Best Film Of The Year

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2005)

Oldboy has to be on of the greatest revenge films ever. If not one of the best films ever.
Min-sik Choi is mind blowing as Dae-su Oh, the drunkard who is imprisoned for reasons unknown for over a decade. The film has many influences, The Count of Monte Cristo being the most obvious.
Just when you thought the revenge flick was old hat, along comes an awesome shock fest like Oldboy jammed with dark humor, action, and some of the best fight scenes in recent memory.
Many people rave about the one take fight scene where Min-sik takes on a whole gang single handedly. It's an amazing fight. And one the viewer is exhausted after watching in a way. Dae-su starts off fighting the gang frantically, claw hammer in hand, he falls to the ground, you think he's beaten, exhausted, but he comes back fighting, he falls down again, seemingly he MUST be beaten this time. But no! He fights back and when it's all over it's amazing to see he's defeated and worn down the entire gang. And all of this shot in ONE TAKE! Incredible.
There are plenty of small moments in the film that are excellent as well. One of mine being the voice over line where the hero wonders if fifteen years of pretend training can work, the short ensuing fight scene has a great, hand held kinetic energy to it. It's a mini-film school for directors on how to properly do a bad ass movie fight. And the hammer and teeth scenes are some of the most intense tooth torture scenes since the movie Marathon Man.
This is one of the best movies I've ever scene, with a twisting, turning plot that is totally off the wall and fresh and unpredictable. A revenge epic that tops or equals Kill Bill. Four stars out of four for director Chan-wook Park's masterpiece!