Imagine what you'd do, when you wake from a bad dream, to find you're held by four square walls, for as long as someone deems. No idea why you're trapped, what you've done, why you're kidnapped, just a ceaseless line of dumplings going down your gyoza hatch. Now some fifteen years have passed, every question has been asked, and you're suddenly set free, can start your own avenging spree. Before you do you need to feed, by eating something that's in need, so an octopus is ordered, and head first you cross borders. But things aren't what they might seem, tied and tethered and undreamed, as the puppet master hovers, manipulates what you'll discover.

Some films you cannot watch too often and this is one of the greatest pieces of cinematic brilliance ever created.

I looked at program for today and I saw movie "Oldboy". I read plot and I liked it. What I expected is decent thriller from very good South Korean cinematography,something like "Salinui chueok ". But once again I was wrong. "Oldboy" is masterpiece, so unusual from all other movies. I've seen lots of violence on screen and to me this isn't nothing new but I think that people under 18 really shouldn't watch this one. It's because movie is brutal and I don't think that younger ones would fully understand this one.

To say something about plot is quite impossible because I don't know where to begin. If I start talking about the movie I could tell few important things and I know that people often read other comments because they didn't watch that movie. So,I'm going to say only what I read before watching this movie.

On his daughter's birthday, Oh Dae-su gets drunk and soon he's arrested by the police. His best friend No Joo-hwan somehow manages to get him out of jail and when No Joo-hwan is making a phone call Oh Dae-su disappears. Someone kidnap's him and puts him into room during 15 long years.But one day he's released.

That's the plot. Very interesting, you should watch this movie and then judge it. By the rating on IMDb this movie is in top 250 movies. Now I can understand why. This plot that I wrote doesn't reveal the greatness of the people who wrote the script. I bow to them because this movie is so good, with all those twists and it really represents a whole new wave of making a movie, of writing a script and of acting in it. About direction and actors I can say only good things. Director Park Chan-wook won prize Grand Jury at Cannes. That's enough about direction part. About actors. I can say that I'm impressed by one actor:Choi Min-sik. He's amazing in major role and he showed great potential. I hope I will see him again in some good movie.

I cannot say anything more because I could reveal some secret and I don't wanna do that to all new viewers. Only a recommendation. Beautiful, intelligent masterpiece of movie that I highly recommend for everyone with strong stomach and too all of you who want to see one excellent, but sick story. 10/10

Oddly having seen the Spike Lee Americanized remake first, I preferred the critically lambasted Oldboy slightly more than the Korean original. Talk about going out on a limb.

Oh Dea-Su goes out drinking on his daughter's birthday and finds himself imprisoned in a room for 15 years. He is also suspected of killing his wife. He has no idea who has captured him and for what reason.

15 years on he is released and given just five days to discover the identity and reason of the man who imprisoned him. Oh Dae-Su sees this as a chance of getting revenge, he has kept himself in shape while he was locked up and goes out looking for answers, he also falls in love with a young woman along the way.

The film is a Gothic revenge tale with graphic violence and a nod to The Count of Monte Cristo and Oedipus Rex.

It seems that Oh Dea-Su's nemesis has set up a complex and contrived form of revenge that spans years. Like Oh Dea-Su you yearn for the answers and you root for him as he beats up all-comers some literally to a pulp.

However I found the ending to be messy and unnecessarily graphic and gruesome. The remake had an elegant ending which was more palatable. Also I found the lead actor hard to take as a bad ass.

Josh Brolin in the remake I could buy as the rowdy student in his youth or the drunken boor as a young man. When he is released I can see him being grungy and violent as he hunts down the people who locked him up.

Still Oldboy was critically lauded and regarded as a masterpiece of modern South Korean cinema and is worth a watch.