4 stars out of 5
In the mid-aughts, I really meant to see Oldboy. Then in 2013, I missed Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy. So, Decision to Leave is my first experience with the work of Korean writer/director Park Chan-wook. It took a while into this film but, I’m impressed.
The first big chunk of the movie is a well-done but fairly routine detective story/neo-noir. We have police detective Hae-joon — married, wears a suit, a little stiff, can’t sleep — and his young, single, casual partner Soo-wan. There’s even a bit of buddy comedy with these two. They investigate a death: accident or murder? Enter the femme fatale, Seo-rae, the dead man’s widow. Hae-joon becomes overly interested in her. Will his growing obsession taint the investigation and/or play havoc with his own marriage?
So the film is going along, good if not great, and I’m thinking, cut the guy a little slack, it’s been 20 years since Oldboy, maybe he’s lost half a step. The leads, Park Hae-il as the conflicted cop and Tang Wei as the widow, are both very good. She is quite alluring without the film over-sexualizing the character. (OK, she does hike up her skirt once.) And Tang Wei keeps us believably wondering: Is she a killer or just a confident, modern person? Meanwhile, Park Hae-il effectively conveys a tricky balance between morally upright professional and letting go to ones impulses, to potential happiness.
Before I realized it, the story continued to build and build (getting a bit convoluted for a stretch), and the emotional and psychological stakes kept spiraling higher and higher, until the film genuinely reminded me of Shakespearean tragedy. So I salute you, Park Chan-wook, and I promise once and for all to watch Oldboy.
Jack Silbert, curator