When he is finally released, Dae-su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and violence as he seeks revenge against his enigmatic captor (Yoo Ji-tae).

Oldboy attained critical acclaim and accolades worldwide, including winning the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it garnered high praise from Quentin Tarantino, the president of the jury.

Takeout food is delivered through a pet door, and his only diversion is a television; from it, Dae-su learns that he has been framed for his wife's murder.

[citation needed] The script originally called for full male frontal nudity, but Yoo Ji-tae changed his mind after the scenes had been shot.

In an interview with Park (included with the European release of the film), he says that the ambiguous ending was deliberate and intended to generate discussion; it is completely up to each individual viewer to interpret what is not shown.

[3] The film was theatrically re-released in the United States by NEON for its 20th anniversary on 16 August 2023, remastered in 4K, featuring bonus commentary by Park Chan-wook.

The site's critics consensus reads: "Violent and definitely not for the squeamish, Park Chan-Wook's visceral Oldboy is a strange, powerful tale of revenge.

[28] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars and remarked: "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.

"[29] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three out of four stars, saying that it "isn't for everyone, but it offers a breath of fresh air to anyone gasping on the fumes of too many traditional Hollywood thrillers.

"[30] Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com praised the film, calling it "anguished, beautiful, and desperately alive" and "a dazzling work of pop-culture artistry.

Bradshaw summarizes his review by referring to Oldboy as "cinema that holds an edge of cold steel to your throat.

"[32] David Dylan Thomas points out that rather than simply trying to "gross us out", Oldboy is "much more interested in playing with the conventions of the revenge fantasy and taking us on a very entertaining ride to places that, conceptually, we might not want to go.

"[33] Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gave Oldboy a score of "B−", calling it "a bloody and brutal revenge film immersed in madness and directed with operatic intensity," but felt that the questions raised by the film are "lost in the battering assault of lovingly crafted brutality.

"[34] Jamie Russell of the BBC movie review calls it a "sadistic masterpiece that confirms Korea's current status as producer of some of the world's most exciting cinema.

[36] Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called the film "a trivial genre movie," writing, "The fact that Oldboy is embraced by some cinephiles is symptomatic of a bankrupt, reductive postmodernism: one that promotes a spurious aesthetic relativism (it's all good) and finds its crudest expression in the hermetically sealed world of fan boys.

"[42] In one of the film's iconic shots, Yoo Ji-tae, who played Woo-jin, strikes an extraordinary yoga pose.

The link to Oedipus Rex is only a minor element in most English-language criticism of the movie, while Koreans have made it a central theme.

Sung Hee Kim wrote "Family seen through Greek tragedy and Korean movie – Oedipus the King and Old Boy.

Throughout the movie Lee Woo-jin is portrayed as an obscenely rich young man who lives in a lofty tower and is omnipresent due to having listening devices planted on Oh Dae-Su and others, which furthers the parallel between his character and the secrecy of Greek gods.

[citation needed] Mi-do, throughout the movie, comes across as a strong-willed, young and innocent girl, and has been compared to Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus' daughter.

Though Antigone does not commit incest with her father, she remains faithful and loyal to him, similar to how Mi-do reunites with Oh Dae-Su and takes care of him in the wilderness (cf.

[46][better source needed] Park Chan-wook has said there is a deep influence from author Franz Kafka in this movie, and that this provides the absurdity and surrealism.

Korean Studies professor and cultural critic David Tizzard has described this as a quality of Asian cinema: "Gone are the simple ideas of good and evil.

Zinda, the Bollywood film directed by writer-director Sanjay Gupta, also bears a striking resemblance to Oldboy but is not an officially sanctioned remake.