Oldboy - The Distraction Blogathon

    Rebecca at Taking Up Room came up with a great idea for a blogathon. She's asked her fellow bloggers to write about movies with distractions in them. By distractions, she means red herrings, maguffins, or anything that takes the audiences eyes off the prize - gets us looking in one direction before smacking us from the other. I've watched lots of those movies. Most of us have. Therefore, I knew I wanted to join in on this one. Of course, my biggest problem was deciding what to write about. Before we get into all that, I need to know the rules. And so do you, if you plan on participating. I'll just let Rebecca explain those.

1. Pick a movie or a list of movies that have distractions in them, whether it’s a MacGuffin, red herring, dangling carrot, or any other kind of hook. Reviews don’t have to explicitly state what a film’s distraction angle is; if doing so is too big of a spoiler, this can be hinted at or skipped. 
2. If anyone is stuck for an idea, examples can be found here, here, and here. 
3. The blogathon will take place from November twelfth through November fourteenth. Posts can be sent to Taking Up Room on or around those days via the comment section, my Contact page, my e-mail address (rebeccadeniston@gmail.com), or my Twitter account (@TakingUpRoom). 
4. New material only, please, and no more than three entries per blogger. 
5. Duplicates are allowed, but more people can look at the same film if it’s approached from a different angle, such as a straight review as opposed to a listicle. 
6. Grab a banner and advertise the blogathon!

    Sounds pretty easy, unlike the movie I chose. If you missed the title before you clicked, I've chosen the 2003 Korean classic, Oldboy. The set up says it's a straight forward revenge flick. It's execution says typical is not in its vocabulary.

    If you're not familiar, things start with our protagonist, Dae-su, getting thrown into the drunk tank at the end of an apparently wild night. He gets released, but bada-boom, bada-bing, he wakes up in a hotel room where he is locked in and not let out for 15 years. His captors were nice enough to include a TV in his makeshift prison. Through this, he learns about the murder of his wife and that he is the prime suspect. That means his daughter is left to fend for herself. When he's abruptly released without being given any info on who locked him up or why, his only order of business is finding out those very things, then killing this person.

    When watching this movie for the first time, or even the second, third, fourth, or fifth, you get swept up in Dae-su's quest. You can't help but to be invested in his plight, even as he does some questionable and/or grotesque things. You want nothing more than for him to find the person responsible and commit unspeakable acts against them. A funny thing happens on the way to revenge. We realize we're in the midst of watching someone else exact it. The way they go about it is as warped as it gets. And so is their reason for wanting it.

    I'll go no further because saying anything else would venture into spoiler territory. I get that the movie is eighteen years old as of the day I'm publishing this, but it's a film that deserves your ignorance of its ending. I went in cold on my first watch about sixteen years ago. I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

    Go check out Oldboy, if you haven't, then come back and tell me what you think. And definitely make some time to check out all the posts for Rebecca's blogathon. Maybe even contribute yourself.

    And, oh yeah...

Girl Week 2021 is coming.