OLD BOY (2003)

At the centre of director Park Chan-wook’s revenge trilogy, Old Boy (2003) achieved cult status for its graphic scenes of stylised violence. The film won a Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival, and garnered international attention for South Korea’s growing movie industry—especially the country’s thrillers.

A favourite of director Quentin Tarantino, who tried to convince his fellow Cannes Film Festival jury to award the film the Palme d’or in 2004, there were also at one point talks for it to be remade by director Steven Spielberg with Will Smith cast as the lead, though that fell through. The film was later remade in 2013 by director Spike Lee and starred Josh Brolin and Samuel L Jackson. Old Boy also paved the way for other South Korean psychological thriller films including The Handmaiden (2016) and Parasite (2019).