Film Roar

Oldboy (2003)

Beautiful and violent Oldboy (2003) is the story of Dae-su Oh, a man kidnapped from a phone booth and imprisoned for fifteen years. Dae-su begs his captors for some clue of what he has done but with no answers and no knowledge of how long he will be kept he resorts to documenting this sins and practicing fight moves he watches in TV provided in his one room cell. After fifteen years of captivity he is released and given fifteen days to determine who imprisoned him and why.

The rest of the movie plays as an intricate suspense intertwined with deep emotion and brutal fights. The secret of what has been going has some clues in the opening scenes but is mostly left as a surprise to be revealed in the last few scenes. I do however suggest that anyone watching pay close attention to all the characters and to odd statements made by characters that give clues to their relationships. I had clued into an important detail then convinced myself I was wrong before realizing it was a key clue in the movie. I also had to avert my eyes a couple of times in the movie during some particularly violent scenes.

One of the most impressive moments in the movie is a fight in a corridor where our hero fends off attacks from dozens of bad-guy thugs. The scene is very much like any you might find in a kung-fu movie except that in this case it is utterly believable. That scene alone makes Oldboy worth watching.