Oldboy (WTF Friday)

Friday, April 17, 2026
10:30 PM / Broadway Theatre

Oldboy / South Korea/ 2003/ Dir: Park Chan-Wook/ 132 Min/ Current Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

A loose adaptation of the Japanese manga of the same name, the film follows the story of Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), an obnoxious drunk bailed from the police station yet again by a friend. However, he's abducted from the street and wakes up in a cell that resembles a hotel room, where he remains for the next 15 years without knowing the identity of his captor nor his captor's motives. When he is finally released, Dae-su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and violence. His own quest for vengeance becomes tied in with romance when he falls in love with an attractive sushi chef, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung).

An immediate cult classic that helped launch the new wave of films and talent coming out of South Korea in the 2000s, the intense thriller is not for every crowd with its extreme moments, like taking the art of the single shot corridor fight sequence to rare heights.

"A powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare. ...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." - Roger Ebert