10 Movie Endings That Left A Sour Taste In Your Mouth

4. The False Smile - Oldboy

One of the most famous films to come out of South Korea, Oldboy is a bold and disturbing motion picture experience with an ending that'll rattle your senses.

The story centres on a man named Oh Dae-su who is captured and imprisoned inside a small room for 15 years. After this period, he's suddenly let out, and so he sets about on a mission to discover who locked him up. Eventually he discovers that the person behind his imprisonment is an old school friend named Lee Woo-jin, a man whose sister was driven to suicide because Oh Dae-su once spread rumours about their incesteous relationship.

The ending of the film is sour, to say the least: Oh-Dae-su realises that he's been tricked by Lee Woo-jin into a sexual relationship with his own estranged daughter. Lee Woo-jin then commits suicide, and Oh Dae-Su attempts hypnosis to erase memories of what he has done. When he meets his daughter in the final scene, though, his initial smile slowly collapses into one of pain - suggesting that the hypnosis hasn't actually worked.

The thought that Oh Dae-Su might have have to spend the rest of his life pretending - or trying to forget - about what happened is an uneasy thought, whilst the film's central revelation of incest can't help but inflict a sour mood upon the audience; it's a taboo subject that is rarely broached in cinema, after all, and watching a man trying to come to terms with what he's done - both to others and unto himself - makes for painful viewing.