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This chapter examines the “Asia Extreme” label of London-based Tartan Films and its relation with recent East Asian horror films. It examines Tartan's marketing strategies and its aspiration to expand to global markets including the U.S. It focuses on its horror titles, not only because they have become the most prominent and leading examples of the label, but also because the rise of Asia Extreme has coincided with the phenomenal success of “Asian horror” with branches such as “J-horror” and “K-horror,” which have been celebrated as producing the most original and innovative horror movies of the last decade. It examines the critical reception of the most “notorious” Asia Extreme titles —Audition, The Isle, and Oldboy in the UK and the US to understand the different discourses through which the Asia Extreme films are evaluated and mediated.

This chapter analyzes the issue of violence in recent South Korean “extreme” films, and focuses on three films: Oldboy (2003), H (2002), and A Bittersweet Life (2005). It questions the simplistic dichotomies of “us” (or “US”) versus “them,” “good” versus “evil,” and “sane” versus “sick.” It compares the three films with Hollywood melodrama and notes how a “threat” to social order propels the narrative in both South Korean “extreme” films and Hollywood melodrama, yet the “threat” functions differently in that the moral good is never fully restored in the former. It argues that such narrative structure is attributed to the recent history and national traumas of Korea, and that violence in Korean extreme films provides a revelatory moment, in which the sustained moral structure is reversed; the protagonist recognizes the “other” in him or her, dissolving the binary moral opposition between good and evil.

This chapter examines Park Chan Wook's “vengeance trilogy”: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot, 2002), Oldboy (2003), and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi, 2005). It analyzes a number of elements that characterize the main trope of Park's films including the trope of captivity, mystification of spatial markers, separation of planes of representation and signification, and the camera's “flat” wide-angle shot. It also evaluates whether or not the post-politics or anti-history of Park Chan-wook can yield a political reading when placed in a Korean historical context.

This chapter contextualizes the trajectories of studies on South Korean popular culture and the hybridization dynamics of transculturation on the one hand, and the conceptual background of the reconstruction of South Korean masculinity on the other. There are many examples that can demonstrate transculturation and hybridization in the realm of contemporary South Korean popular culture. Due to the limited scope of the chapter, it only describes the most significant example: the Korean blockbuster. It specifically discusses Hangukhyeong Beulleokbeoseuteo and Shiri. In addition, the hybridity of Korean masculinity and the soft masculinity of Bae Yong-Joon are reported. The global masculinity of Rain and the postmodern masculinity in Oldboy are covered. An overview of the chapters included in the book is provided as well.

This chapter addresses Western cult fandom of the Korean genre film, Oldboy, and describes how postmodern South Korean masculinity is reconstructed through the ambivalent desires of Western spectators based on the mixed practice of mugukjeok and neo-Orientalism. It also investigates how the Western desire for the Other is expressed, transformed, and redefined by consuming hybrid South Korean masculinity, as exemplified by the “savage but cool” Oh Dae-Soo, and how this transformed desire, “with a distinctly postmodern slant,” is different from earlier Orientalist desires towards the primitive Other. In addition, the chapter evaluates the West's ambivalent reception of Oldboy, which fluctuated between Western male identification with South Korean cool masculinity and Western desire for the primitiveness of South Korean masculinity. The most popular film review websites are presented as well. It can be concluded that due to the ever-fluctuating postmodern popular cultural flows, Western audiences experience the hybrid “time between dog and wolf” when they view Oldboy: the time when contemporary postmodern South Korean masculinity, as epitomized by the “savage but cool” Dae-Soo, is reconstructed within ambivalent neo-Orientalist Western spectatorship.

This chapter examines cult Asian cinema in the UK at the very peak of its critical acclaim and commercial success, and the drastically altered context for Asian film reception will be discussed. This chapter argues that the proliferation and high visibility of a wider range of Asian cinema than critics had ever experienced before has allowed them to finally construct their own canons of quality within national Asian cinema industries and genres. The frames of reference used by British critics to assess meaning and value have changed dramatically. At this point, too, Tartan’s brand had been transformed, achieving mainstream visibility, yet finding itself in danger of expanding to the point of losing authenticity and fracturing into meaninglessness. Nonetheless, 2004 was the peak year for Tartan, and a wide range of their releases and promotional (and self-congratulatory) activities are examined: the acclaimed release of bold new Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs (2002); the unprecedented success of Oldboy (2003), hot off its award from the Cannes International Film Festival; the critical debate inspired by the uncategorisable cult hit Save the Green Planet! (2003); and finally the scandalous (non-)release of Battle Royale II (2003).

Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003) achieved only moderate success on its initial release in South Korea, but upon finding international distribution it attained much greater notoriety, winning a major prize at Cannes and attracting an unusually passionate and positive critical consensus. This chapter examines Spike Lee’s 2013 transnational film remake in terms of its critical reception, and the way in which the ‘reinterpretation’ was framed by its director in press interviews and public discourse. The chapter analyses how Lee attempted to escape the negative connotations of the ‘remake’ and brand his film as another entry in his own auteurist canon, despite the sceptical response from critics. This chapter further analyses the reception of the film in terms of the ways critics address the spectacle of violence, notions of taste, and the assumed cultural differences between American and South Korean audiences. Lee’s Oldboy thus offers the opportunity not only to examine the transformation of material from one director to another, but to interrogate broader debates over the intersection of the auteur as symbol/brand and the imagined (lack of) creative freedom afforded directors of remakes.

This chapter discusses South Korean director Park Chan-wook. Over the last decade very few Korean film directors have made such an impact on the international scene as Park Chan-wook. The key to his fame can be summed up in one film title: Oldboy (2003). The film's macabre, violent, and highly transgressive narrative made Park one of the most well-known and popular South Korean directors on the international circuit. His success is also related to his ability to defy easy classification. While the themes seen in his work are similar to those seen in other filmmakers, what sets him apart is the vibrant, dynamic, and highly accessible style that he employs. His films are unique in their blend of popular culture, high production values, and box office success.

This chapter analyzes Park Chan-wook's film Oldboy (Oldeuboi, 2003) about a man, Oh Dae-su, who is mysteriously kidnapped and held in isolation for fifteen years without human contact, and with no reason given for his incarceration. He is suddenly released and finds himself with money, designer clothes, and a challenge to discover why he was imprisoned for so long. A sense of violence pervades the entire film, which relates to the continual drive for vengeance that is spurring its protagonists. All elements of the film are linked into this force and any item can be used to provide a method for obtaining revenge. Oldboy is also dominated by a variety of colors that give it a tremendous level of intensity. Park stated that he wished the film to remind people of a thick oil painting, and the employment of bold colors such as black, red, and purple offers a layering effect that results in a film that is a palimpsest of color and textures.