Revenge IS sweet!

Lately, I have reaping great rewards by looking to the Asian film industry when selecting DVDs that will provide me with tremendous entertainment that is not pure rehash. I struck gold again with the fascinating thriller, Old Boy, by Korean writer-director, Chan-Wook Park.
Old Boy (2003) tells the story of Ho Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) who, on the day of his young daughter's birthday, gets blotto drunk and is arrested. After being released from jail, he is abducted and imprisoned in a room for fifteen years. One day, he is suddenly released, receives clothes, money and a cellular and meets the Japanese chef Mido (Hye-jeong Kang), and they feel a great attraction for each other.
However, Dae-su seeks for his captor and the reason of his long imprisonment, only to discover that his captor isn’t finished with him either!
Of course, I won’t spoil the plot for you but it appears to be a standard – albeit clever and violent – revenge flick for the most part. But, then, there is a great reveal, of M. Night Shymalan proportions (good M. Night, as in Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, not bad M. Night, as in The Village). It shows a revenge so diabolically heartless, vile and manipulative, that you might find yourself pausing the movie to digest and appreciate it.
This is one of three movies in a loose revenge trilogy of director Park’s. The other two movies are Lady Vengeance and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the latter of which I have seen and is also excellent.
Park has a very stark, intense style and, if there is any lesson in his movies it is, man, revenge is messy and never worth it!
The great thing about his stories is that you can usually sympathize with both the protagonist and antagonist and it is agonizing to watch them go down the road to self-destruction as the situation just keeps getting worse.
Besides the brilliant reveal, Old Boy has some great dialogue, along with interesting voiceover narration by the main character, Dae-su. The violence is alternately gruesome and cartoonish; the scene where Dae-su takes on dozens of thugs is hilarious!
If you watch this and like it, check out the other two movies, as well as the great Three Extremes, which features three shorts from Hong kong, Japan and Korea. Park delivers the story “Cut” and it is, once again, deliciously violent and fiendish!