Manga comics do not a good film make

Rating: 3/10 (20 September 2005)

Oldboy has a wonderful setup for a revenge film, it is on par with the Count of Monte Cristo. While the main character was imprisoned I was transfixed. Who was doing this too him? Why? I was ready to be shown a good revenge film. What I got was a convoluted mess.
I loved the first half of the film. Once the main character was released from a suitcase, wearing a particularly cool suit, I was fully expecting a tale of violence and revenge. Justified revenge. I knew they would throw somethings at me, but I wasn't expecting gibberish.
This is the second Asian film this year that screwed up a wonderful set-up, the other being Infernal Affairs. For the whole last hour the viewer is bombarded with illogical plot devices, twists that have no real meaning either to plot or as a parable to the viewer, all stables of Manga, that do not translate well to film. Asian cinema does not like to paint characters with the sides of good and bad. The heroes are sometimes worse than the villains, they usually have something seriously wrong with them, either mentally or morally.
Many of the criticisms regarding this film come from viewers who are blinded by the conventions of Western Cinema. I was not expecting it to be a conventional film, where revenge is reaped with no sacrifice to the protagonist. I was expecting destruction and madness. The conclusion however is neither of those. I don't know what it is, it just is what it is. It cannot be satisfying to anybody, even to those expecting a un-satisfying conclusion.