“Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill worked on that principle and the Korean revenge-mystery Oldboy- (a 2003 release) takes that idea to the extreme. It comes as no surprise that Tarantino himself was very much enamoured by this creepy and complex tale of revenge. Seldom has one come across such relentlessly fast and furious; gritty and gory; dark and dangerous film, which practically leaves you gasping for air with its frantic pace, fiendish plot-twists and chilling human drama. Lack of English audio option doesn’t take away anything as subtitles do the job admirably.

Oh-Dae-Soo (Choi Min-Sik) is a pretty non-descript if a bit impulsive Korean man in his thirties with a loving wife and a small daughter. Just as he steps out of a public-phone booth, after having a conversation with his daughter on her birthday, he gets kidnapped and ends up locked in a dim-lit, dirty hotel-room. He doesn’t have a clue about his captors or their motives. The television in his room is his only contact with outside world. Through TV-news, he learns that his wife was killed and he himself has been marked as a prime suspect. Angry, frustrated and confused- he tries to while time by writing a journal and trying to write down the possible names of people, who could have done this to him. The years pass on-without providing any answer. It is full fifteen years, when he finally manages to stage an escape. The prolonged solitary confinement has turned him into a ragged, savage beast, who only has got revenge on his almost demented mind.

On coming out, he is surprised to find a stranger hand him a full wallet and a mobile phone. He even manages to track down his mystery-captor but only finds himself looking at a new challenge. In the next five days, he has to find out why his captor went to such extremes with him! What uncomfortable answers are waiting for him? Will he have his long-plotted revenge?

ength of this film is not in its dark humor, graphic action and gut-wrenching violence- it is in the way it keeps you riveted to the edge of the seat with its ever-deepening mystery. The international film-festivals- including the Cannes- went gaga over director Chan-wook Park’s tough, taut film and quite rightly so. Exploring the deepest, darkest recesses of human minds and coming up with some prickly, uncomfortable issues, Old Boy makes a very disturbing, ‘strictly for adults’ but a must-watch film, in the mould of Seven.