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Oasis
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 14 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign | Romance
Written by: Lee Chang-dong
Directed by: Lee Chang-dong
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 7, 2004
DVD: November 23, 2004
Running Time: 132 minutes, Color
Origin: South Korea
Language(s): Korean (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Sol Kyung-gu, Moon So-ri, Ahn Nae-sang, Ryoo Seung-wan, Chu Kwi-Jung, Son Byung-ho, Yun Ga-hyun, and Park Myung-shin
A hardened ex-con falls for a severely disabled woman in this psychological drama.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Korean Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
An unforgettable experience from yet another filmmaker who is making South Korean cinema one of the most vibrant of any emerging on the international scene.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Powers
At once a romantic melodrama, a sharp social comedy and a fierce political commentary on Korean society's cruelty to social outcasts. It's also a triumph of artistic indirection: Not a single scene plays out the way you expect. This is a film that gives humanism back its good name.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Oasis is utterly beguiling because Lee, like many other percipient Asian filmmakers, is simply more attentive to his characters' emotional tumult than the audience's.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Director Lee Chang-Dong has boldly crafted a challenge rarely found on film. But if you choose to meet it, you'll be rewarded with one of the most original, indelible romances in recent memory.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Oasis is that rare miraculous whirlwind romance that moves from attempted rape to reverence without kicking up a lot of dust.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
In a sense, Oasis is an unabashed tearjerker, but Lee keeps knocking the melodrama off-balance, making all the big emotional payoffs a little discomforting, because they're not that far removed from something really disturbing.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The remarkable if overlong Korean film Oasis strips away much of the sentimentality and goody-two-shoes attitudes that the movies traditionally display toward disabled people.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
An eloquent expression of both unorthodox romance and bitter disillusionment with the hypocritical institutions of family and society.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
You'll have to look long and hard to find a performance as emotionally raw as that of Moon So-ri in the startling South Korean love story Oasis.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A brave film in the way it shows two people who find any relationship almost impossible, and yet find a way to make theirs work. The problems with the film come because it overstays its welcome.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
In the 2002 South Korean film Oasis, one can appreciate one of Asia's best directors (Lee Chang-dong) and one of the region's best actresses (Moon So-ri).
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Martin Rubin
Skating fearlessly on the edge of tastelessness and sentimentality, Oasis is another strong, provocative film by Lee Chang-dong.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Although overlong and diffuse, Oasis, written and directed by Lee Chang-dong, boasts many powerful moments.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The combination of Lee's discomforting subject matter and distancing style -- calculating artlessness punctuated by occasional flights of lyrical fantasy -- makes this slow-moving drama a challenge that doesn't seem entirely worth the effort.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Ed B. gave it a9:
A daring, disturbing film encompassing practically every universal theme and emotion facing any human being. This film takes the concept of the literary "fool" and twists it a turn tighter, in a wrenching portrayal of taboo love, family, deceipt, betrayal, prejudice, exploitation, sibling rivalry, misapprehension, public humiliation, greed, guilt, shame, and at the very least Hope, truly a masterpiece of story-telling, told with so little guile and pretension as to be almost child-like in its innocence. The Oscar-deserving scene of the public, psychological melt-down by the leading male actor at the birthday dinner is a performance of a lifetime and stunning in its emotional clarity. This film puts to shame almost everything coming out of Hollywood these days.
Jake gave it a3:
Another dishonest film about mental retardation and physical disability, meant to flatter the audience with its own (presumed) benevolence, in contrast to the unfeeling or selfish characters in the film. The male character is evidently mentally retarded, but his traits and behavior belong strictly to the movies. The woman apparently has cerebral palsy, but with normal intelligence. Consequently, the "affair" between makes no sense, unless (like the filmmaker) you can't distingiush between physical and mental disability. I can only suggest that the critics who loved the film devote time to caring for a severely disabled person, and see if their experience conforms to this nonsensical film.
Chad S. gave it a 9:
"Oasis" is "Pumpkin" with a straight face, a take-no-prisoners portrait of loving, really loving, the disabled. Our (anti-)hero reminded me of Arnold Friedman. Both men are guilty, but they're guilty for the wrong crime. What prompts the love affair between Jong-du (Sol Kyung-gu) and Gong-ju (Moon So-ri), plays like a variation of the male nurse/woman in a coma coupling in Pedro Almadovar's "Talk to Her", but here, the cretin redeems himself, sort of. Director Lee Chang-Dong will be accused of being tasteless when Jong-du and Gong-ju consumate their love, but it's a test for the audience, I think. We join the people in "Oasis" who treat the cerebal palsy like they're mentally impaired. Gong-ju projects a double, a normal and healthy woman, which is Chang-Dong's way to convey that the affair is composed of two consenting adults. "Oasis" is an amazing film. Moon So-ri make Cuba "Radio" Gooding and Dustin "Rainman" Hoffman look like amateurs in depicting the "handicapped". "Oasis" is one of South Korea's many calling cards as a major player in the international film marketplace.
Hendar P. gave it a 9:
This is a very heart-breaking, tears-shedding, and taboo-wrenching romance film! An unlikely piece of being "fall in love."
