The inaugural Hudson Film Festival in Hudson, NY will premiere the 20th anniversary remastered edition of Park Chan-wook’s classic film “Oldboy” this August. In partnership with Neon, the premiere will be in advance of the film’s theatrical re-release on Aug. 16.
Founded by John Maybee, Sarah Peters, and Sonia Marcela Freeman, the festival will take place Aug. 11-13; their website states that the festival “serves as a platform to champion and showcase underrepresented local and global films, filmmakers, artisans and talent.”
The festival co-founders said in a joint statement, “As devotees of Director Park and Neon, we are ecstatic and honored to have been chosen as the only festival to screen ‘Oldboy’ prior to its 20th Anniversary theatrical relaunch.”
“Oldboy,” released in 2003, is a South Korean neo-noir thriller about a man named Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) who attempts to exact revenge on his captor after being mysteriously held prisoner for 15 years. The second installment in Park Chan-wook’s “Vengeance” trilogy, the film originally premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim and is one of the auteur’s most prominent films. It has also spurred multiple adaptations, including Spike Lee’s 2013 film of the same name.
“If the community of Hudson missed ‘Oldboy’ in theaters in 2003, now’s the chance to see it in all its twisted glory the way it was meant to be seen,” the co-founders said.
Individual tickets and ticket packages are now on sale for the festival. In addition to “Oldboy,” other titles include “She Came to Me,” “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” “Perpetrator,” “Mutt” and several short films including “The Flying Sailor” and “When You Left Me on That Boulevard.”
