STORY

Oldboy begins in 1988 when the main character, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), is mysteriously kidnapped on the night of his daughter’s birthday. For fifteen years, Oh Dae-su is confined to a hotel room without reason. His only window to the outside world is a television set. Through the television he learns that his wife has been murdered. In his strange absence he becomes the main suspect. Each day Dae-su practices boxing and attempts escape.

One day, Dae-su is released on the roof of an apartment building. From a small trunk, he emerges into the world. Unable to figure out why he was kidnapped or who kidnapped him, he goes to a sushi restaurant where he meets Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung). Oh Dae-su faints at the restaurant and Mi-do takes him back to her apartment. Upon waking, Dae-su briefly loses self-control and tries to attack Mi-do. However, the two reconcile and become friends. Mi-do agrees to help Dae-su search for his daughter.

They learn that Dae-su’s daughter was adopted by a Swedish family after his wife was murdered. Distraught by the news, Dae-su continues to search for his kidnapper. He tracks down the restaurant that made the dumplings he ate each day in captivity. From there he finds the delivery boy and then the make-shift prison. Returning to the private prison to get information, Dae-su must later fight his way out of the building. The famous fight scene involves Dae-su armed with a hammer against multiple henchmen.

Eventually, Dae-su and his captor meet. His captor Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae) gives Dae-su five days to solve the mystery of his imprisonment. If he solves the mystery, Woo-jin will kill himself, if Dae-su cannot solve the mystery, Woo-jin will kill Mi-do. Dae-su and Mi-do work together to understand Dae-su’s imprisonment and in the process fall in love. In a moment of intense passion the two have sex. Dae-su begins to put together the pieces of his connection to Woo-jin, realizing that they both attended the same high school. As a teenager, Dae-su witnessed Woo-jin and his sister’s incestuous relationship. Dae-su then accidentally spreads the rumor of their relationship and Soo-ah (Woo-jin’s sister) commits suicide.

Solving the mystery, Dae-su rushes to Woo-jin’s penthouse apartment. There, Woo-jin reveals that Mi-do is actually Dae-su’s daughter and that he used hypnosis to orchestrate their meeting and attraction. In a moment of extreme anguish, Dae-su cuts out his own tongue, Woo-jin commits suicide, and the penthouse fills with blood.

In a flash-forward, Dae-su is hypnotized again to forget the terrible act he has committed. Dae-su and Mi-do meet again, but the success of the hypnosis is unclear.

DIRECTION STYLE

Oldboy film was directed by Park Chan-wook. This film includes a number of truly shocking scenes and concepts. From the abduction of Dae-su, to his imprisonment for 15 years, to the actual reason behind it, and everything between, are rather shocking. The scene of him eating the octopus, the various bloody fights, the sex scene with his daughter, and the entirety of the ending sequence, definitely provide a shock element, which the spectator does not easily overcome.

However, Park managed to inject his distinct, dark, and ironic sense of humor, in this otherwise onerous setting. During the corridor scene, when Dae-su asks the thugs for their blood type before he hands them a member of their team he had previously hurt. The whole concept of the character, with Dae-su acting like a caricature throughout the majority of the film. His interactions with his kidnapper, in a sequence mocking everything presented on screen concerning this kind of relationship.

This very dark sense of irony finds its apogee in the very end, with Dae-su asking the hypnotist to make him forget that Mido is actually his daughter, in order to return to a relationship he knows is incestuous.

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING

Chung Chung-hoon’s cinematography does wonders in the presentation of the complexity of the story and the intense aesthetics Park wanted to give the movie. Apart from the corridor scene, Chung uses bright colors, intentional grain, and color saturations, in an effort to match the extreme nature of the story without physically exhausting the audience.

Park Chan-wook is one of the most prominent filmmakers in the industry in his use of the handheld camera, as he uses it to give his films a slightly shaky effect. This trait is also present in “Oldboy”. However, the movement and the angles he uses are very subtle, and the presence of the particular medium does not become so obvious, as it was in “The Blair Witch Project”, for example.

Furthermore, the handheld camera gives a more direct view of the scene to the audience, actually making them think that they are a part of the movie. This trait is most eloquently presented in the final sequence, when Dae-su learns the truth and is actually filmed with a handheld camera as he crawls and begs.

The same trait applies to Kim Sang-beom’s editing. Apart from the aforementioned scene, his editing is wonderfully portrayed in a scene at the beginning of the film, when Dae-su wakes up inside a briefcase on a rooftop, and meets a man with a puppy, who is about to commit suicide.

Despite his intentions, Dae-su saves him and then tells him his story. The man seems to empathize, and after Dae-su has finished he tries to tell his story, but Dae-su leaves him standing. The next cut shows Dae-su on the street and the man crashing from the rooftop onto a car.

SYNOPSIS

RUN LOLA RUN is a German import about Lola (Franka Potente), who gets a frantic phone call from her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), and has only 20 minutes to find a large sum of money, or he will be killed by the drug dealer to whom he supposed to deliver the money. Lola rushes to save Manni from the drug dealer, and from himself — he plans to hold up a store if she cannot get him the money. When she interacts with people on her way — and in her way — we get glimpses of what their lives ahead will hold. Lola runs to the bank where her father to ask him for the money. But he has his own problems. She does not make it in time, and the result is tragic. But Lola is determined not to let that happen again. All of a sudden, we are back in her apartment and she is getting Manni’s call again. Everything starts over, but with tiny differences that have huge consequences for Lola and Manni and for the people around them. It takes three tries before Lola’s running is over.

DIRECTION STYLE

Run Lola Run is a 1998 German thriller film. The film was written and directed by Tom Tykwer, and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. Tykwer’s story is fast and breath-taking from the beginning until the last minute. The arrangement of scenery and properties in Run Lola Run is quite detailed and well organized. The mise-en-scene has a lot of external scenes from the streets of Berlin. In reality, the city is mostly crowded but as a choice of the director, as a manner to emphasise Lola and Manni’s distress, the streets are calmer and serene. The Internal scenes include Lola’s house, her father’s bank, the supermarket where Manni and Lola rob, the subway and the casino. All scenery was decorated in accordance with the reality.

The director has chosen to utilize non-conventional camera techniques.  Run Lola Run uses two different and distinct cameras; a camera with high resolution (35mm) and low resolution. The high resolution camera is used for Lola and Manni’s scenes whereas the low definition camera is used in scenes which don’t involve the couple (Film Education, 1999). Manni and Lola’s scenes have visibly better definition which contrasts with, for example, her dad and his mistress’ scene, where the definition is low and granny. Tykwer wanted to give the scenes without Lola and Manni a sensation of illusion, resembling it as an artificial world as in a video game. The scenes rich in lively colours gives to Franca Potente and Moritz Bleibtreu’s characters the sensation of what it’s happening to them is real.

STORY

Lola receives a frantic phone call from her boyfriend Manni, a bagman responsible for delivering 100,000 Deutsche Mark. Over the phone, Manni relates the story that he was riding a subway to the drop-off location of the money and panicked at the sight of ticket inspectors. He exited the train and realized that he left the money bag in the car as he got off; he last saw a homeless man examining the money bag as the train pulled away. Manni explains that he is meeting his boss in 20 minutes, and that he will be killed unless he has the money. Manni is about to rob a nearby supermarket to secure the funds. Lola implores Manni to wait for her, and decides to ask her father who is a bank manager for help.

Lola hangs up and runs down the staircase of her apartment building past a man with a dog. At the bank, her father is shown having a conversation with his mistress, who informs him that she is pregnant. When Lola arrives, she has a conversation with her father, which degrades into an argument and him telling her of his affair and that she is not his biological daughter. Lola runs to meet Manni but arrives too late, and witnesses him entering the supermarket with a gun. She helps him rob 100,000 marks from the supermarket, but upon exiting the store, they find it surrounded by police. Surrendering, Manni throws the money bag into the air, which startles a police officer who shoots Lola in the chest.

The events of the film restart from the moment Lola leaves the house, only this time, she trips over the man with the dog. Lola now runs with a limp; her arrival at the bank is delayed, allowing her father’s mistress to add that Lola’s father is not the father of her unborn child. A furious Lola overhears the conversation, takes a security guard’s gun, holds her father hostage, and secures the 100,000 marks by robbing the bank. She evades police and is able to meet with Manni in time, but Manni is run over by a speeding ambulance Lola had distracted moments earlier.

The film’s events restart once more. This time, Lola leaps over the man and his dog, arriving slightly earlier at the bank and missing the opportunity to ask her father for help. She wanders aimlessly before entering a casino, where she exchanges all of the cash she has (about 100 marks) for chips, with which she plays roulette. She bets all of her earnings on the number 20, which wins. Roulette pays 35 to 1, so she wins 3,500 additional marks. She immediately puts all of her chips (3,600 marks) back on 20 and wins again – 126,000 marks. She gathers all of the money into a bag and runs to where Manni will be meeting his boss. Meanwhile, Manni spots the homeless man from the subway passing by on a bicycle with the money bag. Manni chases him down and takes the money bag by holding the homeless man at gunpoint. Lola arrives to witness Manni handing off the money to his boss. Manni joins Lola, who is disheveled and perspiring. As they walk along, Manni casually asks her what is in her bag.

EDITING

The fast editing, the sounds and music add action to the film. For example the red telephone ringing, the dialogue between Manni and Lola and the tick of the clock, all these diegetic sounds bring the audience’s attention to the silver screen. An important element to the film though is the soundtrack. The techno music conducts the spectator to follow Lola’s rhythm and share her anxious feelings. The soundtrack is another indicative that Lola is reliving the same circumstances. Like mentioned before, Lola is displayed to different occasions which force her to change her course and act dramatically different between them. Through the non-diegetic sound, the audience experience three different “running”. For example, at her first attempt to save Manni, the beat is stronger and faster, compared to the third, where the music is softer. It gives the sensation that in her last attempt, Lola’s more assertive about what she is going to do.

CONCLUSION

Run Lola Run keeps the audience attention from the beginning until the end through its original visual style and well selected soundtrack that combined generates an explosion of tension, adrenaline and suspense. The movie is bursting with postmodern elements which has gained its place as one of the great films from the genre and conquered the public with its twisted narrative, irregularity and discontinuity. Tom Tykwer’s awarded movie is a great option for those who enjoy appreciating cinema as art or simply enjoy a good action movie.

SYNOPSIS

City of God is based on a true story that takes place in the ’60s where in the slums of Rio de Janeiro two boys growing up in the neighbourhood take on different paths in life. The story is told through the eyes of Bus-cape, a poor young fisherman’s son who dreams of becoming a photographer one day. His story narrates the violence and corruption surrounding the city and the rise and fall of one of the city’s most notorious bosses, Li’l Ze . As war wages on the streets Bus-cape’s only way out of this violent life is to expose its brutality to the world through his pictures. Along the way the lives of others are put into perspective as their stories intersect with the events that take place.

DIRECTION STYLE

City of God is a 2002 Brazilian crime film co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, released in its home country in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. The story was adapted by Bráulio Mantovani from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins, but the plot is loosely based on real events. It depicts the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, with the closure of the film depicting the war between the drug dealer Li’l Zé and vigilante-turned-criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is “If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you.”

The plot of the movie unfolds from Buscape’s point of view who tries to tell his own story by explaining the events from the beginning. The way the story develops is non-linear. Initially, the action begins near the end of the film where Buscape finds himself in the middle of an impending conflict which is going to arise. Then, Buscape’s narration gives details and explains the events. Eventually, the movie ends closing its circle of narration after the initial conflict. The main structure of the film is based on flashbacks for the purpose of explaining the main story. It is important to mention that the film uses Buscape as the homodiegetic narrator of the story. Although he is one of the main characters, most of the times he is an observer to the events. As Stephanie Muir states in her book, Studying City of God, Buscape tells the story as a journalist. This can be further explained by mentioning that his narration seems to be objective as a journalist’s because he shows different aspects of the story. However, the fact that the main question that rises in the beginning and that in the narration, Buscape’s feelings are clearly stated in his own words, it is logical to assume that Buscape represents the voice of reason inside chaotic scenery. This is clearly defined from the types of the shots.

This film as a contemporary example of modern Brazilian filmmaking, I hope to have illustrated the social filmmaker’s responsibility to develop considered visual systems  placing social realities under relentless scrutiny. Asking ‘why’ and ‘how’ Meirelles made the choices he did, I hope to have also indicated ‘why’ and ‘how’ films based on fact have a vital role to play in society. Conscious observation of history by audio-visual media may lead to a real and current understanding of social dilemmas. Through the understanding of such situations, their reality is made visible and thus shown to be potentially changeable. Meirelles’s visual style communicates the chaotic world bequeathed to a new generation of children by an indifferent society – a world of which they are desperately but unsuccessfully trying to make sense. The viewer is made aware of his/her involvement in the current state of affairs. Society is asked to take responsibility for conditions in the favelas, to act through the observation of history in order to perhaps change the chaotic spiral of such slums across the globe. To end with the words of Arnaldo Jabor.

STORY

The film begins with an armed gang chasing after an escaped chicken in a favela called the Cidade de Deus (“City of God”). The chicken stops between the gang and the narrator, a young man nicknamed Rocket (“Buscapé”).

The film flashes back to the 1960s where the favela is shown as a newly built housing project with little resources. Three impoverished, amateur thieves known as the “Tender Trio” – Shaggy (“Cabeleira”), Clipper (“Alicate”), and Rocket’s older brother, Goose (“Marreco”) – rob business owners and share the money with the community who, in turn, hide them from the police. Li’l Dice (Dadinho), a young boy, convinces them to hold up a motel and rob its occupants. The gang resolves not to kill anyone and tells Li’l Dice to serve as a lookout. Instead, Li’l Dice guns down the motel occupants after falsely warning the trio that the police are coming. The massacre is brought to the police’s attention, forcing the trio to split up: Clipper joins the church, Shaggy is shot by the police while trying to escape the favela, and Goose is shot by Li’l Dice after taking his money while Li’l Dice’s friend Benny (Bené), Shaggy’s brother, watches.

In the 1970s, the favela has been transformed into an urban jungle. Rocket has joined a group of young hippies. He enjoys photography and likes one girl, Angélica, but his attempt to get close to her are ruined by a gang of petty criminal kids known as “The Runts”. Li’l Dice, who now calls himself “Li’l Zé” (“Zé Pequeno”), has established a drug empire with Benny by eliminating all of the competition, except for Carrot, who is a good friend of Benny’s. Li’l Zé takes over ‘the apartment’, a known drug distribution center, and forces Carrot’s manager Blacky (“Neguinho”) to work for him instead. Coincidentally, Rocket visits the apartment to get some drugs off Blacky during the apartment raid. Through narration, Rocket momentarily considers attempting to kill Li’l Zé to avenge his brother but decides against it. He is let go after Benny tells Li’l Zé that Rocket is Goose’s brother.

Sometime later, a relative peace comes over the City of God under the reign of Li’l Zé, who manages to avoid police attention. Benny decides to branch out of the drug dealer crowd and befriends Tiago, Angélica’s ex-boyfriend, who introduces him to his (and Rocket’s) friend group; Benny and Angélica begin dating. Together, they decide to leave the City and the drug trade. During Benny’s farewell party, Zé and Benny get into an argument; Blacky accidentally kills Benny while trying to shoot Li’l Zé. Benny’s death leaves Lil Zé unchecked. Carrot kills Blacky for endangering his life. Li’l Zé and a group of his soldiers start to make their way to Carrot’s hideout with the intention of killing him. On the way, Zé follows a girl who dismissed his advances at Benny’s party; he beats up her boyfriend, a peaceful man named Knockout Ned (Mane Galinha), and rapes her. After Ned’s brother stabs Li’l Zé, his gang retaliates by shooting into his house, killing his brother and uncle in the process. A gang war breaks out between Carrot and Li’l Zé; a vengeful Ned sides with Carrot.

A year later in the early 1980s, the war continues, the origin forgotten. Both sides enlist more “soldiers” and Li’l Zé gives the Runts weapons. One day, Li’l Zé has Rocket take photos of him and his gang. A reporter publishes the photos, a major scoop since nobody is able to safely enter the City of God anymore. Rocket believes his life is endangered, as he thinks Lil Zé will kill him for publishing the photo of him and his gang. The reporter takes Rocket in for the night, and he loses his virginity to her. Unbeknownst to him, Li’l Zé, jealous of Ned’s media fame, is pleased with the photos and with his own increased notoriety.

Rocket returns to the City for more photographs, bringing the film back to its opening scene. Confronted by the gang, Rocket is surprised that Zé asks him to take pictures, but as he prepares to take the photo, the police arrive and then drive off when Carrot’s gang arrives. In the ensuing gunfight, Ned is killed by a boy who has infiltrated his gang to avenge his father, a policeman whom Ned has shot. The police capture Li’l Zé and Carrot and plan to show Carrot off to the media. Since Li’l Zé has been bribing the police, they take all of Li’l Zé’s money and let him go, but Rocket secretly photographs the scene. The Runts murder Zé to avenge the Runt murdered at the behest of Zé; they intend to run his criminal enterprise themselves.

Rocket contemplates whether to publish the photo of the cops, exposing corruption and becoming famous, or the photo of Li’l Zé’s dead body, which will get him an internship at the newspaper. He decides on the latter and the film ends with the Runts walking around the City of God, making a hit list of the dealers they plan to kill to take over the drug business, including the Red Brigade.

EDITING

The overall editing of the film is based on simple cuts, freeze frames, dissolves and fade to black transitions. However, there are specific parts of the film where the editing techniques used improve the plot and the styles of the film by heighten the emotions of the viewer. Specifically, the first scene of the film (the chicken run) which is the most popular one seems to be based on a certain metaphor between the chicken which is running and Buscape who expresses to his friend his fear of Li Ôl Ze. The elements that enhance the narrative development of this sequence are the fast paced editing, the music, the sound effects, the dialogue and the way all those are edited and mixed. To illustrate that, every cut in this scene is made according to the music and the action for the purpose of creating the suspense and shaping the main question of the movie. Furthermore, the opening scene depicts the whole style and the essence of the film predisposing the viewer for the theme of this movie. Automatically, from this point, the viewer knows what is happening but simultaneously the suspense is increasing. However, there are a lot of other scenes where the editing deepens into the story. In the sequence, ‘the story of the apartment’, the narration unfolds important elements of the story in a short amount of time through dissolves. Moreover, in the scene after the gunfire in the hotel where the faculty and the customers lying dead, the tragedy is underlined by the wipe transition from shot to shot.

The editing technique used mainly in the film is called the ‘Kuleshov effect because the meaning in most parts of the film was shaped in the editing room. The most significant examples, except the opening sequence, are the scene where two boys are hiding on the trees from the police when another scene (the scene with the fish) interrupts this one. The same technique is used in the scene where Li Ôl Ze forces the little kid of the gang to kill the other little kid followed by the shot of a dog eating a piece of meat. These juxtapositions of images create the basic meaning of this society: big fish eat small fish

CONCLUSION

“City of God” tells the story of Rocket, an aspiring photographer looking for his big break so he can leave the treacherous area once and for all. The movie chronicles Rocket’s life as a young boy as he deals with his law bending brother and his gang, all the way to his teen years as a pseudo hippie. As the crime level soars in brutality, Rocket begins to realize his niche as a photographer is his only means of staying honest. With a psychopathic thug named “Lil Ze” looking to take over the slum, Rocket’s career will take him on his most dangerous task of all.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.