Not THAT good, not THAT bad either

Rating: 7/10 (2 March 2005)

I feel people somehow invariably overreact when it comes to this movie. Come on guys, it's just a movie, like it or leave it. It's not necessarily a 10 but neither does it deserve a 1. (For what it's worth, I gave it a 7.) How would I explain this split opinion? It depends very much on what one expects from it, as well as on the overreaction of some viewers who feel, perhaps rightly so, that the movie is way overrated on IMDb, so they feel like they have to overreact the other way, giving it a 1, while this movie is most certainly deserving of much more than 1 !
What would be my unadulterated view on the movie itself? It's not as bad as some posters write. At least one should acknowledge some very good camera-work and naturalist honesty in projecting a certain darkness that resides at the bottom of human souls. The main actor does a good job in most of the movie, I think, but the script gives him no chance but to overdo things toward the end, in hysterical tones which can easily grate on the educated movie lover's nerves.
On the other hand, I cannot understand for the life of me how such a movie made it so high on the IMDb rating system. It's really unbelievable how that could happen. Some viewers all over the world liked the movie but that still does not explain it. Perhaps the pride of some viewers couched in the same culture made them vote en masse with automatic 10's? Hard to tell.
Back to the movie now. I would say that within its own rather cheap genre ("B" movie), Oldboy is an exceptional production, more attentively scripted, shot and acted than most. There is occasionally some really memorable touch in there, the trace of the hand of a professional (even if you may find the general tone of the movie gross and overboard). On the other hand, compared with most other movies that share comparable ratings, Oldboy seems to be woefully lacking in both substantial and stylistic qualities that would qualify it for such an unlikely honor. There are literally hundreds of 7 to 8 rated movies which are undoubtedly better than this one.
If you enjoy this type of "B" (from bloody but not only (-:) revenge movie _anyway_ (the "country relative" of the "film noir" genre), Oldboy will probably not disappoint you. If you expect to watch some kind of unqualified masterpiece, and you have the cinematic culture to understand what that really means, you might (and, I repeat, might) ask for your money back in anger. I have no way of knowing that for sure.