The Mise-En-Scene In The Korean Action Film

Every movies have their own narrative forms, to present a series of events with the connections between one event and the next. “Narrative is structured into acts that establish, develop, and resolve character conflict” (Barsam, 2013). In generally, most of the film which are shown by a “cause-and –effect” relationship. Speidel (2012) indicted that the narratives required ‘narration’ which is “multi-track”, both visual (mise-en-scene and editing) and audio (speech, music, and noise). The cinematic codes consists three basic areas which are mise-en-scene, editing and soundtrack. The term “mise-en-scene” refers to “those elements of a movie scene that are put in position before the filming actually begins and are employed in certain ways once

He blurs the line between victim and victimizer, which is different to the societal values of previous generations (2012). In this essay, the Korean action movie filmed by Park Chan Wook, 올드보이 (Oldboy) (2003), will be used as an example to discuss how the mise-en-scene functions within the overall form of the film. As the literally meaning of mise-en-scene is putting elements into the scene, the elements are settings, props, costume and make-up, lighting and performance. This paper will following these aspects to discuss the mise-en-scene functions in the Oldboy.

The story is about the main character, 오대수 (Oh Dae Su), was kidnapped and imprisoned in a room for 15 years without any reasons. After this 15 years, he is released with money, a phone, and expensive clothes. He wanted to investigate the reasons why that person kidnapped him and get his revenge.

At the beginning of the film, the main character, Oh Dae Su, crabbing the tie of a man, the half of the man’s body was outside the building. The director was using the speech of the man, “who are you?” to introduce the story of Oh Dae Su. In this scene, the low-angle shot and zoom in is used when shot of Oh Dae Su, to create a feel that he is the main character in this film and the script to make him started to think who he

Close-up is used when Mi Do and Oh Dae Su are embraced. Nevertheless, from their facial expression, the ending cannot be predict whether Oh Dae Su is forgot the truth or not; whether Mi Do know the truth or not.

Above all, the lightings are dark and rough to present the hopeless and desperate. For the costume, before Oh Dae Su was kidnapped, he dressed in a bad suit but looks clean and tied hair, even he got drunk. After he was kidnapped, his hairstyle looks dirty and wild, and his winkle is emphasized, in other words, his life is hard in the prison. Besides the overall lighting and custom, the classical music were played in every bloody scene, the director may use these classical music to make the scene more artistic. To project the movie is an art rather than a commercial movie which is barbarous and bloody.

In conclude, the mise-en-scene of Oldboy is closely related to the narrative structure. Almost every single scene was applied with the mise-en-scene to project what the story would be. Oldboy is one of the good example to indicate the relationship of the mise-en-scene to the narrative structure of the