Kidnapped for No Reason .... Well, There's Always a Reason

We had to go to Korea Town to get it, the part of the city that I now associate with crazy karaoke bars that lend you rooms and provide you beers to make you feel like you're having an authentic experience.

But this was several years ago, before I knew about any of that and my roommate and I took our spindly selves up to 33rd St. to buy a bootlegged VHS version of a movie she'd heard about, "Old Boy." From what she'd heard, she thought I'd like it. How right she was.

I could speak volumes about it, and if I don't temper my urge to do so, it might happen. I'll try not to bore, and instead implore you to see it if you haven't. It won Grand Prix at Cannes, if that's any help.

Imagine that you've gone out and done some drinking. A lot of drinking, and you've wound up in the clink. You're really at rock bottom and tomorrow you'll be hating yourself for the dishonor you've brought upon your despicable self. That is all to say, you're already down in the dumps.

They let you out after you've shown yourself to be able to wend your way through the city streets, and you stop to make a drunken phone call in a telephone booth (Old Boy? More like, old school.)

They scoop you up as you're sloshily stumbling about the booth. Who? We don't know! Buuuuut, your sober self wakes up in a torturously barren and lonely hotel room. It's locked (from the outside) and the only thing you see for ten years -- yes, ten -- are some little fingers as they slip you bare-minimum style victuals through a slot in the door.

Then, one day the door opens, and you're out.

Mind you, you've suffered through hallucinations, solitary-confinement-instilled craziness. And now you're freed!

What you need to do is figure out why, just why, such a terrible fortune was bestowed on you. Then, maybe, a little vigilante justice is warranted.

Unlike most American movies that cut out all the "bad" stuff, "Old Boy" leaves it in. It's dirty and gritty and gross and GREAT.