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Its a well-deserved victory lap for one of the most influential movies of the new century.
Will it do the same in rerelease, acting as a gateway drug all over again?
Oldboyremains Parks most iconic work, officiallyremade onceand unofficially ripped off many more times.
Accessible in its hard-core thrills, its a good pick for your first Park Chan-wook movie.
But it shouldnt be anyones last.
Most of them are worth watching for their visual pleasures, if nothing else.
Just dont expect too much from the first couple; every seasoned Oldboy was a green Youngboy once.
11.The Moon Is … the Suns Dream(1992)
11.
In moviemaking, as in life, you have to crawl before you might walk.
10.Trio(1997)
10.
9.Im a Cyborg, But Thats OK(2006)
9.
Leave it to Park to arrange a meet-cute in the cuckoos nest.
Parks later portraits of mad love, likeThirstandThe Handmaiden, are much more deserving of ours.
8.Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance(2002)
8.
7.Sympathy for Lady Vengeance(2005)
7.
Does the hand-wringing severity ofLady Vengeances grim upshot really jell with the playful grotesqueries offered en route?
6.Stoker(2013)
6.
If nothing else, it proved that even Hollywood cant tame Park.
5.Joint Security Area(2000)
5.
4.Oldboy(2003)
4.
No wonder TarantinolovedOldboyat Cannes; he knows first-rate pulp fiction when he sees it.
3.Thirst(2009)
3.
Ever heard the one about the priest who walks into a hospital and walks out a vampire?
2.Decision to Leave(2022)
2.
Thirty years into his career, Park no longer seems quite so hell-bent on shocking his audience.
(Rarely has a Best Director winner at Cannes so plainly deserved its prize.)
1.The Handmaiden(2016)
1.
The Park Chan-wook movie where it all comes together aningenious trapdoor thriller with a soul.
Were that all the movie offered, it would still be a delightful, kinky romp.
