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.