DMGOldboy
I'd never heard of Oldboy, but it was mentioned in a great blog entry about the long take in film:
Perhaps not grandiose in its flare or style - the camera only moves back and forth on one axis - but the impact of the action on screen is awe-inspiring. Fight scenes are usually choreographed around the camera so the punches, kicks and falls appear real and violent. But in one majestic tracking shot Chan Wook Park puts to shame most other fight scenes. It's a dozen baddies with just one guy, one shot... and one hammer.
I'm a fight scene junky, so that was more than enough for me to drop Oldboy into my Netflix queue.
The movie doesn't disappoint. It's fantastic. It's absolutely brutal, and not for the squeamish. The only movie I've seen that made me want to look away as much as Oldboy did was Killer: They Call Her One-Eye.
(By the way, Killer was a pretty bad movie that got its jollies putting terrible things on film. I do not recommend it. I only watched it because Tarantino liked it, and now I know better.)
I won't ruin Oldboy for you. In the end, I don't think the story holds up to my (admittedly snobbish and picky) standards, but it is good, and the visuals are breathtaking.
I usually drop Netflix DVDs back in the envelope as soon as the credits roll, but the hallway fight scene mentioned in the blog post above is worthy of multiple viewings, and the visual style and execution is fantastic. What really impressed me is that the visuals aren't just visuals. They really do help tell the story, and they do so in surprising and extremely effective ways.
I've picked up my Netflix usage lately, and thought about doing another recent movie roundup, but this is the first movie in a while that's grabbed me in any way that's worth talking about.