There are two ways to view it

Rating: 9/10 (29 September 2011)

There are two ways to take this movie. You could take it as a total cheese fest that deals with uncomfortable subjects (incest) and completely ridiculous claims to the common people (hypnosis). For me however I took both of these subjects and accepted them within the movies universe because I like to feel apart of it. I got past the parts that seemed a little to far fetched (shadow boxing only for fifteen years and becoming an incredible fighter) and I found an amazing film.
It's beautiful. Every shot explains what is happening, it doesn't just serve as something to view as audio plays over it. When Oh Dae Sou is practically losing his mind at the end the camera is shaky and you feel just as confused and mixed up and completely unsure of what to say as he does (fun fact that scene was completely ad libbed even the song). When he is released and is walking out of the building as the lady complains about her sunglasses you see the camera in control and facing the front of him. And even as the man jumps and lands on the car (dog and all) The camera still shows his front view with everything else happening in the background. This shows he is in control, he knows what he is after and doesn't care who or how many people with blunt objects (and surprisingly no fire arms) stand in his hallway. Don't even get me started on the incredible hall way fight scene. It's one of the most realistic I've seen. I think they really just got a bunch of random joe's (or chins) off the street and said, "here takes these sticks of plywood and go beat up this guy in there because he just raped twenty babies and I'll give whoever hurts him the most 100 dollars. Also if he says who has AB blood you, you, and you raise your hand okay? Good! Now get in there and do some damage! *smacks first random chins ass as he goes into the elevator).
The acting and character development is incredible. You really feel for oh dae sou and then you hate him. The whole time you feel sympathy for a man stripped of fifteen years of his life through his actions and his seldom behavior. When he turns into the raging Asian I actually feel a little scared he's not gonna take that hammer and bash through the screen and pull out fifteen of my teeth. You can feel the tension in the air when he firsts meets the antagonist. Then you find out he was just a total prick in high school just like everyone else. You even start to feel bad for the antagonist because of how much mercy he has and actually how much of a better person he is even though his last little move with the laser point was a little bit of a dick move. How often does the antagonist cry because of how bad he treated the protagonist? Since when does that happen? I thought I was supposed to hate the antagonist no matter what and have nothing redeemable about him. (waterworld, star wars, jason vorhees).
The revenge aspect is also the best I've seen. It inceptions you and give you a revenge plot within a revenge plot. It makes you feel that the protagonist and the antagonist all got what they deserved in the end. Mostly revenge plots go with little to psychological, mental, or role switching obstacles besides epic confrontations, injuries they must overcome, and a little bit of hostage negotiation (kill bill *love it*, faster *shudder*). Nothings wrong with it besides the fact that it's just not clever. You know stuff will go down but with Oldboy stuff doesn't just go down it goes up, sideways, diagonal, backwards, forwards, and a full fledged loopy loop where they drop you off at the top to try and decide where to go or which character to feel for.
In the end you find an incredible film with an incredible story and probably the most fantastic endings of all time. I'm trying to search my brain right now in the five minutes it took me to type this for a better movie but I can't find one. I even typed best movie ending in on google and the one I found wasn't' nearly as good! If you can look past the somewhat ridiculous claims it makes it might just become your favorite film.