MOVIES: Oldboy

Man, was that a kick in the teeth. Of course, that's not as bad as what else happens to teeth in this movie.

Oldboy, the 2004 Cannes Grand Jury Prize-winner just released on DVD, is a brutally nerve-wracking thriller from South Korean director Park Chan-wook. It begins with Korean businessman Oh Dae-Su, who is kidnapped and imprisoned while on his way home for his daughter's birthday. He has no clue who his captors are, nor why they have taken him, nor how long they're going to keep him. After nearly a year in his cell (which resembles a small hotel room), he learns from the TV news that his wife has been murdered, and he's been framed for the killing. All he can do is plan his escape and plot his revenge.

After fifteen years, he is released, as suddenly and inexplicably as he was captured. And he begins his quest for the truth -- and for vengeance. He has no one to turn to; his wife is dead, his daughter is living with a foster family in Europe, and he is believed to be a murderer. And, as he soon discovers, he has a deadline -- five days.

This was a real gut-punch of a film. It's tremendously violent -- in one of the film's most horrifying scenes, Dae-Su performs impromptu dental surgery with the claw end of a hammer -- but the psychological torture is even more severe. The closer Dae-Su gets to his goal, the more anguish he endures, until it's nearly unbearable, both for him and the audience.

Oldboy is absolutely riveting. The Kafkaesque opening scenario is fascinating, and it actually develops into a real conclusion -- we're not left hanging, as I feared at the beginning. And Choi Min-sik's performance as Oh Dae-Su is intense and disturbing. He suffers through the deepest depths of despair, hysteria, insanity, all the while fearing the monster he suspects he is -- for both whatever crimes may have led to his imprisonment, and for the things he does after his release.

And the visual style of the movie is incredible. It's dream-like at times, as hallucinatory images of the past and present collide. And the action scenes are uniquely and creatively staged, with a real standout being a full-scale brawl in a narrow hallway between a dozen men and Dae-Su, who is armed only with his trusty hammer. No MTV-style quick cuts here; it's one long, chaotic, seemingly half-improvised scene unfolding across the full screen.

This is a tough movie to take at times, but it's well worth the experience. The story and style are amazing, truly audacious in their creativity and depravity. Oldboy is a signal of great things to come from director Park Chan-wook, both in his future work and in his catalog of films yet to be released in America.