In our weekly series Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sex scenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around them, and their legacy. This week we'll be doing our first compare and contrast outing as we take a look at the two markedly different sex scenes in Park Chan-wook's 2003 masterpiece Oldboy and Spike Lee's 2013 remake.
If the J-Horror craze of the early-to-mid aughts proved nothing else, it's that Hollywood has a difficult time remaking decidedly Asian films in an American context. It worked well enough when John Sturges transplanted Kurosawa's Seven Samurai to the old west with The Magnificent Seven, but samurai and cowboys have more in common than your average Asian has with your average American. When it was first announced that Steven Spielberg was going to be tackling an English language remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy starring Will Smith, it sounded like a terrible idea with just enough of a sliver of promise that it might possibly work.
Spielberg left the project in 2009, though Smith remained attached when Spike Lee came on board. Eventually, Smith left the film as well, with Lee next approaching Daniel Craig—who turned the role down—before Josh Brolin came on board. Both Rooney Mara and Mia Wasikowska were offered and rejected the female lead role, before Elizabeth Olsen signed on, and Christian Bale, Colin Firth, and Clive Owen all turned down the role of the main antagonist, eventually filled by divisive character actor Sharlto Copley.
The plot framework is essentially the same for both versions of this adaptation of the late 90s Manga of the same name, it's in the particulars that the two part ways. While there are plenty of iconic moments from the original that the remake failed to recreate from the octopus eating to the uninterrupted take of the hallway fight, one of the most subtle changes comes in the sex scene between the protagonist and the female lead. But first, let's get some context.
In both versions of the film, the protagonist—the original's Oh Dae-su (Choi min-sik) and the remake's Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin)—is a drunken lout who is framed for the murder of his wife and locked in a hotel room, away from prosecution for the crime, for a decade and a half. With no idea of who put him in that room or why, he is suddenly set free one day, setting out to take his revenge on whomever imprisoned him. In both versions, he is aided in his quest by a sympathetic young woman; In the original, it's sushi bar waitress Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung) who helps Oh Dae-su, while Joe gets an assist in the remake from a nurse named Marie (Elizabeth Olsen).
In both versions, the two eventually sleep together, but the two sex scenes could not be more disparate. As she gets to know Oh Dae-su, Mi-do reluctantly agrees to have sex with him when she is ready, swearing on her life that she'll "go through with it." It's a classic pity fuck, with the woman taking pity on the lonely, wronged man and deciding to sleep with him. When they do consummate just past the one-hour mark, Mi-do cries her way through the encounter...
It's clear that the pain is more physical than emotional, as they soon switch positions so that Mi-do can attain some pleasure as well...
Once the audience knows the "twist"—that Mi-do is actually Oh Dae-su's long lost daughter—the tears she sheds in the scene are made all the more poignant, almost as if she knows in her heart of hearts that what they're doing is wrong. It adds dimension, subtext, and layers to the scene, almost none of which are present in Lee's remake.
In the remake, the sexual encounter between Marie and Joe is much more of a spur-of-the-moment, heat of passion kind of thing, with Marie having just exited the shower before tending to Joe's wounds on the bed. There has been no discussion of sex up until this moment, yet another set-up excised from this version, making the payoff much less satisfying as a result. Marie tenderly caresses Joe before her towel drops and things get real...
Things only get more intense from there as the shots volley between the sex scene, black-and-white surveillance footage of the sex scene, and random cuts back to the villainous Copley, who has been watching from his own penthouse apartment...
Eagle-eyed viewers might even spot Brolin's flaccid dick as Olsen shifts positions in his lap, a sign that Brolin decided to forgo the customary privacy pouch used for actors to avoid actual genital contact—though in fairness, Olsen may have been wearing a patch...
While this version of the sex scene could also be classified as a pity fuck, it's less overt here as the two have never even hinted at feelings for one another prior to this moment. It also comes fourteen minutes later into the film than in the original, making it almost a literal climax at the end of the film's second act. But that's not the major difference between the two, which is all in the filmmaker's intent.
Lee's objective with this scene seems to be titillation, whereas Park seems to be foreshadowing the film's ultimate twist with an uncomfortable sex scene. True, it's always uncomfortable watching a Hollywood sex scene where an actress pretends to find a man twice her age sexually desirable, but there's nothing overtly upsetting about the remake's sex scene apart from Lee's insistence on cutting away to Sharlto Copley's reaction.It's yet another of Hollywood's bipolar standards wherein sex's only purpose is sexual gratification, yet if any character can be seen getting too much gratification—like Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine—the film runs the risk of being deemed obscene.
Perhaps this was Lee's ultimate point, that there's no reason to introduce anything remotely uncomfortable into the scene, making the big reveal that the two are father and daughter more shocking when it happens thirty minutes later. It makes rewatching the film much more strange and unsettling, but not intentionally so,as Park's version clearly is. You could show both versions of the scene to someone who has never seen either film and they'd likely be repulsed by the original and potentially very turned on by the remake.
That's not a value judgment on either scene, just a plain fact. Rewatching any good, well-made film should be an enriching experience, one that deepens your appreciation for all the groundwork laid by the filmmakers when those payoffs finally come. In the case of 2003's Oldboy, the sex scene plays as infinitely more disturbing on a rewatch. With 2013's Oldboy, though, it's as if Spike Lee is daring the viewer not to get aroused, even while knowing the context of the scene. It's just one reason out of many you should steer clear of Lee's version altogether.
See Elizabeth Olsen nude here
Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—The "Real Sex" of Don't Look Now
—Scarlett Johansson's Nude Debut in Under the Skin
—The 2 Very Different Sex ScenesofBasic Instinct
—How Halle Berry's Nude Debut Led Her to Monster's Ball
—HowMulholland Dr.'s Legendary Lesbian Scenes Deepen the Film's Mystery
—Showgirls and the Dangers of High Camp
—Rosario Dawson Laid Bare for Danny Boyle'sTrance
—Katie Holmes MakesThe GiftWorth Remembering
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age in The Hot Spot
—Lisa Bonet's Bloody Nude Debut in Angel Heart
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—Stanley Kubrick, The William Tell Overture, and A Clockwork Orange
—Wild ThingsPresents Every Man with His Dream Threesome
—Chloë Sevigny Goes Down in History forThe Brown Bunny
—Helen Hunt Does Her Best Nudity at 48 in The Sessions
—Anne Hathaway Wreaks Havoc on Her Disney Image
—Body HeatBrings Noir Into the 80s, Sexes Up the Genre
—The Master Gives Serious Drama its Horniest Protagonist Ever
—Analyzing the Dream Logic of Eyes Wide Shut
—Isabella Rossellini's Intentionally Unsexy Nude Debut in Blue Velvet
—Margot Robbie MakesThe Wolf of Wall Street a Skinstant Classic
—Angie Dickinson Steams Up the Opening Credits of Dressed to Kill