Oldboy [review]

A man gets drunk and is kidnapped on his daughter's birthday. After 15 years of being held in a crappy motel room, he's released with no explanation as to why this has been done to him, and the film follows his pursuit for this explanation to it's horrifying conclusion.

Thanks to hype from various sources (plus a big fat spoiler), the effect of the film was diminished somewhat. But this is a great piece: one of the problems of flicks that contain violence, is that they lack the heaviness of real body to body contact. This film has that heavy physical quality: skin, blood, muscle, bone - and pure human desperation. There's a lot of desperation in this film, very often going below the line of basic humanity to something shocking and raw. It reminds me most of Daron Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" - if you like those character's spiral of doom, you'll probably like this film (I don't think "like" is the right word though).