Oldboy (2003) Poster

(2003)

Parents Guide

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Certification

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MPAA Rated R for strong violence including scenes of torture, sexuality and pervasive language
Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • Female breast nudity is displayed when a woman is tied up & held against her will with her clothes ripped open for her bare body to be exposed.
  • There are three sex scenes (1 fully shown with nudity, 1 mostly implied with nudity in foreplay and another that is just heard with moaning) and two other sexual scenes including a scene of masturbation.
  • A man violently kisses a woman against her will, and is seen noticeably attempting to grope her. However, she hits him in the head, and he simply leaves.
  • A man & woman have explicit sex that displays female breasts nudity as well as zoomed in female buttocks nudity when she rides him.
  • Explicit & closeup female breast nudity of a man sucking on a woman's exposed nipples. A woman's bare torso is shown as something is written on it. A man's buttocks is briefly glimpsed in a shower.
  • A man briefly masturbates while watching a clothed woman on TV. Only chest up shown, but you can hear wet noises. This happens toward the beginning.

Violence & Gore

  • Stylized, but sometimes brutal violence. Not as violent as many people make it out to be though, but still pretty violent at some points. In a 2 hour movie, there is maybe 10 minutes of violence, with the majority being saved for the last maybe 30-45 minutes. The violence is very realistic and grisly however and consists of two only partially shown torture scenes with teeth extraction, the famous hammer fight and a hand to hand combat scene.
  • Most of the violence is not detailed at all. It's even very hard to see what really happens in some scenes.
  • Just before the hammer hallway fight scene, a man holds a knife to a mans throat and you see the other man with a bloody towel or maybe it's a sock in the mouth. The thing is bloody because he having it in the mouth is the same guy who gets some of his teeth pulled out in the previous scene.
  • Early into the movie, Dae-Su get into a fight with some young guys for taking a cigarette from one of them. No blood.
  • It should be noted that while the torture, self-harm and murder scenes are disturbing and often graphic, the hand-to-hand combat or action sequences are almost always kept to a non-fatal and PG-13 level. The infamous hammer fight scene and the other scenes of fighting are not bloody or gruesome at all.
  • Not for most people, because it's not a korean Tarantino/Kill Bill. Therefore it's no point in hiding it for mature children. No age rating, like in Italy. The 2013 remake is a 14, 15, 16+ though.
  • A man attempts suicide by cutting his wrist in a couple scenes, plenty of blood is seen on the ground. Only the aftermaths are shown, but the man has prominent scars on his wrist for the rest of the film.
  • Stock footage of disasters like 9/11 are shown for effect in one scene.
  • A man commits suicide by jumping off a building. He lands on a car, startling several nearby people, but this isn't very graphic.
  • A man rips out several of another man's teeth with a hammer as a form of torture. There is some blood seen and the act is briefly seen up close. Later, he's seen with a very bloody rag in his mouth.
  • In a long, stylized, 0.0% initally realistic fight scene,a man hits several other men with a hammer while they hit him with several blunt weapons. The men are seen in various stages of pain from blunt force trauma. At one point, he is stabbed in the back and beaten up, but he wakes up and takes them all down, and sudenly this scene is still not the slightest realistic anymore. The scene features some blood and is in 99% shown in distance. It looks like a video game!
  • A man attempts to rip out another man's teeth (in revenge for the man doing it to him) but gets stopped before he can. He then hits the man in the head with a bat, and he's seen in great pain. The attempted victim then threatens to cut of the others hand for molesting a woman.
  • A man is stabbed to death with a broken disk by another man, this is hard to see as it's dimly lit, but it's still clear what happens.
  • A man's severed hand is seen briefly. No blood, but a woman faints.
  • A man gets into a fight with another man, he's violently thrown about a room, against several glass objects. In reality, he would bleed to death and not be able to go on like he does, which makes it suddenly 100% not so realistic. Eventually, the second man is stabbed in the ear with a pair of scissors, destroying his eardrum. Blood is seen leaking out of his ear while he attempts to stab the first man in the neck. He's then shot in the head before he can kill the first man.
  • A man is seen with some blood on him after another man is shot and killed in front of him.
  • A man shoots himself in the head, this is graphically seen with lots of blood and a bullet wound on his head.
  • Infrequent but very strong, however there are two scenes which are quite graphic but they don't last for more than just a couple of seconds and the worst bits are not shown.

Profanity

  • The word 'fuckhead' is seen written on a chalkboard in one shot.
  • The different English translations vary in how much profanity is heard. The original English translation had less uses of fuck, yet the English re-release (which is most likely to be seen today) has many more uses of fuck. The German translation substitutes a lot of swear words including the word "fucktard" replaced with "cocksucker". Currently, this is one of the more profane Korean films to be released.
  • NOTE: In Korean, with English subtitles.
  • 3 uses of "God", and 1 of "Lord". 6 instances of "hell".
  • Around 50 uses of fuck, many uses of shit and bitch, uses of asshole, cocksucker, damn and hell along with other profanities.

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • Some teenagers are shown smoking.
  • A character gets sprayed with a gaseous form of Valium every night while imprisoned.
  • The opening scene shows the main character in police custody for drunkeness. Other than this there is little to no drug use.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • A scene of a man having his teeth extracted using a hammer which is really intense.
  • A man is eating a live octopus raw which can be frighting for some viewers. Upsetting.
  • Most of the torture scenes are offscreen, but sounds and other visuals can make the scenes just as disturbing without the graphic details. What scenes? There are two tooth torture scenes low on detail, but then what?
  • Mido beats Dae-Su in the head for trying to take advantage of her.
  • The entire film is very dark and depressing and the violent scenes could be very hard for some people to watch.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Sex & Nudity

  • At one point, the female lead tells the male lead that one day, he'll just have to "give it to her" after he attempts to sexually assault her. Shortly after she tells him that she might try to resist him, but she instructs him not to stop no matter what.
  • It is revealed near the end of the movie that a character was hypnotized into falling in love and having sex with his daughter without him knowing it was his daughter.
  • A man is mentioned to have an incestuous relationship with his sister and she has become pregnant from that.
  • There are two graphic scenes of incest, one showing a father and daughter having sex roughly (they are both unaware they are related) and another with a brother undressing his sister by taking off her panties and bra and licking her nipple shown graphically.
  • A man sees a video tape of him and a young woman having sex. There's nothing seen (obviously) But we hear their sexual comments and a lot of sexual moaning.

Violence & Gore

  • A character cuts off his own tongue with a pair of scissors. We hear him screaming in agony as he does this, there's a very painful look on his face and the act is offscreen, but we see him cut with the scissors and then we hear some realistic noises and he coughs out plenty of blood as a result. This scene is very intense and disturbing, but also disgusting enough to make squeamish viewers and even someone with a strong stomach squirm.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • A scene of a man cutting his own tongue using scissors.
  • The end of the film can be pretty ambiguous but also very suspenseful and depressing

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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