Among the numerous photos Cho Seung-Hui mailed to NBC on Monday, the one that is really piquing a lot of people's interest is one featuring Cho, brandishing a hammer. The New York Times has an interesting theory about the inspiration for that photograph: it's Cho's psycopathic homage to Park Chan-wook's Oldboy.
I can see why the theory would be compelling. In Oldboy, the protagonist, Oh Dae-su, is kidnapped suddenly and locked in a small room for over 10 years, without ever being told why. Then, just as inexplicably, he is released. In the famous hammer scene, Oh Dae-su finds his way back to the prison where he'd been kept and in a long panning shot single-handedly defeats about twenty or thirty thugs, using a hammer as a weapon to unyieldingly plow through them.
It's an incredible scen — for my money, one of the greatest fight scenes ever filmed — but I can see why people would imagine there to be parallels. After all, the scene is about a South-Korean loner inflicting vengeful physical violence on about thirty people at once.
The famous Oldboy hammer scene after the jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAjVSUkkef0
