Oldboy

Oldboy (올드보이, 2003) is a South Korean thriller directed by Park Chan-wook — watch it online on iFILM. Choi Min-sik plays Oh Dae-su, a businessman who vanishes one night in 1988 and wakes up imprisoned in a private cell. No charges, no explanation, no contact with the outside world. He stays there for fifteen years.

Then he is released just as suddenly, handed a phone, a wallet, and five days. He needs to find out who locked him up and why — a question that leads him to the enigmatic Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae). Along the way he meets Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), a young chef who becomes tangled in the search. The film's corridor fight sequence — shot in a single take — became one of the most imitated action scenes in cinema.

The second entry in Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy, Oldboy won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2004, with jury president Quentin Tarantino casting the deciding vote. Shot for roughly three million dollars, it earned over seventeen million worldwide and redrew how Western audiences thought about Korean cinema. Stream Oldboy online on iFILM.