Stunning Revenge Cinema

Rating: 10/10 (21 April 2006)

This was the first piece of South Korean cinema I ever saw. In fact outside of Kung Fu films, with the exception of Battle Royal, Id never ventured into Asian cinema before, I now know this is a big mistake, because of films out there like Oldboy. Its opened me up to new tastes and this still as to be my favourite film of the last couple of years.
Oldboy is about a Kafka-esquire antagonist, Dae-su Oh, who is being punished, for no reason he can comprehend. And the desperation he feels as he lurches to find out why and who is behind his suffering is pretty intense. All the way through the film he his latching on to the remotest of clues in the hope of catching his nemesis, but his rival as a few tricks up his sleeve. All pushing towards a conclusion with more than a few twists and an ending which is both disturbing, but reassuring given the circumstance.
The acting and visuals are excellent. I can appreciate people taking apart the story, it doesn't flow and probably isn't as logical as it could be, but with something this good you can sidestep some of your criticisms in favour of enjoying something so primitive and tragic, as a story about revenge.