Many consider Oldboy be the defining film of the most recent wave of South Korean cinema, with scholars such as Terrence McSweeney and Kim Kyun Hyun arguing the film's representation of South Korean culture through collective memory, trauma, and Westernization. However, most of the current scholarship that surrounds the film does not adequately address the film's prominent theme of incest. My thesis explores the anxious implications of the film's incestuous imagery and reads it as a figure for the film's transnational presence. Specifically, in my project, incest is the nucleus on which I build each argument outward. First through abjection and desire for self and other, onto telesthesia and desire for private and public, then finally, transnationalism and the desire for national and global. These desires we typically take as binaries, but in fact, we experience an anxiety of being simultaneously on both sides of the binary. I argue that attentiveness Oldboy`s representation of the incest taboo brings necessary nuances to the current scholarship that surrounds it: Contemporary South Korean culture cannot be a primary focus, as South Korea has always been entangled within an "other", be it through Colonization, Westernization, or more recently telecommunications. In conclusion, by closely examining the incest taboo in Oldboy, this project sheds light on the simultaneity within the desires of self and other, private and public, and finally, national and global.

Pak Ch’an-uk is one of the most popular directors in Korea and his films have been successful both domestically and internationally. His films are known to contain a large amount of violence and other sensitive subjects, which has raised a lot of discussion and criticism. Pak Ch’an-uk’s most well-known film, Oldboy, is no exception. Oldboy has been discussed by film studies scholars from a variety of angles. This thesis discusses the film rather from the perspective of Korean Studies, taking the Korean cultural and historical context in mind. This study analyzes the meaning of the violence and revenge in Oldboy and explores how the themes and references in the film relate to non-diegetic events in Korea’s recent history, as well as how those references function as social criticism. The thesis also looks into the question why the film has received criticism for its violence and suggests cultural and linguistic barriers as a potential reason for this criticism. / Pak Ch’an-uk är en av Koreas mest populära regissörer i Korea. Hans filmer har haft stor succé både inrikes och utrikes. Hans filmer är rika på våld och andra känsliga ämnen, vilket har resulterat i mycket diskussion och kritik mot hans filmer. Han mest välkända film, Oldboy, är inget undantag. Oldboy har blivit diskuterad av forskare inom film, men den här studien diskuterar filmen från ett koreastudieperspektiv, och analyserar därmed filmen med Koreas kultur i åtanke. Den här studien analyserar betydelsen av våldet och hämnden i Oldboy och undersöker hur teman och referenserna i filmen relaterar till extradiegetiska händelser i Koreas historia, samt hur dessa referenser fungerar som kritik. Studien tar även upp kritiken som Oldboy har fått på grund av filmens våld och framställer kulturella och språkliga hinder som en potentiell anledning för kritiken.

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