Video:
Broodingly captivating and expressively overshadowing are words that come to mind when describing Old Boy's core artistic level. Presented here in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, the print offered by Starmax is captivatingly beautiful. Graced with vibrant color schemes and saturated hues, never has a film of such noir presented itself to be elegant and peaceful, but at the same time poetically disturbing. The cell in which Dae-su is thrown in at the beginning of the movie has a dark and ominous feel. The low level burning of lights gives the viewer as sense of the energy force slowly draining Dae-su of his mind. It's an artistic masterpiece conjoined with dark predominant colors that unearth striking images and oil grease painted tones. English subtitles are easy to follow and appear consistent without any spelling errors.

Special Features:
Starmax presents Old Boy in a two disc digi-pak set. The first disc is made up entirely of the movie with an audio menu and a chapters selection menu consisting of twenty four chapter breaks. The second disc contains a variety of supplement material that will dazzle the minds of those wanting to learn more about Old Boy than what I've covered. Everything from the production, to casting, and behind the scenes interviews is displayed for the viewer in a very professional manner. Unfortunately like with most region three release there are no available English subtitles on the supplements. Also as I mentioned above the Old Boy soundtrack is present in a jukebox like form that's very user friendly and easy to navigate through. There are a total of ten tracks, which overlay a variety of scenes from the movie like a music video. Also available is a theatrical trailer, a teaser trailer and a TV spot trailer.

1. Monster
   1. Look Who's talking
   2. Jailhouse Rock
   3. The Old Boy
2. Evergreen
   1. Out of the Past
   2. Room at the Top
   3. Cries and Whispers
   4. Dressed To Kill
3. 3.Lover
   1. The Searchers
   2. The Last Waltz
   3. For Whom the Bell Tolls
4. 4.Get Together
   1. Audition
   2. Characterizing
   3. Hunting
   4. Reading
   5. Crank in
5. Trailer
6. Teaser Trailer
7. TV Spot

Sound:
Surround sound options are available in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix and a DTS 6.1 mix. Also, a Dolby Digital 2.0 mix is available as well. The DTS mix is great – very active and properly balanced demonstrating distinct channel separation, crystal clear dialogue, and great use of the rear channels for sound effects and background music. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has slightly less LFE in it, but is also quite solid. The 2.0 mix is obviously the lesser of the three efforts but still of good quality. Optional subtitles are available in Korean and in English. Clarity is great on all three tracks, and the DTS mix sounds exceptionally good, particularly when the soundtrack kicks in or when the action/fight scenes take place. When the window shatters towards the end of the film you can almost feel the glass as it scatters around on the floor. Great stuff.

Extras:
The good news is that Starmax has wisely put all the supplements, of which there are a few, on the second disc so as the maximize the space on the movie disc to ensure solid A/V quality. The bad news is, none of these extra features have any English subtitles, making them not only hard to navigate, but pretty much impossible to understand unless you speak Korean.

Available via a virtual jukebox of sorts is the only really English-friendly feature, the film’s complete soundtrack. Music plays a very important role in the overall feel of the film and having the eclectic compilation of pieces chosen to make up the score is a nice bonus for those who enjoyed the movie. While you’re probably not going to want to listen to every piece of music here in its entirety over and over again, some of the songs are truly outstanding compositions and being able to listen to them without the dialogue and sound effects overtop is quite an enjoyable experience. Ten songs are included in total.

A fairly lengthy ‘making of’ documentary can be found, but the lack of English subtitles makes it rather difficult to go into too much detail about. It does feature some audition footage, some line readings, and pre-production information, and it’s unfortunate that there aren’t any subs available, as it looked like it could have been quite interesting. With this being a Korean disc made for a Korean audience though, you can’t really fault Starmax for not subtitling the extras, even if on a personal level I found this decision regrettable.

A teaser trailer, a theatrical trailer, a television promo spot and a music video (again, all without English subtitles) are also included, rounding out the extras nicely. Worth mentioning though is just how nice a job they’ve done with the packaging on this release. The two disc set rests inside a slipcase which is covered in what looks like archival paper, giving the entire set a very prestigious look.