Film of the Week: Oldboy (2004)

A fast paced thriller with a mind bending twist at the end, Oldboy is among the best Korean films ever made. The story follows a man who is trapped in a strange private prison for fifteen years, and is then released and given five days to find out who ordered him to be sent there. Oldboy is full of martial arts fights and some rather gruesome scenes, including a scene of torture in which our protagonist rips a man's teeth out with the nail pulling end of a hammer. Between its violence and strangeness of plot, Oldboy embodies all the things we've come to expect of the modern grindhouse movement. We've talked previously of classic grindhouse films from their genesis in the 1970's, but we haven't discussed where grindhouse films have gone. As violence becomes more socially acceptable, the grindhouse films begin to leave the underground scene and even get more edgier than before. They also start to receive higher budgets and better productions. Oldboy is a great show for anyone interested in modern grindhouse.