One corridor, one continuous take, seventeen attempts across three days to get a man fighting off an entire floor of enemies with nothing but a hammer and weary determination.

OLDBOY (2003), directed by Park Chan-wook, follows Oh Dae-su, played by Choi Min-sik, locked in a private cell for fifteen years without explanation, fed only dumplings, then released without warning and given five days to find out who imprisoned him and why. His search leads him to Lee Woo-jin, played by Yoo Ji-tae, and to Mi-do, played by Kang Hye-jung, a young woman who becomes entangled in his search for answers. The film is a loose adaptation of a Japanese manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi.

The live octopus Dae-su eats in one scene was real. Four of them were used across four takes. The ants that swarm from his arm later in the film were computer-generated, along with the entire arm.

Choi Min-sik's performance carries the physical toll of the role, and Chung Chung-hoon's cinematography turns captivity and revenge into something almost operatic. The film won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004, became the centerpiece of Park's Vengeance Trilogy, and remains a reference point for Korean cinema's arrival on the world stage.