Click here to copy URL

Oldboy

2003

Park Chan-wook

Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jung, Ji Dae-han ...

7.8

72,664

Thriller. Mystery 'Oldboy' features Choi Min-sik as a Korean businessman who is suddenly kidnapped and confined in a cell with only a television set. He makes various efforts to escape and even attempts to commit suicide, but all end up in failure. Dae-soo one day watches a news about his wife being murdered and he being wanted by the police. Feeling shocked and deeply grieved, Dae-soo begins to dig a hole in the room with a spoon to get his way out to ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"'Oldboy' is a powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"As always with Park Chanwook, you just hold on and let him rip (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"	POS
United Kingdom	Brian Pendreigh Radio Times	"[It] has more to offer than action and violence -it's an imaginative tale of guilt and revenge, with a shocking climax that will live long in the memory (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	V.A. Musetto New York Post	"Park's direction is flawless and Jung Jung-hoon's cinematography is stunning"	POS
United States	Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"Entertaining to watch (...) which is a good thing, because there is not much to think about here, outside of the choreographed mayhem"	NEU
United States	Lopa K The Review Geek	"A classic cult film reminiscent of Greek tragedies"	POS
United States	Stephen Hunter The Washington Post	"Its primary virtue is its intensity (...) Its magnificence is that it takes itself dead serious. It's not entertainment, but it's sure a piece of toughness."	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"It's a movie that you feel you're not so much watching on screen as having beamed directly into your skull from some malign, alien planet of horror (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Joe Morgenstern The Wall Street Journal	"Shakespearean in its violence, [it] also calls up nightmare images of spiritual and physical isolation that are worthy of Samuel Beckett or Dostoyevsky"	POS
United States	Derek Elley Variety	"Though all the pieces of the complex plot do fall into place (...) the movie relies increasingly on sheer directorial smarts rather than an emotionally engrossing storyline."	NEU
United Kingdom	William Thomas Empire	"Not to everyone's tastes, but if you have a strong stomach, 'OldBoy' is sure to impress (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Maitland McDonagh TV Guide	"This is absolutely not a film for all tastes, but it's a masterpiece of pitiless power whose audacious, ambiguous climax strikes a note of insane romanticism as haunting as it is perverse"	POS
United States	Andrew Kasch Dread Central	"A true wake-up call to both mainstream Hollywood and its pathetic counterculture. This is bold, gritty, and uncompromised cinema at its finest (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Jamie Russell BBC	"A sadistic masterpiece that confirms Korea's current status as producer of some of the world's most exciting cinema (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	J.R. Jones Chicago Reader	"Stylish (...) There's a lot less here than meets the eye (...) [It] devolves into the sort of hypercruel Asian pulp popularized by Takashi Miike"	NEU
United States	Scott Tobias AV Club	"The result is a powerfully visceral experience that justifies itself almost entirely on surface chops, with striking color composition and a complex sound design that elevates the story to an operatic scale"	POS
United Kingdom	Trevor Johnston Time Out	"This combines visceral punch, a tortured humanity and even an underlying Korean political resonance given the weight of the past. Quite an achievement then, and well worthy of its Cannes prize (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
Australia	Philippa Hawker The Age	"A delirious, confronting ride, a movie full of visceral shocks and aesthetic pleasures: it has an explosive immediacy and a persistent afterlife, a lingering impact that is hard to shake (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
Ireland	Donald Clarke Irish Times	"An established classic (...) The scenario remains as striking as it was on release (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
Ireland	entertainment.ie	"A cinematic jolt of adrenaline, a crushingly violent and unflinching look at pure and simple vengeance, recounted with a breathless skill and dexterity by a confident director (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.