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Oldboy (올드보이) is a 2003 South Korean neo-noir action thriller film very loosely based on the Japanese manga of the same name. It is the second and most well-known installment of director and co-writer Park Chan-wook's "Vengeance Trilogy", which begins with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and ends with Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

The film follows Oh Dae-su (played by Choi Min-sik), an alcoholic businessman with a wife and daughter. After being released by the police following a night of drunken misconduct, he is abruptly kidnapped without a trace and ends up locked inside a hotel room, completely cut off from the outside world except for a TV, and drugged with knock-out gas every so often. He eventually learns that during his disappearance, his wife has been killed, and he has been framed as the murderer. Enraged by his predicament, he finds ways to pass the time, writing his memoirs, training his fists, and slowly inching towards his eventual escape.

But days before his long-awaited breakout fifteen years later, he is just as mysteriously released, with a set of nice clothes, money, a cell phone, a severely weakened psyche, a fugitive status, and a million unanswered questions. With the help of a female Japanese chef named Mi-do and one of his old computer-geek friends, No Joo-hwan, he tries to piece together the scattered clues of who took his life away from him, cutting down anyone who gets in his path.

The film's story has several noted parallels to The Count of Monte Cristo, as well as Shout Outs to Titus Andronicus and Oedipus the King.

An English-language remake was released on November 27, 2013, directed by Spike Lee and starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Michael Imperioli, Samuel L. Jackson, Pom Klementieff, and Rami Malek.

Since this is a movie known for containing major twists and surprises, watch out for spoilers.

The film provides examples of:

• Adaptational Location Change: The original manga was set in Japan. The film moves the setting to South Korea.
• After-Action Patch-Up: After collapsing from fighting many mooks in a hallway, Oh Dae-Su awakens to find himself back in Mi-Do's apartment with his wounds bandaged and a sleeping Mi-Do by his side.
• Age-Gap Romance: Oh Dae-su is old enough to be Mi-do's father. And he is.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Perhaps one of the darkest versions in cinema. After learning that he was tricked into having sex with his own daughter, Dae-su breaks down, begging Woo-jin not to reveal this to her. He licks Woo-jin's shoes, promises to be his dog, and even cuts out his own tongue.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Right before Woo-jin commits suicide, we have a sad flashback to when his sister committed suicide. Quentin Tarantino was at a screening of the film, and was shocked to find himself crying for a character who had been completely despicable for the entire prior duration of the movie.
• Ambiguous Ending: Dae-su is re-hypnotized to erase the truth of Mi-do being his daughter from his memory so that they can live a happy life together. The two embrace, with Dae-su breaking into a smile that slowly turns into a look of pain. The film ends there, leaving whether or not the hypnosis worked, whether or not he was ever hypnotized, whether or not any of it will be enough to heal Dae-su's mental scars, and even whether or not any of the above actually happened all unknown.
• And Then What?: A central theme of the film: what will Oh Dae-su and Woo-jin do when their goals are achieved? This is something Woo-jin realizes too when Oh Dae-su cuts out his tongue and he orders the box to not be opened.
  Woo-jin: Now...what joy will I live for now?
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Lee Woo-jin threatens to kill Mi-Do if Oh Dae-Su doesn't complete his mission by July 5th.
• An Insert: One of the most epic examples in all of cinema. After trying and failing to save his falling sister, Woo-jin - in flashback - extends his hand out over the bridge, and slowly curls the fingers as if holding a gun, his present reality and his memory merging. We hear the click back in reality as he mimes cocking it, then pulls the - BANG. Cut back to the elevator, and we see he's blown his head open.
• Answer Cut: In the film's opening prologue as Oh Dae-Su keeps a suicidal man from falling by holding him by his tie, the man asks him who is he. As present day Oh Dae-Su speaks "My name is...", it cuts back to 15 years prior as a younger and intoxicated Oh Dae-Su as he is being held in jail for his behavior.
• Artistic License – Biology: Oh Dae-Su states that lack of sunlight has left him depleted of Vitamins A and E, which are dietary vitamins—sunlight is only responsible for the production of Vitamin D.
• Arc Words:
  • "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
  • ''Even though I am no better than a beast, don't I have the right to live?'"
• Ass Shove: Oh Dae-Su finds some suppositories and asks Mi-Do what they are for. Mi-Do tells him that is the medicine she gave to him rectally. She defends herself, asking him how else could she give him medicine while he is unconscious.
• Attempted Rape: Oh Dae-Su barges into the bathroom Mi-Do is occupying and attempts to rape her. She manages to fight him off and he leaves.
• Attempted Homewrecker: In the flashback to 15 years prior, Oh Dae-Su is told by the police at the station and one half of a couple to stop hitting on another man's girlfriend. The drunk Oh Dae-Su denies this.
• Awful Truth: The reveal that he fell in love and had sex with his own daughter utterly breaks Dae-su, who resorts to desperate begging and eventually cutting out his own tongue just so that Woo-jin won't tell her the truth. In the aftermath, he has the hypnotist wipe his memories of the truth just so he can keep living.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Woo-jin gets his revenge, though he has an emotional breakdown and shoots himself in the head almost immediately afterwards. Nobody wins, really.
• Berserk Button: Never call Soo-ah a "slut" in front of Woo-jin, as Joo-hwan learns the very hard way.
• Bewildering Punishment: Dae-su has forgotten about the incest rumor he spread in high school and hence fails to link that incident to his cruel imprisonment.
• Big "NO!": Oh Dae-Su screams this when Mi-Do tells him she is about to open a large purple box in front of her. He begs her not to open it, as the box contains information that reveals they're father and daughter.
• Black Comedy: While the film is an incredibly dark and disturbing action thriller about revenge, it surprisingly has a lot more humor in it than you might expect.
• Bloodless Carnage: Not bloodless by any stretch of the imagination, but not nearly as gory as you might expect either. There's no blood at all in the Hallway Fight except for a trickle on Oh Dae-su — the guy who won. A guy getting stabbed in the eyeball is surprisingly clean as well.
• Boom, Headshot!: Woo-jin commits suicide with a gun to his temple. Earlier, he stops Mr. Han from denying his revenge on Dae-su by using the gun to cap him in the head.
• Bound and Gagged: This happens on multiple occasions, including to an innocent dentist, Mr. Park, the man who ran Dae-su's prison, and Dae-su himself.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Woo-jin and his sister.
• Brutal Brawl: The fights in this movie are very realistic, and brutal for it.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Dae-su's only weapon in the hallway fight is a claw hammer. Earlier, he also uses it to torture Mr. Park, the keeper of the prison.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: An exceedingly rare "heroic" example: Oh Dae-su accuses Woo-jin of hypnotizing him to forget that he was the initial cause of the events that led to Woo-jin's sister's suicide. However:
  Lee Woo-jin: You weren't drugged. You just forgot. It wasn't important to you.
• Car Cushion: The suicidal man lands on a car behind Dae-su, killing himself and his pet.
• Cartwright Curse: Lee Woo-jin promises to kill every woman Oh Dae-Su loves until the day he dies.
• Central Theme: Vengeance Feels Empty.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Mi-Do promises Oh Dae-Su that when she's ready to make love with him, the sign she gives him is the song "The Face I Miss" (which Oh Dae-Su used as a masturbatory aid while he was imprisoned). When Oh Dae-Su rescues Mi-Do from her attackers and tells her he loves her, Mi-Do gives him the sign by singing "The Face I Miss" and they make love in a motel.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The angel wings for Dae-su's daughter are mentioned at the beginning of the film by Dae-su himself, and later on, they appear at the film's climax when Mi-do wears them.
  • The television in the hotel room. It's how Woo-jin managed to plant the attraction to Mi-Do in Dae-su's mind.
  • The scissors in Woo-jin's apartment. Dae-su later uses them to cut off his own tongue to appease Woo-jin.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Dae-su's daughter, who is discussed in the prologue and given a few mentions afterwards. It turns out she's actually Mi-do.
• The Chessmaster: Lee Woo-jin. And as the film picks up speed, he gets faster.
• Combat Breakdown: The famous Hallway Fight starts with numerous henchmen launching themselves at Dae-su with great energy as he demolishes them with seemingly superhuman strength, and ends with all parties involved throwing weak punches and aimless swings from exhaustion while struggling to get their breath back.
• Confession Triggers Consummation: After Oh Dae-Su decides to trust Mi-Do and tells her everything, even confessing his love for her, Mi-Do affirms her love for him and lets him know she's ready to make love with him by singing "The Face I Miss".
• Color Motif:
  • Woo-jin and his machinations are associated with purple throughout the film, which is found on his umbrella, his handkerchiefs, his gift boxes, the Purple Blue Dragon restaurant, and more.
  • There are constant parallels between Mi-do and Soo-ah, Woo-Jin's sister, throughout the film. One of them is that both Soo-ah and Mi-do dress in predominantly red clothing and are associated with a red color (Soo-ah's red bike and umbrella, the red wallpaper in Mi-do's apartment and prison room).
• Crazy-Prepared: Everything Dae-su does was predicted by Woo-jin, and to a lesser extent, everyone Dae-su interacts with has their exact reactions plotted out, all the way down to it being heavily implied that Mr. Han knows he'll have to be shot by Woo-jin to stop him from killing Dae-su and fulfilling Woo-jin's vengeance. About the only things Woo-jin didn't account for was Joo-hwan slandering his sister and causing him to kill Joo-hwan in a rage, and if the hypnosis on Dae-su and Mi-do to begin their incestuous relationship would (initially) work.
• Cruel Twist Ending: The trope itself isn't a spoiler, as it's par for the course as a Park Chan-wook film and part of the Vengeance Trilogy. For this film, it's that Mi-do is Dae-su's daughter.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Dae-su vs. an elevator full of mooks. It's so incredibly one-sided that we don't even get to see it happen — Dae-su just smiles, and we cut immediately to him stepping out of the elevator over the unconscious or dead bodies of the goons he's just demolished. And this is after he just got through an entirely different, equally bruising brawl with a hallway full of guys, and still has a knife sticking out of his back that he barely seems to notice.
  • Conversely, the fight with Mr. Han has Dae-su get absolutely destroyed, and he would have even gotten killed had Woo-jin not suddenly shot Mr. Han in the head.
• Cutlery Escape Aid: Dae-su uses a spare chopstick to carve a hole into the prison wall. This escape attempt is eventually rendered vain when he gets officially released.
• Cycle of Revenge: One the villain fully set up as part of his Batman Gambit.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: When Dae-su exits the suitcase on the rooftop, he has problems adjusting to the daylight because his eyes have been used to dim indoor light for 15 years.
• Dead Man's Switch: Woo-jin has a remote control to stop his pacemaker at will which he uses as leverage against Dae-su when the latter threatens him with torture. Woo-jin explains that he would kill himself instantly and Dae-su would never learn why he was imprisoned for 15 years. Subverted at the end when Woo-jin reveals that the remote was actually a laser pointer; not only that, when Dae-su vengefully grabs the control thinking he can stop Woo-jin's heart, it actually starts a reel-to-reel player with an audio recording of Dae-Su and Mi-Do having sex. One last piece of humiliation..
• Death by Transceiver: No Joo-hwan gets killed by Woo-jin while he and Dae-su are communicating via headset.
• Determinator: Even after getting mobbed by a dozen guys and stabbed in the back during the famous Hallway Fight, Dae-su simply will not stay down.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Subverted. Woo-jin appears to present his plan as this, as he says that his reason for locking up Dae-su for fifteen years is that "Oh Dae-su talks too much." This ends up not being the case at all, however, because what Oh Dae-su talked too much about happened to result in Woo-jin's reputation being destroyed and his sister killing herself. It's still extremely disproportionate, but not as much.
• Dramatic Irony: After making love, Oh Dae-Su narrates that he feels like he should be thanking his prisoners for all those years in captivity. If he hadn't been in there, would Mi-Do have liked him still.
• Downer Ending: Director Park Chan-wook called the final scene "a sad ending that's happy, or a happy ending that's sad." Dae-su and Woo-jin have been left utterly destroyed by the pursuit of revenge, with the latter killing himself as soon as he leaves Dae-su to his misery. Horrified at the knowledge that he had been tricked into sex with his own daughter, Dae-su begs a hypnotist to free him from his memories, but it's ambiguous if it worked. If it did, then Dae-su and Mi-do will live together with neither knowing of their true relationship; if it didn't, then Dae-su will be haunted by the Awful Truth for all his days.
• The Dragon: Mr. Han, Woo-jin's silent and imposing bodyguard. He shadows his employer throughout the film, assisting him in his plots and protecting him from Dae-su. When Dae-su enters the climax of the film, Mr. Han is his last physical challenge, beating him quite severely.
• Dressing to Die: Woo-jin takes a hot shower and puts on his best suit before later going into the lift to commit suicide, which is heavily implied to have been his plan all along.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • As it turns out, the entire film's plot is kicked off by the suicide of Woo-jin's lover after a young Dae-su lets it loose that she was sleeping with Woo-jin, her brother. The rumor morphs to claim that she was having sex with all the male students and got pregnant, causing her to experiences a phantom pregnancy that drove her over the edge.
  • Woo-jin later kills himself out of shame and emptiness as his revenge on Dae-su is complete, but has brought him nothing.
  • There's also the man with the dog that Dae-su meets after his release who goes through with it anyway.
  • Dae-su also tries to kill himself at least twice during his imprisonment, but his captors stop him.
  • If Oh Dae-Su does complete his mission, Lee Woo-jin will kill himself instead of Mi-Do as promised.
• Driving Question: Who imprisoned Dae-su, and why? Woo-jin reveals that the question Dae-su should've been asking was, why did Woo-jin release him specifically after 15 years?
• Ear Ache: Oh Dae-Su manages to stab Mr. Han in the ear with a pair of scissors.
• Elevator Action Sequence: Subverted. After the ridiculously intense hallway fight, Dae-su makes it to the elevator at the end of the hallway and finds it packed full of reinforcements for the guys he just beat up, who stare at him — and the fallen bodies of their comrades littering the hallway — in disbelief, before Dae-su smiles, and we immediately cut to him exiting the elevator packed with their unconscious or dead bodies.
• The Ending Changes Everything: After The Reveal regarding Woo-jin's motives and the true nature of Dae-su and Mi-do's relationship, at least half the film starts to look very different for viewers on subsequent watches. The actual ending also plays a part, as Dae-su's painful smile can lead to different interpretations of what exactly happened in the previous scene.
• Ends with a Smile: Subverted. Oh Dae-su embraces Mi-do after his meeting with the hypnotist and smiles... but it's unclear if his memories of the horrifying revenge Lee Woo-jin manipulated him into have truly been erased, and Dae-su's grin becomes a pained grimace.
• Enemy Mine: Subverted. Mr. Park says he is siding with Dae-su after Woo-jin cuts off his hand, but it is later revealed that Woo-jin handsomely compensated Mr. Park for his hand and that he has been working for him the entire time.
• Enigmatic Minion: Mr. Han, Woo-jin's silent bodyguard. He gets one line in the whole movie, and almost kills Dae-su before getting shot in the head by his employer.
• Even Evil Has Standards: After much begging from Dae-su, Woo-jin tells the prison warden not to reveal the Awful Truth to Mi-do.
• Eye Scream: Oh Dae-su stabs one of Woo-jin's henchmen in the eye with a broken toothbrush. We don't see anything gory, though.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • Subverted. Woo-jin takes a hot shower and puts on his best suit before going into the lift to calmly commit suicide. But then he cries during his memory of Soo-ah, his deceased sister, before shooting himself.
  • It's implied that Mr. Han knows he'll have to be shot by Woo-jin to be stopped from killing Dae-su. When he hands Woo-jin the murder instrument, it's with his usual stoicism.
• Face Framed in Shadow: An example worthy of Brando during Woo-jin's suicide.
• Fan Disservice:
  • The first time audiences see the sex scene between Oh Dae-su and Mi-do, it's probably tantalizing. Once they're hit with the revelation of Mi-do being his daughter, the scene is much less appealing in retrospect or upon repeated viewings. Even then, Mi-do cries out that she's in pain during the scene.
  • Mi-Do's bare breasts are exposed as she's molested and held captive by the antagonist's men.
  • Lee Woo-jin and his sister Lee Soo-ah getting caught sex in an empty classroom by Oh Dae-Su. It starts out innocently with a playful chase around the room and Lee Woo-jin taking pictures of her. Then Lee Woo-jin tries to pry her legs open and Soo-ah protests many times, even telling him "No" and "Stop" before she gives up.
• Faint in Shock: Oh Dae-Su passes out while in the middle of eating a live octopus due to a fever. Mi-Do lampshades this, asking Oh Dae-Su why does he faint if he trained so much. The fainting was all part of Lee Woo-jin's hypnosis working. Mi-Do faints after finding Mr. Park's severed hand in a box delivered to her and Oh Dae-Su.
• Faux Affably Evil: Woo-jin might be pretty charming, but that demeanor actually hides a twisted, vengeful self. The prison warden cries that Woo-jin was just so polite the entire time he was forced to give up his hand as penance for Dae-su. What's more, Woo-jin never stops being polite even as he breaks down Dae-su during the climax and reveals that his revenge is complete.
• Feel No Pain: Due to his fist training, Dae-su doesn't mind Mi-do biting his hand during her interrogation.
• Finding the Bug: Oh Dae Su mentions wanting to chop off Mr. Park's hand. Later, the villain sends him Mr. Park's severed hand in a box. This causes Oh Dae Su to realize he is bugged and go to a professional to find it. It was located in the heel of his shoe.
• Finger in the Mail: Dae-su and Mi-do receive a box with a severed hand in it. Turns out it belongs to Mr. Park.
• Fingore: Mr. Park defects to Dae-su's side after Woo-jin amputates his hand. That's the cover story: in reality, Park gave his hand up willingly to gain Dae-su's trust, and the entire reason Park has a new prison in the final act is that it was payment for his hand.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Oh Dae-Su falls for Mi-Do after she nurses him back to health in her apartment twice. This was deliberately invoked on Woo-jin's part to get them together.
• Forceful Kiss: Oh Dae-Su rushes into the bathroom and plants a kiss on Mi-Do as he attempts to force himself on her. She defends herself by hitting him in the head.
• Foreshadowing: So, so much.
  • Mr Park notes that imagination can have ruinous effects on a person. It definitely did for Soo-ah.
  • When Mr. Han gives Park a box full of cash, Park smiles fondly at his hand and adjusts his pinky ring. A subtle hint that he willingly gave up his hand as part of Woo-Jin's plan.
  • When Dae-su and Mi-do meet for the first time, they note that the other looks somewhat familiar. They should — they are father and daughter.
  • Dae-su and Mi-do share similar hallucinations. Evidently, In the Blood.
  • In the flashback scene where Dae-su Oh first speaks to Lee Soo-ah, Lee Soo-ah is shown reading a book by Sylvia Plath, an American poet who committed suicide.
  • One of Mi-Do's attackers jokes about having his tongue chopped off by Oh Dae-Su for touching Mi-Do with it. By the end of the film Oh Dae-Su is the one chopping his own tongue out because of the guilt that he had unknowingly had sex with his own daughter who is also his girlfriend Mi-Do.
  • Lee Woo-jin acts so calm during his revenge quest against Oh Dae-Su. The one time he loses composure is when he overhears Joo-hwan slut-shaming his dead sister and he stabs him to death with a broken CD as a weapon. He cries not long afterwards. That's because she wasn't just his sister. She was his incestuous lover.
  • Oh Dae-Su holding up a suicidal man to prevent him from falling to his death in the opening foreshadows the exact way Lee Woo-jin tried and failed to prevent his sister Lee Soo-ah from jumping to her death.
• Genre Mashup: While Oldboy is first and foremost a revenge film with hints of neo-noir, it also has elements of dark tragicomedy, drama, action-thriller, and mystery.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Oh Dae-Su and Mi-Do make love not long after their harrowing ordeal with some of the attackers sent by the antagonist.
• Gluttony Montage: Oh Dae-Su travels from restaurant to restaurant with Mi-Do trying to pinpoint the same dumplings made for his prison meals. After a while, he vomits from trying too many dumplings.
• Got Over Rape Instantly: Mi-Do is in tears after the ordeal of being sexually assaulted by Park and his henchmen. Despite her trauma, she gets over it in a matter of minutes and even offers herself to Oh Dae-Su after he rescues her.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Two merciful occurrences: when Dae-su rips out Mr. Park's teeth with the fork of a hammer, and when he cuts his own tongue out.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Every character has their fair share of regret, tragedy, suffering, and vices that cause everything they end up going through. The one exception may be Mi-do, who ends up in the center of everything whether she wants to be or not.
• Hallway Fight: In what is arguably the film's most well-known scene, Oh Dae-su fights his way through a long hallway of mooks, armed only with a hammer, for around three uninterrupted minutes.
• Hereditary Suicide: An unusual variation by way of Together in Death due to the role of Brother–Sister Incest. Soo-ah commits suicide by jumping off a bridge due to either being or believing that she's pregnant with (her brother) Woo-jin's baby. After Woo-jin exacts his revenge on Dae-su decades later, he shoots himself.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Oh Dae-Su striking up a romance with a much younger woman while trying to locate his missing daughter? Turns out the younger woman was actually his long-lost daughter all along.
• Holding Hands: Mi-Do holds hands with Oh Dae-Su as he devours a live octopus and passes out from a fever.
• Hourglass Plot: The story begins with Dae-su looking to take revenge on the person responsible for locking him up for fifteen years. He eventually finds his target Woo-jin, who later informs Dae-su that he hypnotized Dae-su into falling in love with his own daughter as revenge for Soo-ah's death. It is at this point that Dae-su loses interest in killing Woo-jin and begs for mercy instead.
• How We Got Here: The movie begins with a tense High-Altitude Interrogation scene on a rooftop. Then we cut back 15 years to show how Dae-su ended up on that rooftop.
• Hypocrite: Oh Dae-Su wanted to rip the heads off of Mr. Park and the rest of the men who sexually harassed Mi-do. This coming from the same man who had also attempted to rape her Mi-do while she was using the bathroom days earlier.
• Immodest Orgasm: Oh Dae-Su and Mi-Do achieve this during their first time lovemaking in his hotel room.
• Implied Rape: When Oh Dae-Su finds a group of men in his hotel room holding Mi-Do captive, her breasts are exposed, one of the men are holding her panties, and the others tauntingly ask Oh Dae-Su if he is going to cut off his tongue too because it wasn't just his hands that touched Mi-Do's breasts.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Lee Soo-ah was pregnant with her brother's baby when she committed suicide.
• Improvised Weapon: A claw hammer, a CD, and a toothbrush are all used as deadly weapons at different points of the film.
• Instant Illness: After collapsing from a fever, Oh Dae-Su figures out that a lack of needed sunlight depletes the human body of vitamins A and E so he is not immune to influenza.
• Intentionally Self-Inflicted Disability: Type 5 and Type 6. After learning the Awful Truth from his opponent Woo-jin, Oh Dae-Su grabs a pair of scissors and cuts his tongue out on purpose, not only to atone for his spreading malicious rumors about Woo-jin and his sister back in high school but to protect his girlfriend Mi-Do from the truth that they're long-lost father and daughter.
• Ironic Echo: Played for Laughs:
  Oh Dae-su: Can the imaginary training of fifteen years be put to use? [successfully defeats several thugs] Apparently, it can.
  [later] during the Near-Rape Experience
  Oh Dae-su: Can the imaginary training of fifteen years be put to use? [is fought off by a helpless young woman] No. It can't.
• Irony: The dramatic variant - before Dae-su goes to confront Woo-jin, he has Mi-do temporary locked up for her own safety. Mi-do understands, and prays that Woo-jin will kneel in front of Dae-su and apologize for everything he's done. Dae-su jokingly tells her to pray for a better man. However, after The Reveal, it is Dae-su who is on his knees begging for Woo-jin's mercy.
• Isolation-Induced Infatuation: Type 3. The villain's main plan starts with kidnapping and separating the male protagonist away from his family and isolating him inside a small prison cell from any physical and social contact with other humans for 15 years with only the use of a television for his entertainment. Once the protagonist is released, he immediately falls in love with the first human he befriended, a young sous chef named Mi-Do. The pair falling in love despite only having just met wasn't a coincidence. The villain anticipated this happening as both he and his hypnotist were the ones responsible for breaking down Oh Dae-Su and Mi-Do psychologically so they could end up together.
• Jar Potty: In the flashback to 15 years prior, Oh Dae-Su is drunk and has to use the bathroom. Unable to find a proper bathroom, he uses the wastebasket in the police station to relieve himself.
• Jumpscare: A loud sharp noise is heard as the bright sunlight from the outside hits Oh Dae-Su's eyes.
• Knockout Gas: To prevent any of the goons getting ID'd, the 'prison' Dae-su finds himself in uses gas to sedate him whenever they need anything from him - be it health checkups, blood to frame him for a murder, or stopping his suicide attempts.
• Laughing Mad: Oh Dae-Su unnerves Park by laughing in his face, which stops Park from removing any more of his teeth with a hammer.
• Lampshade Hanging: Woo-jin directly points out that Vengeance Feels Empty. Fitting for such a terrifying villain to know what kind of film he's in.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Because Oh Dae-Su exposed Lee Woo-jin's incestuous relationship with his sister Lee Soo-ah, Lee Woo-jin tricked Oh Dae-Su into entering an incestuous relationship with his long-lost daughter Mi-Do as payback.
• Loners Are Freaks:
  • Dae-su is understandably a traumatized, barely-social mess from 15 years of isolation. The prison warden casually mentions anyone imprisoned for over a year gets schizophrenia that's only staved off by medication. Some of his first actions are to rob a woman in broad daylight, ignore a suicidal man, and act like a real creep to a sushi chef he's just met - and that's before he demands a live octopus to scarf down. He later tries to rape Mi-do, then runs away apologizing like a sorry little child.
  • Mi-do "happily" admits she regularly hallucinates insects, is heavily implied to be friendless outside of a mysterious internet stranger who is Woo-jin, easily forgives Dae-su for trying to rape her, and near-immediately proposes noncon play to cheer him up. In fact, Mi-do sympathises with Dae-su's constant hallucination of bugs because loners hallucinate insects, especially ants, and guess what she's been hallucinating?
  • It turns out it's deliberately cultivated by Woo-jin as both punishment and to make the chances of making them fall into an incestuous relationship easier, as they bond over their isolation and weirdness. Furthermore, it's implied Woo-jin and his sister were also weird loners, despite being apparently perfect, and their incest also sprung from it.
• Lost in Translation: When Oh Dae-su is released from his prison, he talks to a gang of kids who act like they don't understand him. The Korean language had drastically changed over those fifteen years, and Dae-su is speaking a very different dialect than the modern one. Unfortunately, this was lost in the English subtitles. While he does ponder over an insult he's never heard before from the kids and how much time has changed, it's translated as "fucktard".
• Love at First Sight: Invoked. Oh Dae-su and Mi-do fall in love with each other almost instantly - the film at first implies it's beacuse they're both emotionally-scarred and desperately lonely, but it turns out because they've been hypnotized to do so as part of the villain's plan.
• Man Bites Man: Mi-Do bites Oh Dae-Su's hand when he's interrogating her on the mysterious person known as "Evergreen".
• Meaningful Echo:
  Suicidal Man/Dae-su: Even though I'm no better than a beast, don't I have the right to live?
  Cell Poster/Photo Album: Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.
• Meaningful Name: Park Chan-wook claims that the leading character's name, Oh Dae-su, is derived from Oedipus. The tragic hero in Greek mythology who ended up loving his own mother.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Woo-jin spends decades plotting his revenge on Oh Dae-su for accidentally revealing Woo-jin's incestous relationship with his sister and her resulting suicide: locking Oh Dae-su away for 15 years, killing multiple people, and tricking Oh Dae-su into having sex with his own daughter. Woo-jin gets the revenge he sought for so long, before realizing that revenge did not bring him any closure for his sister's death, and after centering his entire life around his revenge quest, his life lacks a purpose now that his quest is over. As the elevator descends, all he can do is morosely relive his sister's suicide and her plea to let go before he puts his gun to his temple and kills himself.
• Missing Floor: The illegal prison that Oh Dae-su was held in for 15 years is located on an unlisted floor in a high-rise, which is accessed by pressing the elevator buttons for floors 7 and 8 at the same time. The "warden" of the prison refers to the location as "floor 7.5".
• Mook Chivalry: Double Subverted. Cheol-woong's gang initially fights Oh Dae-su together as a group. The problem they face is that he just won't stay down. The more they throw themselves at him, the more he bashes their heads in with his hammer. Eventually, they become so tired and beaten down, they become reluctant to actually continue fighting him, leading to them trying to fight him one at a time.
• Mook Horror Show: Also Double Subverted. While Dae-su demolishes the guys in the hallway at first, eventually they overpower him with sheer force of numbers, and he's pushed to exhaustion, beaten down, and eventually knocked down and stabbed. This makes it all the more terrifying for the guys in the hallway when he stands back up and starts kicking ass again. When he gets to the elevator at the end of the hallway and finds it full of mooks, all we see is him giving a sly grin before there's a Smash Cut to him stepping out of the elevator...and over the unconscious or dead bodies of the guys he's just slaughtered.
• Mutilation Interrogation: Oh Dae-su tracks down the illegal holding facility where he was kept for 15 years after being kidnapped off the streets. Dae-su asks the warden who it was that paid him to keep him imprisoned, and when the warden doesn't answer, he duct-tapes him to his chair. He then uses his claw hammer to pry out the man's teeth one at a time, telling him that he owes him one tooth for each year of his life that was stolen from him. After about 7 or so, he gives the warden a chance to talk, with the implication that he'll continue through with all 15 if he doesn't.
• My Fist Forgives You: Mr. Park and the goons that Oh Dae-su beat up hunt him down for revenge. Just as they're about to torture him, Woo-jin calls them to tell them to back off and Mr. Han shows up to give them a lot of money. Mr. Park is content with the payoff and leaves, though he does whack Oh Dae-su on the head with a bat once for good measure.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: Joo-hwan marks himself as an Asshole Victim by callously gossiping about Soo-ah's death, calling her a slut and wondering if he should have gotten in on that in high school. It's not a pleasant thing to say about any dead girl, but it really hits an overhearing Woo-jin hard on a personal level, and is one of the very few times that someone cracks through the controlled scenario he's spent so many long years constructing.
• My Secret Pregnancy: After Oh Dae-Su spread the rumors of him catching Lee Woo-jin and Lee Soo-ah in the act together, Lee Soo-ah commits suicide to protect her brother's reputation. She knew that the public would react negatively if the truth came to light about her consensual incestuous relationship with Lee Woo-jin and her carrying his baby.
• Near-Rape Experience: Interestingly, Dae-su barging into the bathroom and attempting to rape Mi-do shortly after he wakes from a fever is Played for Laughs, and she plays it off with a smile shortly afterwards.
• Nemesis Magnet: Apparently Dae-su made a lot of enemies in his time because of his unpleasant nature. He wonders which of them was responsible for the punishment he received.
• Note to Self: To keep track of time while he plots his escape, Oh Dae-Su documents his captivity in prison by marking his hand in ink for the next 15 years. One line for each year.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: One big mystery is how the Hell is one man with a grudge six steps ahead of Dae-su, splashing cash to give to him as a "gift", renting out an apartment in infamously expensive Korea just to spy on Dae-su, and locking a man in a Korean mafia's prison for 15 years, well over the amount most criminals can afford? As it turns out, Woo-jin managed to become the president of an unspecified but enormous MegaCorp, and the film further implies he had deep ties with the Korean mafia that helped him kickstart his business and allow armies of goons to do his bidding.
• One-Man Army: Dae-su beats down over a dozen men, and then immediately deals with another six or seven without being much worse for wear aside from being beaten and having some blood on his head...oh, and, you know, a knife wound in the back.
• The Oner: A number of them throughout the film, the most well-known of them being a lengthy scene in which Oh Dae-su takes on over a dozen men in a hallway armed with just a hammer.
• Parental Incest: Dae-su unknowingly has sex with his daughter.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Dae-su's torture of Mr. Park, though he tortures him only for information on why he was imprisoned.
• The Penance: Dae-su cuts out his tongue to atone for unwittingly causing Woo-jin's sister to commit suicide.
• Pensieve Flashback: The flashback at the highschool has adult Dae-su in place of the teenage Dae-su peeking through the window to watch Woo-jin and his sister fooling around.
• Pet the Dog: Right before the famous Hallway Fight, Dae-su takes one of the bad guys hostage with a knife across his throat, but tells the others his blood type and deliberately lets him go so two of them can take their wounded comrade away before the others rush him.
• Picture-Perfect Presentation: The scene transition from the internet cafe to the Sangnok highschool happens seamlessly from a photograph on the high school's webpage to live-action footage of Dae-su and Mi-do arriving at the place.
• Please Wake Up: Mi-Do pleas for Oh Dae-Su to wake up after he passes out from a combination of eating a live octopus, a high fever, and hypnosis.
• Poor Man's Porn: While imprisoned, Dae-su wanks off to female pop artists on TV since this is all he has for titillation.
• Potty Emergency: In the prologue, a intoxicated Oh Dae-Su complains to the police about having to pee really bad so he relieves himself in a wastebasket.
• Pretty Little Headshots: The close-up shot on Woo-jin's temple after he blows his brains out reveals a tiny headwound.
• Prematurely Grey-Haired: By the end of the film, Oh Dae-Su is sporting premature grey hair on his head as a result of the trauma he has endured.
• Primal Scene: The flashbacks show Oh Dae-Su catching Lee Woo-jin and his sister Lee Soo-ah in the middle of having sex, kick-starting the rumors that ended her life and started Woo-jin's quest for revenge.
• Pregnancy Scare: Lee Soo-ah was pregnant with her brother's baby when she died. Lee Woo-jin insisted that Oh Dae-Su spreading the false rumors about Lee Soo-ah's pregnancy caused her body to falsely believe it was expecting.
• Post-Rape Taunt: When Oh Dae-Su threatens to cut off Mi-Do's attacker's hands because they touched her breasts, one of them asks if he's going to cut off his tongue too. "I'm going to chop off your hand because you touched Mi-Do's breasts! "And what about my tongue?"
• Psychological Horror: The story begins with Dae-su being kidnapped and imprisoned in a motel room for fifteen years, with a montage showing his gradual Sanity Slippage as a result of the isolation. When Dae-su is eventually released, the film becomes more of a mystery-thriller as Dae-su roots out the truth behind his lockup. It plunges back into horror when Dae-su finds out that his daughter, whom he presumed had been adopted by a family overseas, was in truth Mi-do—and that Woo-jin had manipulated the both of them into committing incest.
• Psychosexual Horror: Has elements of this, especially later on. Dae-su and Mi-do are in truth father and daughter, and Woo-jin hypnotizes the both of them into falling in love and having sex. When Dae-su finds out the truth, he maims and humiliates himself, desperate for Mi-do to stay ignorant.
• Psychopathic Man Child: After acting cool and collected for the entirety of the movie prior, Woo-jin shows hints of this as he reveals the truth to Dae-su.
• Punch a Wall: A large part of Oh Dae-su's self-training. He has a human silhouette drawn on the wall of his jail cell as a target.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Oh Dae-Su wanted to beat up the men who sexually harassed Mi-do.
• Really Gets Around: From No Joo-hwan, we learn that Dae-su had 260 women in his life before getting imprisoned, and Dae-su has to go through every one to make sure they weren't the ones who put the hit out on him.
• Rescue Romance: Oh Dae-Su and Mi-Do's relationship progresses not long after he rescues her from some attackers. This was orchestrated by the antagonist all along to get them together.
• The Reveal: Mi-do is Oh Dae-su's daughter.
• Ripped from the Phone Book: Before heading out of Mi-do's apartment, Dae-su rips a page from the phone book with the address of the dumpling place.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Deconstructed, as both Dae-su and Woo-jin are out for revenge, which ultimately proves self-destructive.
• Sacrificial Lion: Joo-hwan, Dae-su's best friend, is murdered by Woo-jin after revealing the source of Woo-jin's motivations due to calling his sister a whore. Dae-su takes his death quite badly.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Oh Dae-Su leaves Mi-Do's apartment after finding her chatting online with a mysterious person known as "The lonely prince in the high tower".
• Sex for Solace: Oh Dae-Su and Mi-Do have sex in a love motel to make the other feel better not long after being attacked by Park and his men.
• Self-Inflicted Amnesia: Oh Dae-Su is so psychologically broken over the events of the climax that he seeks out the aid of a hypnotist to hypnotize him into forgetting the whole traumatizing ordeal. Despite Oh Dae-Su's efforts, the film's ending implies that the hypnosis wasn't successful, as his smile turns into a painful grimace as he embraces Mi-do.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • Dae-su never gets his revenge, and Lee Woo-jin, out of shame, penance, and realizing it accomplished nothing, kills himself after getting his revenge.
  • Park Chan-wook points out in the commentary how many of Dae-su's efforts ultimately turn out to be pointless; for example, just before Dae-su manages to escape via the hole he has carved in his wall, he is released by his captors.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Bride of Frankenstein, which is briefly shown on the TV in Dae-su's prison.
  • To Titus Andronicus, including the scene with the tongue, the abuse of a sibling., and the unorthodox revenge plan involving a familial trick.
  • The prison Dae-su was locked in is located on the seventh-and-a-half floor of a building.
  • On the wall of Mi-do's bedroom, there's a picture of King Kong (1933).
  • Mi-do's mysterious friend who turns out to be Woo-jin taunts Dae-su as being the The Count of Monte Cristo, also focusing on a man locked up for years before escaping to enact revenge.
  • The line on the painting of Dae-su's cell reads "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone." These are the first lines of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's famous poem, "Solitude".
  • The recurring painting on the wall of Oh Dae-su's confinement complex is "The Man of Sorrow" by Belgian painter James Ensor.
  • Princess Diana's funeral is shown on TV as Oh Dae-Su attempts his prison escape.
• Silence Is Golden: Dae-su's violent reaction to learning Mi-do is his daughter has all of the scene audio replaced with a somber, ambient music cue.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Mi-Do gets orphaned, her mother is murdered, and she's unknowingly hypnotized into an incestuous relationship with her presumed-dead father...all for a gossipy comment her father made when he was a teenager.
• Skyward Scream: Mi-Do's screams are loud enough to be heard outside of the building as Oh Dae-Su races back to rescue her.
• Snow Means Love: By the film's ending, Mi-Do and Oh Dae-Su share a loving embrace as a couple, with Mi-Do telling him she loves him. Unfortunately, she is blissfully unaware that the man she loves is her father and it's left ambiguous whether or not Oh Dae-Su's re-hypnosis to wipe his memory worked.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Vivaldi's Winter plays while Oh Dae-su rips Mr. Park's teeth out.
• Stalker Without a Crush: Woo-jin has obessively tracked Dae-su and Mi-do's every movement from the very moment Dae-su was released.
• Suicide, Not Murder: Double subverted. It looks like Soo-ah committed suicide after the rumors started circulating, but when Dae-su is at Woo-jin's penthouse, he finds a picture of her taken at the dam where she died, and it seems that Woo-jin killed her to cover up their incestuous relationship during her phantom pregnancy, making it look like a suicide. In the end, it's revealed that Woo-jin was trying to stop Soo-ah from committing suicide, but she convinced him to let go of her.
• Surprise Incest: Mi-do is Dae-su's daughter, and he only finds out after they've had sex. Setting this up was Woo-jin's revenge and why he locked him up all those years.
• Symbolic Mutilation: Oh Dae-Su forcibly extracts 15 of Park's teeth as payback (1 for each year of Oh Dae-Su's imprisonment) and to get information on his captor's whereabouts. Later, Oh Dae-Su cuts his own tongue off as it was the very same thing that spread the malicious rumors and ruined two people's lives. He also cuts his tongue out to keep the truth hidden from Mi-Do.
• Teen Pregnancy: Lee Woo-jin and Lee Soo-ah were teenagers in high school when she became pregnant and Oh Dae-Su spread the rumor about the two having sex.
• Taught by Television: Dae-su has learned his fighting moves from watching kickboxing on TV.
• Tears of Fear: A frightened Mi-Do has tears running down her face as she is sexually assaulted by Park and his henchmen and Oh Dae-Su is attacked.
• Tick Tock Tune: The opening credit sequence has ticking and gonging sounds alongside images of clocks.
• Title Drop: The key to solving the Driving Question of the film lies in Dae-su's high school—Evergreen Old Boys.
• Token Romance: Subverted in the case of Oh Dae-su and Mi-do, since it happening is part of the villain's revenge scheme.
• Tongue Trauma: Dae-su ends up cutting out his own tongue as a symbol of penance. One of Mi-Do's attackers jokes about her boyfriend Oh Dae-Su doing this to the man after he molested Mi-Do.
• Took a Level in Badass: Deconstructed. Fifteen years in a private prison have turned Dae-su into a fearless killing machine, but all of this fits right into the villain's plan.
• The Tooth Hurts: The tooth-pulling scene. Oh Dae-Su gets information out of Park by pulling 15 of his teeth. Park exacts revenge by attacking Oh Dae-Su in Mi-Do's apartment and faking removing one of his teeth.
• Tragedy: One of the most harrowing ones in film history. Fittingly, the story is patterned on that of Oedipus, one of the best known Greek tragedies.
• Tragic Villain: Woo-jin is one of the best examples in cinema. Through the course of the movie, he murders people, imprisons a man for 15 years, tortures him, and tricks him into sleeping with his daughter, all for revealing a nasty secret. But when the film flashes back to Woo-jin on the bridge, desperately holding on to his sister as she hangs over the water, you realize that he is ultimately a broken man who needed an excuse, no matter how flimsy, to continue living, as once he gets his revenge, he promptly commits suicide.
• Trauma Conga Line: The ending is this in spades: Dae-su learns that, by gossiping about their incestuous relationship, he indirectly caused Woo-jin's sister to commit suicide; Woo-jin reveals Mi-do is Dae-su's daughter, and they had sex because he orchestrated it; Dae-su is pummelled by Mr. Han for trying to kill Woo-jin; Dae-su cuts his tongue out in a desperate attempt to stop Woo-jin from telling Mi-do; Woo-jin commits suicide, denying Dae-su his revenge; and finally, Dae-su gets re-hypnotized to forget everything, although it's unclear if it works, and he's last seen still with Mi-do. Considering that this all happens after he was imprisoned for fifteen years and his wife was murdered...
• Übermensch: Oh Dae-su takes on many aspects of an Ubermensch during his imprisonment. Ultimately, his character is a massive subversion. Everything he does has been accounted for. He has no control of his own fate, and everything he does plays into Lee Woo-jin's hands. By the end of the movie, he is a very, very broken man.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Oh Dae-su and Mi-do. They are both this and The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter due to Parental Incest. Justified, since Woo-jin hypnotized them into falling in love with each other.
• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: The anti-hero protagonist Oh Dae-Su is unkempt in his appearance with an out-of-shape body and lacking good fashion choices in comparison to his opponent Lee Woo-Jin who dresses sharp and maintains his physical appearance through diet and exercise.
• Underestimating Badassery: The gang of kids underestimate Dae-su's fitness and get their asses kicked hard.
• Undressing the Unconscious: Dae-su is unsettled when he learns that Mi-do administered a suppository to him while he was unconscious. On two occasions, Oh Dae-Su finds himself changed out of his clothes and into his boxers. Justified, since the first one is due to him recovering from a fever and the second one is due to needing bandages and disinfectant for his knife wound.
• Unreliable Narrator: This is downplayed in the case of Dae-su, as his narration of events is trustworthy until the ending in which he meets the hypnotist. As the film points out, there is only one set of footprints in the snow, meaning that the meeting between the hypnotist and him, along with the later Laser-Guided Amnesia he underwent, may not have happened.
• Unwitting Pawn: Mi-do, and to a lesser extent Oh Dae-su, in Woo-jin's plans of revenge.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: This is, rather explicitly, the entire point of the film. After destroying Dae-su, Woo-jin states he has nothing to live for now that he's had his vengeance. He briefly feels joy over exacting his revenge, but moments later he returns to being an empty shell mourning the loss of his sister. So after successfully completing his massive, 15-year Batman Gambit, cue Woo-jin blowing his brains out in an elevator.
• Victory Is Boring: His revenge plot against Dae-Su was all Woo-jin had to live for, and he commits suicide when it's done.
• Villain of Another Story: Mr. Park. Though he plays a big role in Oh Dae-su's story on account of imprisoning him, it's established that Mr. Park runs a decades-long criminal enterprise of locking people away in a private residence as torture. Even without Woo-jin setting the plot in motion, this is something that would have always been going on.
• Villainous Breakdown: Woo-jin, immediately preceding his suicide.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Oh Dae-Su vomits outside of a restaurant after eating so many dumplings.
• Wardens Are Evil: Mr. Park is in essence a warden to a criminal enterprise that imprisons people.
• Wham Line: Several.
  • After being kidnapped and locked in the hotel room, Dae-su hears the television broadcast saying that his wife has been brutally murdered...and his DNA was found at the crime scene. And that's within the first fifth of the movie.
    News Reporter: Kim Ja-Hyun's body was found with a deep stab wound in the neck. Being a cold-blooded murder with nothing valuable stolen, police suspect that the motive was out of hatred. Her husband, Oh Dae-Su, disappeared a year ago and is being searched for. According to the witnesses, Oh Dae-Su drank often, causing trouble with his wife, and the neighbors said they fought frequently. Blood samples found at the scene matched Oh Dae-Su's. Fingertips found on a cup also matched Oh Dae-Su's. Sources said that Oh Dae-Su undoubtedly visited his wife recently. The stolen family photo album, the only missing item, also backs their theories.
  • Then nearer the end:
    Oh Dae-Su: You slept with your sister. You slept with your sister. And I started the rumor. That's why your sister died.
    Lee Woo-jin: Looking through the mirror reminds me of that day. Doesn't it?
    Oh Dae-Su: Erasing my memory and telling me to find the truth was unfair. I won. So die like you promised.
    Lee Woo-jin: Think you forgot that day because you were hypnotized? Are you sure? Know the real reason why you can't remember? Let me tell you. You just forgot. Is that too bland? But it's true that you just forgot. Why? Since it's not your business. Your rumor got so out of hand that Soo-ah being pregnant became a rumor. My sister got sucked into that rumor, and began believing it. So her period stopped, and her belly began to swell. Funny, isn't it? Ever thought how a girl would feel bearing both her child and her nephew? Understand now? Your tongue got my sister pregnant. It wasn't Lee Woo-jin's dick. It was Oh Dae-Su's tongue.
  • Also near the end, and both are an Armor-Piercing Question.
    Lee Woo-jin: Ever heard of post-hypnotic suggestion? You suggest something during hypnosis, and then acted it out in your weakened state. Still haven't figured it out? "You lead a stranger to your place. Who the hell are you?". We hypnotized both of you. One very fortunate thing was that compared to others both of you were highly receptive to hypnosis. Isn't this fun? One word gets you pregnant. One word gets you in love. But no matter how receptive the two of you were to hypnosis, and no matter how good of a hypnotist Ms. Yoo is, getting people to fall in love isn't easy. So, know how we did it? Your first suggestion, of course, was to go to that restaurant, right after your release. Next, to react to the mobile phone's melody. When you heard this, you were supposed to say something. And Mi-Do was to react to the man who said this. When she grabs your hand, your reaction would be, of course, (Oh Dae-Su passes out due to hypnosis). Your gravest mistake wasn't failing to find the answer. If you keep asking the wrong questions, you'll never find the right answer. It's not "Why did Woo-jin imprison me?" It's "why did he release me" One again...why did Woo-jin release Oh Dae-Su after...15 years??
    Lee Woo-jin:My sister and I loved each other despite knowing everything. Can you two do the same?
• Wham Shot: At the climax of the film, Dae-su finds a picture book of some old photos which contains pictures of his missing infant daughter. As the pictures progress and she ages up, she turns out to be none other than his lover Mi-do, much to his horror.
  • After exacting his revenge on Dae-Su, Woo-jin goes into the elevator, smiling. However, his face then slowly falls into an anguished frown and his head tilts down to cast his features in darkness, extending his hand downwards as he remembers his sister's suicide.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Mr. Han has bleached white hair.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The story is basically The Count of Monte Cristo crossed with a reversed form of Oedipus.
• The Worf Effect: After training nonstop for over a decade during his imprisonment, Dae-su is good at fighting, but he's a One-Man Army only because the people he fights are hired thugs. When he goes up against Mr Han, a trained bodyguard, he does much worse, and only wins by sheer luck.