Ten years ago, they took him. He doesn't know who. For ten years he has been confined in a private prison. He doesn't know why. For ten years his only contact with the outside world has been a television set and the voices of his jailers. In time, he lost himself. He changed . . . transformed himself into something else . . . something hard . . . something lethal. Suddenly one day, his incarceration ends, again without explanation. He is sedated, stuffed inside a trunk, and dumped in a park. When he awakes, he is free to reclaim what's left of his life . . . and what's left is revenge.

• Old Boy is an intense, bare-knuckled urban thriller in the tradition of Pulp Fiction and Payback and is the manga that inspired the critically acclaimed 2003 film. The Oldboy film, directed by Chan-Wook Park, was awarded the Grand Jury prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.