Time for some new superlatives

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2005)

Harboiled. Awesome. Two-fisted. Shocking. Original. Stomach-turning. Captivating. It's near-impossible to come up with adequate superlatives for Korean Chan-Wook Park's ferocious, Jacobean tale of bloody revenge, particularly when they've been diluted elsewhere for so many lesser films.
Following a drunken night on the town, egregious businessman Dae-su Oh (Min-Sik Choi) is abducted and locked in a tiny apartment for no apparent reason. For 15 years.
During that time he has no human contact, is occasionally rendered unconscious for haircuts or medical checks and kills time by beating the walls, plotting his revenge, suffering hallucinations spurred by loneliness and poring over his past for a clue as to his persecutor's identity. A TV is his sole link to reality and it's through this he learns of his wife's murder.
Then one day he wakes up in a suitcase in the outside world and sets about hunting the jailer who still taunts him via a mobile phone. To say more would be to give away far too much of the labyrinthine plot, suffice it say that Dae-su's not the only one seeking retribution.
Park revisits many of the themes of his earlier Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, but here orchestrates them into an operatic, stylised crescendo of violence, grief and corrupted love, using precisely chosen original music and striking visual design to haunting effect while punctuating Dae-su's quest with moments of disturbing violence (a teeth torture scene is almost unendurable) and breath-taking audacious action (the protagonist's hammer fight with dozens of assailants, captured in a single take, is incredible).
Material this dark could so easily have been played wrong but Min-Sik Choi gives an astounding performance of such rare power and commitment that it's impossible not to be swept into the world behind his eyes.
Oldboy's certainly not for the squeamish, faint-hearted or easily offended but it's absolutely essential viewing for anyone with a passion for virtuoso cinema  the cutting-edge just got a lot sharper.