Old Boy Movie

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An ordinary oldboy is inexplicably kidnapped one day and imprisoned for fifteen years and his wife is brutally killed. Then, just as sudden as he was kidnapped, he is released and given new expensive closes, a wallet full of money and a cellphone. A stranger calls and asks him to try and figure out why he was imprisoned. A girl appears and promises to help him solve the enigma and seek vengeance for his cruel fate.
As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, he soon finds out that not only his kidnapper has still plans for him, but that those plans will serve as the even worse finale to fifteen years of imprisonment.

• [KFCC] Oldboy movie review by KFCCinema.com
  http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/drama/oldboy/oldboy.html
  The monologues are so naturally and realistically executed that it immediately conjures up the narratives of Wong Kar Wai films, which in turn, also creates a similar somber atmosphere and mood that Oh Dae-su navigates in. This adds so much to the characterization because we are immediately sympathetic to his rationalized evils. For the sake of the film, he may be on the positive side of the revenge spectrum, but it ends up becoming much grayer as the story builds on.


• Oldboy movie review at AmpedAsia.com
  http://www.ampedasia.com/movies/Oldboy/
  Mido, played by Kang Hye-Jeong, is a more reserved character, but the variety of different scenes this character had to perform was extraordinary. She is adept at playing innocent yet sexual, and her role in this movie is huge. The beauty of this actress is that she is willing to do anything for a character, including the graphic sex scenes (scenes that are actually in the film for a reason and not just for sex), and this is the main reason she is so believable as Mi-do. Her character in Oldboy is easily her best and most memorable film role.
  


• Oldboy movie review at KoreanMovie.org
  http://koreanmovie.org/reviews/oldboy.htm
  Part of the success of the movie is its complex story structure that is seemingly hard to define and grasp initially. It is such unorthodoxy that challenged viewers leaving us with not much sure ground to stand on. It is thus exhilarating watching the movie unwinds. Park continue to redefine and refine the genre with excellent cinematography that made Old Boy such a polished work, even a simple flashback scene is filmed with much invention. Old Boy is a myriad of disparate elements that combine well to give the movie a distinctive edge. The sounds, words and actions all combine to give the movie a poetic madness giving the movie a unique style.
  


• Oldboy review at Channel4.com
  http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=137372
  On his way to solving the riddle, Park and his co-screenwriters Jo-Yun Hwang and Chun-Hyeong Lim really put the protagonist through the mill. It's pretty Jacobean stuff - violent, vengeful, impassioned, angry. In one incredible sequence, the camera tracks slowly left to right alongside a corridor as Oh fights his way through a mob of heavies armed with clubs and blades. No balletic martial arts here, instead it's brutal but compellingly so, the hero resisting pain and defeat due to his all-consuming motivation.
  


• Oldboy movie review, in Film Australia
  http://www.infilm.com.au/reviews/oldboy.htm
  This is an enthralling film: its ideas are mostly all recycled but they're rehashed in original and confronting ways, and Chan-wook Park draws upon a kooky and crazy-eyed sense of rhythm and energy to distil any notions of genre familiarity. Old Boy is a really hard edged film; it's bold, striking, unashamedly violent and impulsive. It's rich with concisely plotted and networked ideas joined together with scatter-brained cohesion and endowed with the prowess of a true showman.