I still believe you should check out Oldboy. It's not only me recommending it, but certainly also makeshift.

It is a controversal movie, certainly not for everyone. But it clicked with me.

OLDBOY is died now.... grossed $32,951 in 8 theaters in second weekend......
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/ch ... =13&p=.htm

Well, it's not really a movie with huge appeal because of its controversy. At least it alrady outgrossed Infernal Affairs, heh.

So...anyone has seen either of the movies in the meantime?

Netflix is supposed to send it to me. Apparently they didn't anticipate my demand for this title.

Oldboy is #1 on my Blockbuster queue, can't wait.

As for Infernal Affairs... I liked it but I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Infernal Affairs is one of my top films of all time. I think it's #7 on my list. I thought it was perfectly executed; I'd much rather have them build a great plot then have a lot of characterization, and the plot is nearly perfect. It was one of those movies that left me sitting there for 15 minutes.

As for Infernal Affairs 2, thank you Arthur for recommending it to me! For some reason I had been under the impression it was far worse then the original. I have no idea what gave me that idea; perhaps I read something. It might not have been quite as good, but I'd rank it in my top 25 all-time. The plot is more complex, which is a good thing IMO, but also left me trying to figure out how everything related to the first film. There were some Godfather moments, and a lot of twists and turns. Overall, I think it ranks not far behind the first two Godfather films as one of my favorite gangster movies.

Oldboy

From observations around the 'net, it seemed to me that Oldboy was some kind of frightening gore-fest of epic proportions. These same people go see House of Wax and see people horribly mutilated, etc. In truth, Oldboy doesn't show much, and even the hammer-to-the-teeth scene is really no more intense than the ice skate to the tooth scene from Cast Away. Which is good for me, because I actually have a big problem with the amount of gore in movies.

I call this the "Fight Club" scenario. I think these scenes bother horror fans at their core because it's bridging the gap between comical death and "real". Or maybe I just take those gore-fest-teenage-slasher-flicks too seriously.

Anyway, I loved Oldboy and it's fitting that it's in the same topic as Internal Affairs as both rely heavily on story flips and kind-of-convoluted convieniences and plot devices.

SPOILER, yadda yadda yadda.

I think a lot of the reactions I've read since seeing this film has to do with the end of the picture and the morality of Oh Dae-Su. Personally, I sympathized with him the entire way, even at the end where he had to make a choice either to destroy his own life or destroy both his own and the life of his daughter. Even in that moment he was a victim of the truth. His "unforgivable sin" was one of revealing the truth.

My only disappointment is that I didn't get to experience the humiliation of Lee Woo-jin and I relatively thought he got off waaaaaaaaaay too easy. However, yes, not everything works out perfect, but sometimes in a movie you know... you want more of a payoff

Min-sik Choi does an absolutely fantastic job all throughout Oh's journey. The wonderful make up helps, but it's the distance in his eyes and his manic smiles that sell everything and become a foundation upon which this kind-of-implausible story takes place.

I'm not really a fan of hypnosis in films, as I think anything that borders on having kind of wonky medical applications kind of gives off an air of implausbilitity... but hey, I guess it didn't bother me in Fight Club or Memento either. In any case, I thought the plot progressed wonderfully and I didn't think it turned out to be as random as it feels like more towards the beginning... you know with the same people that went to the same school all involved in the same life-ending event.

The cinematography is great... the fight scenes are incredibly well choreographed. The whole thing has an insane attention to detail, and that poster in Oh's prison room is incredibly creepy.

Effective.

Just got finished watching Oldboy and I liked it, a lot. The whole twist thing disturbed me but I did think the ending was excellent.

And yeah, I remember hearing about how brutal it was... Heh. Those 2 scenes I could handle easily. (though I did kinda cringe...)

Definatly watching it again before sending it back. Can't wait to see Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425320/

WHY!? Ugh.

I've seen Infernal Affairs. The impression I had that it was a pretty solid crime drama, with a few moments of overly saccharine corniness, but mostly solidly entertaining. What I didn't like though is that it focused too much on the story of Andy Lau's character and not enough on Tony Leung Chiu Wai's. Tony was to me the far more interesting actor, this guy has a real screen presence and did a good job with this role. I found Lau to be a decent actor but kind of bland. I also found the ending to be not very believable and unsatisfying. But overall it was pretty good.

I give it a B.

More specifics in whitefont: There were some well done scenes, such as the one where the man was killed by the bad guys and thrown off the building but Tony's character just seemed to be made to do dumb things in order to wind down the story in the way the writers wanted, something that annoys me in Hollywood films too. Yes he's going to lead a policeman at gun point into that building and expect to live?

I agree on Andy Lau and Tony Leung, even though I had a feeling they focused on both pretty equally. Leung is a better actor all the way, though.

I disagree on the ending which I think was pitch-perfect. Spoiler Actually, if it wasn't for that guy who worked undercover for the triads in the end, Tony Leung's character might have lived.