On his daughter’s fourth birthday, after a night of heavy drinking, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is mysteriously kidnapped and locked up inside a hotel room all by himself without explanation. Each day, he is given meals through a hole in the door, with his only connection to the outside world being a television, through which he learns his wife has been killed and he has been framed as the main suspect. Driven to madness yet unable to escape, he tries to commit suicide but is prevented from dying by his captors. The desperate Dae-su turns to shadowboxing and preparing himself for revenge, hoping one day he will find the culprit behind his cruel imprisonment. After fifteen years in captivity, he is set free for no apparent reason and begins to form a bond with a young woman, a sushi chef named Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong). Without any hope for a family reunion, Dae-su is dead set on vengeance. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, this second instalment of Park’s ‘Vengeance Trilogy’ became an instant classic, mesmerising audiences worldwide one live octopus at a time.

Park Chan-wook (b. 1963, South Korea) studied philosophy at Sogang University in the 1980s. After working as a film critic for many years, Park made his directorial debut with The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream (1992), followed by Trio (1997). His political thriller Joint Security Area (2000) received rave reviews and became the high-grossing film in South Korea at the time. Park then directed Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2001), the first of his ‘Vengeance Trilogy’, followed by Oldboy (2003), which was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and Lady Vengeance (2005). After the intense trio, Park directed the offbeat romantic comedy I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2005). In 2009, he subverted expectations with the genre-bending vampire film Thirst. Park made his American debut with Stoker in 2013. Meanwhile, his streak at Cannes continued with The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022), for which he was awarded Best Director.