Oldboy

Run Time: 115 minutes
Director: Chan-wook Park
Starring: Min-sik Choi
Rating: R
DVD Release Date: August 23, 2005

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OldBoy is a movie best explained as a Korean telling of a Greek tragedy. Director Chan-wook Park is a masterful storyteller, leading us on an adventure not easily forgotten. Oh Dae-su spends a night on the town with a friend and wakes up locked in a room with no windows. The next 15 years find the television as his only companion. Daily meals sent through a slot in the door sustain his health. He watches on television the news of his wife's murder and the presumption of his involvement in the crime since he cannot be located. To occupy his mind, he plots his escape through a hole dug in the wall and consumes all available television programming between fits of exercise. When he finally escapes, he wants to discover who did this to him and why. It's at the point of escape where Min-sik Choi, the actor playing Oh Dae-su, turns out a marvelously manic performance that carries the rest of the movie. The why part of the question gradually reveals itself to be one of the more disturbing movie plot lines I've ever seen. While the movie is most definitely violent and somewhat graphic in nature, most of the really unnerving stuff takes place off screen in your mind, employing the forgotten art of suggesting violence rather than graphically depicting it. There's no happy ending to the story, although everyone gets what they want as the story draws to a conclusion.