‘My name is Oh Dae-su’: a mirrored image of Oedipus in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy

Abstract

ABSTRACTOldboy [Oldeuboi; Park, Chan-wook, dir. 2003. Oldboy. Seoul: Egg Films] is known for the characteristical postmodern jest while it stylistically visualises extreme violence on screen. From a slightly different purview, the following discussion will read the mythical implications in Oldboy to explore a less investigated perspective on the film itself as well as the opus of this Asian filmmaker who created a renewed image of the myth of Oedipus. First, I will inspect the meaning of revenge, which is widely considered as the central narrative drive of Park's revenge trilogy. Also, while engaging the psychoanalytic discipline as a guide to the details of the film's characterisation of the protagonist and his counterpart, Lévi-Strauss' study of myth will offer a new ground for understanding the film's allegorical nature and its universal appeal outside the national, linguistic and cultural boundaries. Finally, I will attempt to speculate the nature of the film's connection to the Oedipal myth of incest and its punishment with reference to Freud's conceptualisation of the Oedipus complex. The ultimate objective is to trace how the film represents the abyss of our psyche where the irresistible desire for a forbidden pleasure finds its moralistic vent in the deadly spiral of revenge as a means of self-punishment.