Hypnotically entertaining. Can't be touched.

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2007)

When was the last time you unintentionally winced from a movie? Maybe it happens to you easily from a chainsaw massacre, or maybe it takes the obscure, like revealing dialogue or the money shot from The Crying Game. For me, it was way back in about 1998, when I first saw Pulp Fiction and Travolta had to plunge an adrenaline shot into Uma's chest. I never thought a movie could do that to me again. Then I saw Oldboy.
A drunk businessman named Oh Dae-su, who gets arrested and released on his young daughter's birthday, is suddenly kidnapped and held captive in a room with TV and the occasional gassing for 15 long years. One day he wakes up on the outside in new clothes and is given a phone and wallet full of money by an oblivious bum, and suddenly it is revealed that he has just five days to find his obvious enemy and finally uncover the excuse for his long torture. Twists and turns are abound in this Korean film with a slight bonus I love in any overly dramatic movie: a biting sense of humor. My favorite scene - and it was hard to pick with all the damage mainly administered to characters' mouths (including the eating of a live octopus) - is a continuous shot of Dae-su kicking butt with his own signature fighting style (and a hammer) in a hallway full of villains ready to kill him (Just wait till he finally reaches the elevator). Awesome movie with a traumatic ending we Yanks are almost not ready for; if our country decides to remake this a la The Departed, I personally can't see it even coming close to the original.