March 24, 2005 - After a wild night of drinking, Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik) finds himself locked inside a small room that looks similar to a hotel room. The room is relatively clean, with a bed and a TV. No one will tell him why he is there or when he will be released. Dae-su is occasionally gassed, during which time he is shaved and who knows what else. One day while watching TV, he learns that he has been framed for the murder of his wife. Blood was withdrawn from him while he was gassed and placed at the scene of the crime. As he gradually descends into madness in this room of solitude, no information is ever given to him as to why he is there. Fifteen years later, Dae-su is deposited onto an anonymous grass field inside a large trunk. Desperate to find out who did this to him, he sets out to learn the identity of his captor and torturer. He gets a call, and a voice on the other end challenges him to answer the question he has been seeking: Why was he held prisoner and framed for his wife's murder? During the course of his journey, Dae-su befriends a pretty young waitress named Mido (Gang Hye-jung), who helps him search for his prison. Dae-su is suspicious that Mido might betray him, but she holds one hell of a secret he never expected.

Director Park Chanwook creates a stylized and frightening world where reality and imagination often blur together. The twisted, nightmarish film is occasionally shocking and always intriguing, but Chanwook thankfully resists the temptation to portray shock merely for shock's sake, as is the case in much of Takashi Miike's work. Chanwook's film is a delicately crafted one with intense characters and a world that looks like a dream, but ultimately reveals itself as a very frightening reality for Dae-Su. He is falling apart piece by piece and Chanwook chronicles his meltdown in detail with stylized visuals, inventive camerawork and jarring sound.

At times, it's almost hard to follow where the reality ends and the fiction begins. Oldboy combines horror with an Alfred Hitchcock mystery and the stylization of Tarantino thrown in for good measure. It's an amalgam of many styles which meld together perfectly to create something wholly original. Some scenes are left to the imagination and others are in vivid detail, but the two stylistic choices are mixed up enough so that the film doesn't seem overly gratuitous.

The action sequences are sparsely sprinkled throughout the film, but they do not disappoint. In one seen, Dae-su takes on a gang of at least 20 thugs with only a hammer. The scene nearly rivals Kill Bill, but the kicker is that it's all done in one long shot. There are moments in this fight where it doesn't look like the baddies are really trying all that hard any longer, but it is a still an undeniably cool sequence with a nice twist of humor at the end to top it all off.

	-Tartan Films Not the best 15 years of his life

Choi Min-Sik is just great in this film. Only an actor willing to let it all hang loose and honestly explore just about every emotion in his arsenal could pull off this performance the way Min-Sik has. This is a dark, disturbing part that requires acting through tough and emotional scenes right alongside brutal action. Early in the film, as Dae-su adjusts to his imprisonment, there is a shot where his hair has grown out crazily and he now has facial hair. A smile forms on his lips that makes you laugh but is also downright creepy as hell. It's readily apparent that Min-Sik got right into the spirit of Chanwook's world.

Chanwook takes the influence from countless classic films and directors and creates a style that is cool and wicked. He knows this story will shock and he's having a great time toying with viewers. At times he seems a little too happy with itself, staying on certain shots of shock longer than necessary, but mostly Chanwook has a firm grasp and keeps the film tight. The story unfolds at a deliberately slow pace, but it continues to give you small nuggets as it moves along and you're forever trying to figure out why this has all happened to Dae-su. The eventual answer was still pretty far off my radar. If you can handle it, Oldboy is a unique film that challenges the viewer both mentally and physically.

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