31:36

album. It starts with pictures of him and his kid and

1:31:39

his wife, and then her getting a little bit

1:31:41

older and you just immediately are like, Jesus

1:31:43

fucking Christ, you know it. And, and

1:31:45

I think he does a really good job of playing that

1:31:47

he knows it. Right. Like

1:31:50

the terror with each page he flips

1:31:52

as you start to see her look more and more like

1:31:55

the woman he met

1:31:56

until you get to the photos of them together.

1:31:59

And then.

1:32:00

Here's the thing, this performance, which

1:32:02

is astounding, is a really wonderful performance.

1:32:05

It reminds me a lot of, we talked about William

1:32:08

Peterson in Manhunter,

1:32:10

where this is a guy who's just gone. From

1:32:13

the moment the movie starts, before things even,

1:32:15

he's already completely ruined. He's just dead, right?

1:32:18

He's dead inside. It's a thing I think Jeremy Strong

1:32:20

is incredibly good at doing, succession just ended, so

1:32:22

it's top of mind, but there's so many

1:32:24

of those scenes where you're just like, he is a man

1:32:26

just drained of life. He is so

1:32:28

traumatized by what happened. He's really good

1:32:31

at the kind of like, vacant, you know,

1:32:33

yeah. So most of this performance in All Boy from

1:32:35

the time he gets out of imprisonment,

1:32:38

I think he has that really

1:32:40

well down

1:32:43

with the spurts of mania on top of

1:32:45

it, right?

1:32:46

And then this reveal happens and you're like, oh,

1:32:48

I thought he was doing poorly before.

1:32:51

The degree to which he just completely

1:32:53

collapses behind the eyes after this, you

1:32:55

know? Well, and especially because right

1:32:58

before, there's this moment where you're like, you don't

1:33:00

need to go to the apartment. Like you could just go, you know?

1:33:02

Like you guys could just go off like you're,

1:33:05

you don't need to finish the story. He's put it

1:33:07

together. He's got his answers. Yeah, and he is

1:33:09

like more alive. I think his hair may

1:33:11

even be brushed. Yes, right, right. And

1:33:13

you know, and you're like, oh, you are starting

1:33:16

to become a person, like aside from

1:33:18

just a revenge

1:33:19

monster. Yeah, and then in

1:33:21

contrast, then when he just like shatters.

1:33:24

Right, right, and it's just everything. It's

1:33:27

like the seven stages of grief all

1:33:30

in fast motion, right? It's bargaining,

1:33:32

it's anger. There's only five stages of

1:33:34

grief.

1:33:35

Yeah, it's two. You had a couple in there. Sure, yeah, yeah,

1:33:37

yeah. Yeah. He really takes us on a journey. Yeah, cutting

1:33:40

your tongue out is the sign. Yeah, I

1:33:42

mean, he really goes there. First

1:33:44

he's like, hey, I'm sorry. And you know,

1:33:47

the

1:33:47

villains are like, well, I kind

1:33:49

of was hoping for the mat. Then he's like, I'll

1:33:51

be your dog. I'll like, you know, I'll slobber

1:33:53

all over you. I'll do whatever you want. He's like,

1:33:56

getting there, you know, prefer that. He's

1:33:58

like, fine, I'll cut my tongue out.

1:33:59

Because he gets a phone call from her and she's

1:34:02

like, hey, they handed me this box, should I open

1:34:04

it? Yeah. Which is that's like another

1:34:06

layer down of like, oh, now he just seems,

1:34:09

another part of him just died inside the prospect

1:34:11

of her finding out. Her finding out, yes. What does he need

1:34:14

to do to prevent her from opening the box? So

1:34:16

he cuts out his own tongue. Don't open the box.

1:34:18

I

1:34:18

mean, that's what I did think of that. Like it's got

1:34:21

the same kind of vibe of just like, you really

1:34:23

don't want to look in there, but you're probably

1:34:25

going to. I do think I like Brad

1:34:27

Pitt and I like the film Seven. But

1:34:31

I think of that moment in

1:34:33

Seven as kind of like, you're like, Pitt

1:34:36

had a ceiling to his skill

1:34:39

in the 90s. What's

1:34:41

in the bug? You know, like where it's sort of on

1:34:43

the edge of parody, what he's doing. It's very watchable.

1:34:46

It is, it's very watchable. And the moment is

1:34:48

so gripping. Whereas this guy

1:34:50

really sells me on like, yeah, I believe

1:34:52

it, this guy's like, I gotta lose the time. He has never

1:34:54

been so afraid also in his life. You

1:34:57

know, honestly, hard to think of a worse

1:34:59

situation to be placed in that moment.

1:35:02

That's the great tragedy part of it too, where it's

1:35:04

just like,

1:35:05

I've imagined a scenario so complex

1:35:08

and fucked up. You can't believe

1:35:10

it. The whole story is just about

1:35:13

this scenario. Stuff will happen,

1:35:15

but it's really that I thought of something so crazy.

1:35:18

And the movie will end there. The story ends there.

1:35:20

And of course, as opposed to I

1:35:22

stuff, which Oedipus, you know, went

1:35:24

for I's. He goes for

1:35:27

not to stuff, but mouth stuff. Yeah, yeah,

1:35:29

this is a real mouth stuff movie.

1:35:32

Oedipus, he's crazy,

1:35:34

that guy. He's like, oh no, married

1:35:37

my mom, killed my dad. Eyes

1:35:39

gotta go. Bad luck. I

1:35:43

learned about Oedipus too young. Someone

1:35:46

told me like the plot of Oedipus when I was a kid. And

1:35:48

I was like, what? What the fuck is that? Pinks his

1:35:50

eyes out?

1:35:52

That really distressed me as a kid. And this movie distressed

1:35:55

me as a grown man, which is what I am.

1:35:58

And yeah, then fucking, you know.

1:35:59

Wujin kills himself. He plays the,

1:36:02

as we said, pacemaker doesn't work, just turns

1:36:04

on the... Plays the tape, makes him listen to... The tape.

1:36:07

And Wujin then reflects on

1:36:09

his sister's suicide in a very

1:36:11

extended and kind of distressing flashback

1:36:14

of him like holding her. Right. Because

1:36:16

there's the thing he remembers about like, wait, someone, she

1:36:19

died falling off a bridge by accident?

1:36:22

Who took the photo?

1:36:25

And then you see the flashback of him desperately

1:36:27

trying to keep her from falling over. And

1:36:31

then

1:36:31

he chews himself.

1:36:33

Well, yes. So he's

1:36:35

got his tongue taken out, right?

1:36:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which he's doing

1:36:40

as an act of, I don't know, sacrifice?

1:36:43

Tenance, whatever. Sure. Yeah.

1:36:46

But then it does have this odd effect of just like, well, now I have an insurance

1:36:48

policy. I know for a fact

1:36:50

I will never tell her that I'm her dad.

1:36:53

It's impossible. It can't be done.

1:36:55

You cut to him in the middle of like a snowy

1:36:58

forest. He's with the hypnotist

1:37:00

lady.

1:37:01

And he's just like hypnotize me again. And

1:37:03

you almost think, oh, is he trying to forget that any

1:37:05

of this ever happened? He

1:37:08

still wants to know her. The

1:37:11

end of the movie is the two of them together. Him smiling.

1:37:14

He can't speak. What do we think? The

1:37:16

last scene is so weird. It's very weird. They're

1:37:18

surrounded by mountains. I think they shot that in New Zealand.

1:37:21

Weird. So they had to like travel somewhere to have

1:37:24

snow and mountains. So it just really looks so

1:37:26

removed from all the other contexts.

1:37:29

It is very dreamlike. Well,

1:37:32

and just the complexity of him

1:37:34

smiling.

1:37:36

And then like he sort of goes into this

1:37:38

grimace right at the end. And