A Brilliant, Artistically Accomplished Thriller

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2005)

In Oldboy Choi Min-Shik (of Shiri fame) plays Dae-su, a man kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years in a single room apartment, before being released and given 5 days to discover the reason for his imprisonment. Okay, so you know the basic premise of this film. What is hard to convey is the sheer excellence of the performances in this film, or the artistically intriguing camera shots or even the absorbing nature of this intriguing thriller. Every scene looks stunning, the lighting and sets seem perfect from the drab prison walls that actually make you feel ill, to the cold steel of the office building with its clean lines and vapid design. Great care and attention has been taken when planning this film, and it shows. Park Chan-Wook deserves much acclaim for his direction and sheer effort in bringing this film to screen. The plot is also intriguing yet not overly complex and the pace of the film is punctuated by scenes of extreme violence which are somewhat disturbing, but never gratuitous when balanced against the nature of the world Dae-su has descended into. But all of the sets and direction only gain cachet when placed next to the performances of the two main players; Choi Min-Shik (who is simply astounding in probably his best role to date) and Yu Ji-Tae (from the enjoyable Korean horror/thriller Into the Mirror). Both men put in staggering performances of particularly extreme characters without seeming too grandiose. This baroque thriller is simply not to be missed by any fan of thrillers or Asian cinema. Yet I would warn those who have issues with screen violence and somewhat disturbing subject matter to look elsewhere. But all in all, I hold this film up as a true masterpiece, and unquestionably one of the best thrillers to be made yet.