Extraordinary, stylish, brilliant, but probably not appropriate for everybody

Rating: 9/10 (4 June 2005)

***Very minor spoilers***
This movie will (and it already has) split up the audience in two groups: One group, that will be totally impressed by the film, its script the exceptional editing and cinematography and another group, that will see no sense in this movie, only a succession of absurd and bizarre situations and scenes.
It may take a while to get used to the peculiar style of this movie. I think I would attribute myself to the first group, at least after I have watched "Oldboy" for the second time. I was even very impressed by it, but I have to admit that it was a little bit hard for me to get used to the movie's specific fashion. But I guarantee, once you've cottoned on to the style of it, you will love it!
One has to look at this movie as mixture of a piece of art and a complex thriller/drama. It is surreal at times, but not as much as David Lynch's films f.ex., because it absolutely has a continuous and coherent storyline, although several situations and the character's actions are a bit unbelievable at times, which is probably the biggest problem, that the objectors of this film have.
But the style, thus editing and cinematography are just awesome. The way, the director presents certain scenes by using stylistic features such as freeze images, special music and narrating instead of dialogues is marvelous, it breaks old customs, but it perfectly works. Especially the first half of the film is very stylish and terrificly edited, the second half of if is rather devoted to story and its twists. The sooner the ending comes the more brilliant the script and the twists are. And the denouement at the end will take your breath, but even if you watch the movie for the second or third time you will notice hints and things that you haven't noticed before, because they are not essential to understand the twist, but they show once again how great and sophisticated the script is.
So if you don't shy at peculiar and extraordinary Asian movies, go see it, you won't be disappointed.