Didn't live up to my expectations

Rating: 3/10 (25 March 2006)

This movie let me down. I'd read promising reviews for it online and actually found it in the 'employee picks' section of the rental store. I'd already seen Park's "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", so I had an idea of what I was getting into. Oldboy is better, but not by much.
The graphic violence seemed cheap and unoriginal. I think the movie tries not-quite successfully to be shocking in the same way Miike's "Ichi the Killer" was. Actually, some of the best scenes in "Oldboy" (e.g. the penthouse one) reuse elements from "Ichi", which is a better movie that came out 2 years earlier (2001).
The story has an original twist I didn't see coming. That may have been because I nearly fell asleep before the surprise was revealed. The plot beckons back to events that happened in high school (the title 'Oldboy' = 'alumni'); this was a mild detractor for me since 'high school drama' strikes me as trite. If you can stomach high school awkwardness and are already reading subtitles anyway, you might be better served by 'Battle Royale'. I'm told Park's "Joint Security Area" is nothing like "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy", which means there is still a fair chance I'll check it out.