The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
Oldboy has the fatal air of wanting so desperately to be a cult movie that it forgets to present itself as a coherent one.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Korea · 2003
Rated R · 2h 0m
Director Park Chan-wook
Starring Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jung, Kim Byung-ok
Genre Drama, Thriller, Mystery, Action
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With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate businessman seeks revenge on his captors.
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
Oldboy has the fatal air of wanting so desperately to be a cult movie that it forgets to present itself as a coherent one.
A wild, intensely cinematic ride into two men's burning desire to get even.
Once the picture gets into Hollywood's bloodstream, it could well prove to be as influential as John Woo's 1989 crime thriller, "The Killer."
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Regardless of how you look at Oldboy, it's unlike anything you are likely to have seen before.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Oldboy caused a love-it-or-hate-it stir at Cannes last year, and how could it not: It's an onslaught made to cause a sensation. Consider me simultaneously jolted and depressed.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Whatever its oversteps and excesses (I do think Park ran a little amok with the computer gimcrackery), Oldboy has the bulldozing nerve and full-blooded passion of a classic.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
It's a movie of such jaw-dropping violence, wild improbability and dazzling style it overpowers all resistance.
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
As always with Park Chanwook, you just hold on and let him rip.
Put simply, in my humble opinion, Oldboy sucks.
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.
The adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence, and Beethoven.
Three young men embark on different yet intertwined paths as they try to survive in the dangerous favelas of Rio.
It's time for beautiful Lee Guem-ja's revenge.
Blood must be shed after a kidnapping goes wrong.
A daring, nuanced story of the investigation around the man reported to be South Korea’s first serial killer, who was uncaught at the time of the film's release.
A priest finds himself torn between faith and bloodlust.
Abandon all compassion.
Her heart may not be the only thing stolen.
You can't talk about the modern action movie, or the rising prominence of South Korean cinema, without mentioning Park Chan-wook and Oldboy. At turns entertaining, confusing, and by the end, deeply disturbing, Oldboy is the kind of movie that if someone lent you on DVD, you should keep forever. I'm not one to advocate theft, but Oldboy really is just that good. Now stop questioning the moral ambiguity of this review, and watch it for yourself.