Last week, you voted on the best cameos community watchlist. The votes are in, and now you can see the final results. Congratulations to this month’s winner, Brandon K.

A man is suddenly released from captivity and given five days to find his captor.

→ Breaking your brain. Oldboy will break your brain. We watched the film with three friends, and while I won’t vouch for the condition of their brains prior, I can tell you their brains are broken now.

→ 한 Han. The Korean cultural concept of all-consuming hatred, resentment, or regret (though technically there is no English equivalent). This is one of three films in Park Chan-wook’s famed vengeance trilogy.

→ Taboo subject matter. In 1996, the Constitutional Court of Korea ruled that pre-censorship of motion pictures violated the country's constitution. Korean new wave cinema like Oldboy took on deeply taboo subject matter, emblematic of the artistic backlash to such long-enforced cultural repression.

→ Beautifully choreographed action. The famed hallway fighting sequence is one to remember.

You know when you watch a movie. And you sit there. And you think. How the fuck did I wait so long to watch this movie? That is exactly what you are going to do when you watch Oldboy for the first time. It’s what I did. It’s what we all do. I’d have thought it even if I watched it the day after it came out. Every second you’ve spent not watching this movie is a second wasted.

Note, there is an American remake, and it is very poorly reviewed, probably because it sucked. Watch the original. Read the subtitles.

Adore the accompanying score, fighting choreography, and absolutely bonkers narrative.

Adore the cultural moment that Oldboy represents, and appreciate why an American remake was never going to work.

Most of all, adore an early feature-length film from famed writer-director Park Chan-wook. His most recent work, No Other Choice, was a TNMN headliner, also for good reason.

Your author submits that very few filmmakers succeed so frequently at creating deeply entertaining, hypnotic motion pictures. Works that entertain as much as they evoke the cultural context of the time in which they were released.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say "oh, neat."

→ Choi Min-sik actually ate four live octopuses for the film. The scene took four takes (i.e. four octopuses) to capture. The actor is a practicing Buddhist and vegetarian, so he offered an apology and prayer to the animals before each take.

→ It won Grand Prix (i.e. runner up) at Cannes in 2004. The jury president at the time was Quentin Tarantino. Members of Park Chan-wook’s team say they spotted Tarantino watching the film in at least three of its screenings that year at Cannes.

Every other edition, we conclude with a special feature — an original work of fiction completely unrelated to this week’s film.

By Blake Levy

When I remember you, I’ll think of how agreeable you were. The way your fire had the unmistakable essence of a candle, less a wildfire.

PAUSE FOR DRAMA

I’m kidding! I’m kidding! Of course this isn’t who you were. You were anything but.

On July 23rd, 2026, it was obvious. You were tired. Broken, destroyed beyond repair. Silenced and gone, forever. Your time was up, and so was ours together. 

When I knew for certain, the tears were stubborn and unrelenting. They rolled and rolled down my cheeks until my skin dried and chapped and reddened. 

Remember the time I told you the plan? That we’d ride west. West until the sun fell below the horizon, barely peeking above the trees. Behind us, a smoking trail of promises broken, two lives forgotten. In front of us, the vast and the dark and the great wide open.

The idea seems remote, without you. I can hardly leave the house anymore. Not without a to-go container of bacon grease. Oh, how you loved your bacon grease.

PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER

You were brought into my world as a gift. Fresh-faced and naïve to the nature of our partnership.  I was undeserving of such a sturdy, versatile, reliable partner. Still am.

To my kids, you were known as Mrs. Mops. In the early days, they loved it. When I pulled you from the back of the closet, those undirtied, ungrayed cotton cut ends of yours, stretching downwards, longing for the floor. Your five-inch band, holding it all together. You, the mop of my dreams.

I’d place your locks right over mine. They’d rest on my head, almost covering my brown eyes. I’d pitch my voice up several octaves, and I’d say to my babies in my finest British accent: “HALLO! I'm MRS. MOPS!” 

PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER

And the kids, their little unfreckled faces, they’d howl with laughter. They’d tell their cousins and friends and grandparents about you. They’d beg and plead, “Daddy, do Mrs. Mops again! Get Mrs. Mops! Be Mrs. Mops, pleaseeeee!” 

Oh, you were nothing if not a good time.

You served honorably alongside me. A dedicated member of the Sunnyside Cleaning Service. Touring neighborhood after neighborhood, plunging yourself headfirst into the dirtiest, most untenable messes without hesitation.

Wooden floors covered in shit and piss and vomit. Tiles caked with soap and grime and stench. You were always there, no matter the mess.

I recall these days fondly. A time when we were colleagues and that was all we were. We made for a hell of a team. I relied on you, and you on me. 

It wasn’t long before I called you a friend. Who could blame me? Cleaning is lonely work. My customers, they’d make small talk. They’d ask me, “Hi, how are you?” They’d stop listening when I answered, but the courtesy to ask, it was a nice gesture. I’d still answer, in detail, as if anyone were listening but you. They’d ask me, “How was your weekend?” I’d tell them, I’d worked the weekend, and they’d shake their heads, privately wishing for a better life for me. 

But they couldn’t have known. They didn’t know what we had together. 

Remember the time we worked on Cherry Blossom Court? The house on the corner with the wild flowers all over the front lawn. A beautiful home, terribly kept. The kitchen, coated in bacon grease.

Remember when I placed you in the corner of the bathroom? I was worn down, hard up. I needed a break. You were too. I could tell. I always knew you, perhaps as well as anyone can know anything.

You reclined against the corner of the wall, and I turned on the shower. I stripped naked and let the water run over my head, facing the nozzle. A marriage of sweat and water flushed down the drain. I panted and panted through the shower, exhausted from the rather intense grease removal in the kitchen.

That’s when it happened. You took a spill. A tumble. I ripped open the shower curtain and there you were, on the floor like a stray cat. I brought you into the shower with me, propped you up against the wall. And you couldn’t take your eyes off of me.

You watched me. I was your magician. Your comedian. Your band. Your sermon. Your perfect slice of cake. I was soaking wet, your tiramisu. If you’d had a taste, I’d have lingered with you for hours afterwards.

I used every last drop of soap, and you never stopped watching. Then, you fell again, hah! They’ll say a lot about you, and they’d be remiss to leave out the part about how damned clumsy you are.

PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER

This was the day. The day our friendship blossomed into something more potent. Complicated.

I looked at you, and you me. My eyes traced your figure from head to handle. And that’s when I recalled the bacon grease. Dripping, lathered in soap, I left the shower and ran to the kitchen. In the refrigerator, a small deli tub of bacon grease, reserves from the homeowner’s last breakfast no doubt. My wife reserved the grease the same way.

I was consumed, an animal, imprisoned by my instincts. When I returned to the shower, you were behind the curtain, steam embracing you from all angles. The bacon grease warmed and I poured the whole lot over your handle. I swear I heard you purr.

I pressed your head into the corner of the shower floor. I stepped on it, just a little, to wring you out. You loved it. I knew you did. Then, I sat on your handle and we made magic together.

PAUSE FOR ADORATION

It was all so thrilling. My wife, the kids. They didn’t know. I was finally being bad. Naughty. Society wouldn’t know what to do with me. Perhaps I deserved to be punished. Maybe I even welcomed it. 

You assured me the contrary. You said it, that I was simply a man who had sadly lost his taste for life. I needed a spark. And you, you set me ablaze. Life, it was succulent once more.

Remember the time we invited a third? A bucket with the wringer, if I’m not mistaken. I can barely remember what she looked like. Because my eyes, they were on you and you only. I was a magnet, and you, the opposite pole.

Yes, it was complicated. But it was love. Warm love, radiating heat on the back of your neck. Effervescent, remarkable love that makes you shiver involuntarily. Messy love like juice dripping from your chin.

Oh, you were nothing if not a good time.

PAUSE FOR ADORATION

Nothing lasts forever. That’s what they say.

You and I, we dreamt of retirement. A time when we could be together without the cleaning work. After I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I told you about the plan to get a cycle. To ride west.

Then, my wife. She found the bacon grease. Under my bed, resting atop my journal. The journal where I planned our escape together. The journal with the routes and pit stops and hope. The journal with crumbled graphite, smudging across the page, atop hand-drawn pictures of you and I on our cycle. And pictures of our love. 

That very first time in the shower on Cherry Blossom. The bucket wringer, squeezing every last drop of me out of you, and into it. Those beautiful pictures of our love together.

She didn’t understand. How could she? She never knew a love like ours. A man and a mop? How could it be? 

And we, the both of us, we didn’t understand how she couldn’t see it. Feel it. Know that what you and I had, that it was something to be cherished, beholden, squeezed tight.

You told me she’d never understand. You told me to grab the utility knife from the junk drawer. I didn’t ask why, but I knew your heart, and I knew what you wanted me to do.

One more time, we made love. I rubbed your handle with grease. The same deli container my wife threw at me in a fit of anger. Her indignation, the shriek of her voice, both still thick in the air with us.

You propped yourself up, where the plush beige carpeting met the peeling drywall. Snug in the corner of the bedroom, together, I pushed my weight against you until you were inside me once more.

Before I knew it, you found your way into my mouth. I thrust myself into your cotton cut ends until my toes curled and I swear it, I was levitating.

Oh, you were nothing if not a good time.

The utility knife. I carved and carved until your handle went from a lover to a fighter. From a rounded friend to a threatening stake. I marched into the bedroom, where my wife had cried herself to sleep. Her mouth ajar, as always, a result of chronic sinus infections.

I shoved your handle, carved and sharp and covered in bacon grease and saliva and shit. I shoved it right down her throat. 

She was silent, but her eyes, they screamed. Perhaps now, she understood what we had together. And what her and I, what we never had together. No matter how we lied to each other and ourselves. What you and I had, it was special.

PAUSE FOR ADORATION

Our cycle, it was out front. Keys in the ignition. Humming and rumbling with impatience. We left. 

We rode until there was no pavement left and only beach. Only Earth. Pulverized Earth. Ground and rock and pebble made the way they were by the harshness of the waves. Of nature. Pounded down until it was all made flat and lifeless and something merely to walk on.

The sand, it was nothing like us.

We rode west as the sun fell below the horizon, barely peeking above the trees. Behind us, a smoking trail of promises broken, two lives forgotten. In front of us, the vast and the dark and the great wide open.

We spent the remainder of our lives together, refusing to become the sand. But you grew tired. Your cotton ends, harsh bristles, brittle like twigs on a dying plant. Your lacquered handle, bare and delicate and splintered.

…

“So,” the Janitor asked his kids. “I can’t really figure out how to end it. What do you think?”

“Dad, what the actual fu—” the Janitor’s son froze. His sister kicked him beneath the table and gestured towards the front door. “You know what? I think it’s great.” 

The Janitor’s son pushed his chair out, legs scraping against the grain of the hickory floor. He walked towards the entryway, past old family pictures taken at the local mall photography clinic and he opened the door. Behind it, a police officer and two burly men waited to greet the Janitor. The men escorted him to a white van labelled WESTERN SUN PSYCHIATRIC REHABILITATION. 

The janitor went willingly. His unclothed buttocks visible beneath a stained white t-shirt, he was followed only by a trail of freshly fallen bacon grease.