well, i liked it!

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2006)

good Christ, there's a lot of negative reviews of this film here.
old boy may be overcomplicated and highly stylised but that doesn't change the fact that its a brilliantly made thriller with some excellent twists.
a lot of the reviews on here seem to spend too much time picking the film apart with various clever comments on the plot holes and lack of in-depth character.
well, i'll tell you this for nothing - oldboy blew me away. its one of the most entertaining mysteries i've seen for a long time. the idea of a man being locked up for 15 years without knowing why and then being released in order for him to unearth the reason behind his incarceration is a story i've never seen executed with such skill as it is here. okay, so the final scenes are full of exposition (and are perhaps gratuitously violent merely as a way of distracting us from this blatant plot unfurling) but the journey leading up to that point is intriguing, action-packed, funny and clever.
i can't believe that the lead review i read on this title's main page complained that the violence wasn't violent enough and that he thought the twist at the end was good, but he'd fallen asleep before the twist came about and so didn't get it. go and rent The Story Of Ricky, for god's sake.
its worth your time, trust me. also, check out lady vengeance (the last film in chan-wook park's revenge cycle) - its equally as mind-boggling, entertaining, enthralling and beautiful as oldboy.