One reason is that repeating images in this way does more than bringing the story full circle; it also gives the audience the impression of narrative closure with no unresolved questions, even if this is not truly the case.
Oldboy has a complex image system expertly inter-woven with its narrative, used in a way that amplifies and adds dramatic resonance to the themes and motifs that are already present in its story. This is by far the best way to use an image system, to deepen the emotional impact and audi-ence engagement with a filmic narrative, adding layers of meaning that reward an attentive audience and invite re-peated viewings of a film, as new depths, dimensions, and understandings can be gleaned every time the story is revis-ited. However, the implementation and effectiveness of an image system also relies on the creation of meaningful, nar-ratively compelling compositions for every basic shot of the cinematic vocabulary, the topic of the rest of the chapters in this book.