fun, stylish action film

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2006)

"Oldboy" plays like a martial arts version of a Franz Kafka novel. Dae-su Oh is a businessman in Korea who wakes up one day to find himself imprisoned in what appears to be a cheap hotel room from which he cannot escape (any time spent in a Motel 6 can elicit the same impression). He doesn't know why he's there or who put him there, but he spends his fifteen-year-long "sentence" watching TV and perfecting his fighting skills, the better to exact revenge on those responsible when he finally gets out. When that day comes, he sets out to unravel the mystery of his captivity, seeking out clues with the help of a sweet, sad young waitress he meets on his first day of freedom.
"Oldboy" is an imaginative, high-energy film that keeps the viewer guessing right up to its final moments. Shot through with dark humor, stylish directorial touches, and cartoon-style (albeit fairly graphic) violence, the film is deliberately disorienting in the beginning, the better to approximate the confused psychological state of its protagonist. But eventually the plot points come fully into focus, and the film doesn't fall victim to that dreaded Third Act curse which has been the undoing of so many other mystery films of recent years.
Fun stuff.