I finally got around to watching Oldboy last night. It's a Korean film by director Chan-Wook Park. Oldboy was named Best Asian Film at the Hong Kong film awards, won Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes, and has come highly recommended by several friends of mine. I understood why in the first several minutes. Chan-Wook Park has a true gift for making a film about somebody who kicks ass.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to coin a new genre right here on the SpoutBlog. I don't know the origins of the genre, but between the U.S. and Asia it is the one type of movie that crosses all cultural barriers. The genre is, "One Man Kicks Ass." A great ass-kicking in movies will trigger some primordial fight-or-flight mechanism that reduces even tenured philosophy professors to saying, "Huh. That's cool." Physical violence is something the medium of film can do so well. I remember what a thrill I got when Matt Damon (as Jason Bourne) unexpectedly kicks the asses of those two cops who wake him up on the park bench in The Bourne Identity. I'd like to think I'm more refined than that, but I'm not. I just want to be.

So I have to say I was ultimately disappointed with Oldboy. The film stands among the most intelligent of the One Man, Kicks Ass movies, but still falls into cliche. I know right now our friend Nat is screaming "heresy!" but it does. Because the biggest cliche of all is when the only real connection I form with the man kicking ass is my admiration of his ass-kicking abilities. As one who only used the "Overturned Turtle" technique the few times I had the opportunity to kick ass (laying on my back and kicking), seeing someone do it right on film is exotic. But compared to my everyday life, ass-kicking is so overdone.

Compared to, say, the paintbrush, film, as a medium, is so very young. Why is it so many movies keep exploring territory we already know works great in cinema? Why can't the "Best Asian Film" represent a film that explored some really new territory? I think we need a Nobel Film Prize because the high profile awards seem to go to this year's best recycling of an old cliche.

Since the rise of DV, I'm encouraged to see more and more filmmakers taking cameras into their everyday lives. They're exploring what film can reveal in that context. The more of these little films I see, the more I realize how much everyday life is an adventure-a personal Lewis and Clark exploration. As I've said before, I don't believe that these films need to take over the world, but I do feel a desperate need for balance. The balance being I can watch films about an adventure I probably will never have, but also see films reminding me that waking up every morning is adventure.