Lee takes his time crafting fiery characters and an impenetrable, who-and-why mystery only to rush through a series of arbitrary clues and explanations.
Much of the dialogue is stilted (several scene are laughable) and the melodrama feels unmoored without the lurid, baroque atmosphere of Park's film -- which, after all, was kind of the whole point.
Compared directly, the difference between both films are more than a little disappointing, but with all of that said, 2013's Oldboy still has pleasures to be witnessed.
