Lee Chang-dong has only directed six features since 1997 with nary a disappointment among the lot. Though Oasis is hardly an easy watch, it's invaluable as an empowering and uniquely romantic narrative about disabled individuals.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 25, 2024

Explores themes of love, romance, and acceptance between two marginalised individuals while providing social commentary, and does so in a profound and oftentimes-unflinching way.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 13, 2024

Every aspect of this production is outstanding from the performances to the cinematography to the score to the direction.

| Original Score: 4.0/4.0 | Sep 18, 2020

Lee Chang-dong directs and pens a film that deals with a quite unlikely romance in order to portray in shuttering and occasionally disturbing (and even offensive) realism the circumstances of handicapped individuals.

| Apr 7, 2019

a subversive slice of Seoul life that's both funny and heartbreaking

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2004

Makes you pay a dear price before getting to the sublime beauty of such a disturbing film.

| Original Score: A | Dec 2, 2004

It has some rough spots - but the more you think about this movie, the more you care about these characters.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 10, 2004

A loving and lovely film.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 9, 2004

Its honesty and avoidance of comfortable closure make it a refreshing change from the sort of phony uplift such stories ordinarily receive on the screen.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 6, 2004

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.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 27, 2004

The actors' scenes together are simultaneously abrasive and oddly gentle: two untamable people trying to stabilize each other.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 6, 2004

Oasis is the kind of film that is a must for any serious film buff...and the adventurous movie-goer who isn't afraid of a little challenge.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Aug 1, 2004

There's always a danger when lead roles are disabled characters to make them too sympathetic. A deft touch is required, and Lee delivers.

| Jul 19, 2004

A dark, off-putting film that offers spare insights but may not be worth the effort it takes to view it.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 15, 2004

It sounds like a pervy after-school special, but Oasis features one of the year's most remarkable performances.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 9, 2004

A fascinating piece of work.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 8, 2004

Lee's humanitarian plea for tolerance is one of the most original films of the decade, and Moon provides the soul.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 25, 2004

A markedly different kind of movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 18, 2004

Both leads make the romance convincing, and Jong-Du even becomes sympathetic despite being almost insufferably thick-headed.

| Jun 18, 2004

A love story of two young people marginalized by family and society that becomes a scorching indictment of the indifference, cruelty and hypocrisy of those institutions as the couple inevitably come into profound conflict with them.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2004