Ichi fans will love it, unfamiliar movie fans will have a new love of cinema

Rating: 7/10 (2 September 2005)

So I saw the trailer for this film because it was on this site (imdb.com) as a recommendation for fans of Ichi The Killer, the first movie I'd seen that features pretty outlandish characters and a violent plot connected to the story. The trailer was awesome (because it including a lot of the visuals that make Ichi so great), but when I rented Oldboy, I found it was lacking many other scenes such as when the guy falls from the top of the building onto the car and so forth. But there's much more than witty special effects to grab hold of your attention throughout the film.
The story is set up to be pretty straightforward, but once you get past the halfway point, you are given a deeper sense of what what going on with this guy and his enemies. Most people know the set up of the movie by the time you read this comment on it, so I'll spare you. What I can say, though, is that fans of Ichi will be delighted with how messed-up a story can get.
I loved everything about this film except that it was a little hard to follow...I can't pinpoint whether or not it had to do with the fact that I was listening to the overdubbed English for the movie and watching mismatching subtitles for it or what...I just lost the plot somewhere in between. It's worth another viewing, though, so don't think you can't watch it all the way through again. I loved the actor who played the main character who gets thrown into the hotel room for 15 years (although his younger, drunker self should probably not have made the movie). I gave it a 7/10 because it is better than just another typical film released in Japan which tries to get American audiences to like it...this genre that Oldboy and Ichi the Killer falls into is one that almost exists by itself and some artsier films like Tetsuo. Go check it out today.