Oldboy (2003)

Oldboy (2003)

7/10

Starring

Choi Min-sik

Yoo Ji-tae

Directed by Park Chan-wook

Oldboy is one movie that has been tagged as one of the best movies of the 2000s and it is a classic movie to see. Its strength comes from the performance of the lead and its well done directing, watching it and having to rely on subtitles did not in any way mar the experience.

The story itself is based on a Japanese Manga series which ran from 1996 – 1998 with eight volumes.

The movie is a dark mysterious thriller, directed by Park Chan-wook and it is the second in Park's The Vengeance Trilogy.

The plot starts in 1988 with an introduction to an alcoholic business man Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), who went on a drinking spree and got arrested for being a nuisance causing him to miss his daughter’s birthday party.

After being gotten out of the station by his friend, they went to a phonebooth to call his wife and daughter to make them know he is fine, Dae-su got kidnapped when his friend was on the phone.

He wakes up in a funny looking room, resembling a hotel. Here he is fed from a trap-door and spends his time watching TV. On TV, he found out that his wife had been murdered and he is the prime suspect.

Now bent on getting out to see his daughter, Dae-su passes time practicing how to fight and planning revenge.

Soon he starts to dig a tunnel to which he plans to use and escape, his time imprisoned in this room was fifteen years.

He did get out, but soon he discovers that he may not be in as much control of himself and the things that are happening around him as much as he wishes.

Thanks to great reviews and an awesome box office performance it went ahead to win the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and listed among the best movies of 2000s.

This movie is a masterpiece and the director was not in the mood of ending the movie just like that and leaves the audience with a cliffhanger which could be spun into as many possible endings as you desire.

Park Chan-wook and Choi Min-sik won numerous awards for directing and acting respectively for their work in this movie.

The movie had a remake done ten years after the release of this movie in 2013, starring Josh Brolin and directed by Spike Lee. The remake unlike its original was a box office bomb and was washed with negative reviews.