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Choi Min-Sik is in the Pacino or De Niro class, running the gamut from terrifying rage to abject degradation. The implausibilities in the plot melt away because we’re living the experience with him, thanks also in part to the bravura expressiveness of Park’s direction.

[A] gobsmackingly horrible but demonically inspired thriller... A walk on the wildest of wild sides.

[Violence is] heightened to such a level that it becomes hard to take seriously. None of this detracts from a determination to investigate psychological depths that lurk in the brain long after the film has ended.

The chief pleasure and horror of this film lies in Park’s slow twisting of the knife into Dae-su’s side, taking away any kind of temporary satisfaction with each new humiliation... Oldboy has lost none of its capacity to shock and delight.

Chan-wook's slick mindfuck single-handedly launched a vogue for all things Korean among Stateside genre enthusiasts; it may not hold much water as narrative, but as a display of technical skill and showmanship, it's hard to beat.

It's a grand, gritty, indelible experience, the sort of picture that mimics great literature in the way it envelops you in a well-told story while also evoking subtle but strong gradations of emotion.

A master of composition, Mr. Park makes some of the snazziest-looking pulp fiction going.

"Oldboy" ventures to emotional extremes, but not without reason. We are so accustomed to "thrillers" that exist only as machines for creating diversion that it's a shock to find a movie in which the action, however violent, makes a statement and has a purpose.

It's hard to make an argument for Oldboy based on anything other than pure cinematics, but when the style speaks this loudly, it's an argument worth making.

More than any single Korean film as yet released stateside, Park Chanwook’s Oldboy crystallizes the reigning characteristic of its national new wave: narratives driven by unbound emotionalism, and often driven like kamikaze stock cars.

There's plenty to shock [in Oldboy] - and all done with such unabashed verve that you'll be as compelled as you are repulsed. OldBoy recalls Fincher in its CG-assisted flourishes and doomy themes, and Tarantino with its sharp-suited, stylised bloodletting. But it's unlikely either of those guys would ever be allowed to push it as far as Park has with this.

For this viewer, the overriding impression was of a nightmare experienced by a Takashi Miike devotee who’s followed up a David Fincher triple-bill of The Game, Panic Room and Fight Club by overdosing on exotic raw seafood.