Brilliant but tough n depressing ending

Rating: 10/10 (10 July 2016)

In 1988, a businessman named Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is arrested for drunkenness, missing his daughter's 4th birthday. After his friend Joo- hwan (Ji Dae-han) retrieves him from the police station, they go to a phone booth for Dae-su to call home. While Joo-hwan is talking to Dae-su's wife, Dae-su is kidnapped, and wakes up in a sealed hotel room where food is delivered through a trap-door. By watching the television, Dae-su learns that his wife has been murdered and that he is the prime suspect. Dae-su passes the time shadow-boxing, planning revenge, and attempting to dig a tunnel to escape.
In 2003, 15 years after he was imprisoned, Dae-su wakes up on a roof-top with a suit and some money. He receives a taunting phone call from his captor, who refuses to explain the reason for his imprisonment. Later he collapses at a Sushi restaurant and is taken in by Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), the restaurant's young chef. After he recovers, Dae-su tries to find his daughter and the location of his prison. He discovers that his daughter was adopted by a Swedish couple, and gives up trying to contact her. Dae- su locates the Chinese restaurant which made food for his prison, and finds the prison by following a delivery man. Apparently it is a private prison where people can pay to have others incarcerated. Dae-su enters the prison and tortures the warden, Mr Park, who doesn't know the identity of Dae-su's captor but reveals that Dae-su was imprisoned for "talking too much." While leaving the prison, Dae-su is attacked by a large number of guards but manages to defeat all of them.