Here’s a six word outline of South-Korean cult film Oldboy: abduction, imprisonment, violence, revenge, action, incest. Sound good? It is.

Director Chan-wook Park’s revenge pic brings us the story of Ho Dae-su, a salary man who has had too much to drink on his daughter’s birthday and has been arrested. After leaving the police station, Dae-su is kidnapped and wakes up in a small room with a TV set and a hole in the door which his meals are passed through. He is kept in the room for 15 years before being mysteriously released on top of a skyscraper in Seoul and given a mobile phone, money and clothes. Struggling to reassimilate into society, Dae-su meets Mido, a sushi chef who has an immediate, mysterious attraction to him and they begin a sort of muted relationship. He also begins gathering clues toward figuring out his captor’s identity so as to exact revenge for his lost years and family, helped along in his investigations by his heavily practised fighting skills (while imprisoned, his does little else but punch the wall).

While the above plot may sound reasonably thin to prospective viewers, the way it is all played out in highly stylised, manga-like screenplay make it quite compelling – and the plot twist(s) in the end are some of the most unexpected and climactic that I’ve seen in a thriller for a while.

The overall look of the movie is pretty dark and grimy, and there are camera and editing techniques used to make it seem harsher and more crude, adding to the mystery, discomfort and violence of the story. One of the fight sequences is captured beautifully in a continuous shot lasting almost ten minutes, making the fatigue of the fighters more apparent with every passing moment.

Not many films that claim the “thriller” genre really live up to the classification. Oldboy does, you won’t see the ending coming, and when it comes you’ll wish it hadn’t.

Rating: 4½ out of 5