79
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonVillage VoiceMichael AtkinsonOasis is utterly beguiling because Lee, like many other percipient Asian filmmakers, is simply more attentive to his characters' emotional tumult than the audience's.
- 90L.A. WeeklyJohn PowersL.A. WeeklyJohn PowersAt 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.
- 88New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDirector 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.
- 80VarietyDavid RooneyVarietyDavid RooneyAn eloquent expression of both unorthodox romance and bitter disillusionment with the hypocritical institutions of family and society.
- 80The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenThe 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.
- 80The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasIn 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.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoYou'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.
- 70Chicago ReaderChicago ReaderSkating fearlessly on the edge of tastelessness and sentimentality, Oasis is another strong, provocative film by Lee Chang-dong.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckAlthough overlong and diffuse, Oasis, written and directed by Lee Chang-dong, boasts many powerful moments.
- 50TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghThe 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.