I Saw the Devil

I Saw The Devil is a bloody masterpiece. Jee-woon Kim has proved himself to be a master storyteller. Beautiful shots, a creative script, perfect acting and intense violence make I Saw The Devil a must-see movie for anyone who calls themselves a horror fan.

It's a breath of fresh air in a seemingly stagnant genre full of the same old vampire and zombie stories being retold over and over. And yes, there have been loads of revenge movies before, but I Saw The Devil takes it to the next level.

Gritty, dark, gory and original: I loved this movie, and I don't like anything. I just hope an American company doesn't comes along to make a shallow remake (Let The Right One In).

There's a mad man around Jang Kyung-chul, whose favourite hobby is to maim and to cull, mainly defenceless girls, with a knife he unfurls, after they've taken a bash on the skull.

But he's taken the wrong lady on, and events are starting to go wrong, there's a rather keen cop, loved the girl he's just topped, and he's out for revenge Kim Soo-hyeon.

Kim Soo-hyeon likes to play with his prey, adds more value if the hunt can replay, starts with a forfeiture, then ends with some torture, Jang Kyung-chul has the devil to pay.

This movie is not for the squeamish, or the faint of heart. Censors claimed it was offensive to human dignity. These were the kinds of things they told the audience at the world premiere screening of the Uncut Version of I Saw the Devil at the Toronto International Film Festival last week. I had heard the movie was pretty graphic, but I never expected that it would push any boundaries. I turned out to be only half right.

After finding out his fiancée has been brutally murdered, secret agent Dae-hoon (Byung-hun Lee) is at a loss. With the help of his father-in-law, he sets out on a revenge plot to find the man who did it. He quickly finds the culprit, Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi). He beats him pretty badly, but instead of killing him, he leaves him alive. He wants to stalk his prey, and exact his revenge slowly and increasingly more painfully.

Going in with very few ideas of what I was about to see, I was startled and thrilled at the tenacious audacity on display from the opening scene all the way until the final frames. The film is a gritty, merciless experience that could never be truly recreated in North America. This is the kind of hard-boiled revenge thriller you could only find in Korea. And to hear that even the censors there could not handle Kim Ji-woon's complete vision makes the film all the more uncompromising and astounding. It has taken me well over a week to try and come up with the words to describe and review the film, but never once have I forgotten anything I saw. It is quite simply, unforgettable.

I was right in assuming the film would not push the boundaries of what can be shown in regards to graphic violence and gore. But it comes really close. It makes Park Chan-Wook's entire Vengeance Trilogy look about as violent as the Toy Story Trilogy. Blood sprays, flies, drips, gushes – every verb or way blood can possibly flow out of the human body occurs over the course of the film. It relishes in it no matter if the shot is raw, unflinching and real, or hyper stylized and completely over-the-top. One sequence involving a brutal double murder as the camera swoops around the scene in a circle is simply magnificent to watch, both to see how much blood is spilt and for how wicked and incredible a shot it is.

The revenge tale at the core of I Saw the Devil is not all too original, but it is the story and idea around it that is. Very rarely do we see a film with two characters that start off completely different, but very slowly become all in the same. Dae-hoon and Kyung-chul are both very stubborn individuals, who will not back down from each other. They just keep at each other, and even as Kyung-chul is continually beaten, abused and victimized, he never once lets up. I keep coming back to a comparison with Batman and The Joker in The Dark Knight, and how those two menaces push each other to their physical limits, and that is exactly what happens in this film. While it was easy to pick sides in Dark Knight, Ji-woon makes it increasingly difficult for the audience to figure out who they should sympathize with here. It is a haunting and blatantly moral-defying story, and its raw and emotional undertones are more than difficult to swallow.

But the key problem I found with the film is Ji-woon's lack of ability to know when to cut. There are easily twenty minutes that could be chopped right out of the film, and none of its edge would be lost in the process. I was glued to the screen for the majority of the film, but found myself checking my watch more than once because I was totally baffled as to why it runs over 140 minutes. There is only so much revenge one can take and comprehend, and having the film run so long makes it all too easy to call out as being self-indulgent. I respect the film, and I respect Ji-woon as a filmmaker (I wanted to seek out the rest of his film catalogue immediately after the lights came up), but it just makes such an incredible movie feel a bit sloppy and weakened as a cohesive package.

Another inconsistent element is Lee's Dan-hoon. We never learn much about him outside of his being a secret agent and wanting to inflict as much pain as he can through his revenge scheme. So how are we to assume he was not a sick and twisted individual in the first place? How are we to know this is not his first time inflicting such a painful revenge? He rarely speaks, and his cold, calculating eyes never once give us a hint of any further development. It is a great performance by Lee, but it is one that feels very underdeveloped – outside of some rather obvious sequences.

But then, anyone would look underdeveloped when standing next to Choi. The man gives a performance that is the stuff of legend. He was incredible as the lead in Oldboy as the man who was wronged, and is even better as the wrongdoer here. He brings out the monster in Kyung-chul all too easily, and his riveting performance is unmissable. The transformation into this disgusting, psychopathic creature is nothing short of amazing. He chews up scenery at every turn, and is magnetic on screen. Nothing even comes close to equaling the power, intensity and dare I say authenticity he puts into this character. He is the stuff of nightmares.

I Saw the Devil is a great revenge thriller, but is far from perfect. Choi's electric performance alone should become required viewing for anyone with any interest in film.

8/10.

(An edited version of this review also appeared on http://www.geekspeakmagazine.com).

The plot of "I Saw the Devil" revolves around a detective whose beautiful fiancée is savagely murdered by a vicious psychopath played by "Oldboy" himself Min-Sik Choy.Despairing cop quickly tracks down the psycho,tortures him a little and lets him free to play his own gruesome catch-and-release game...Hauntingy beautiful and sickeningly violent thriller from the director of mesmerizing "A Tale of Two Sisters".The cinematography is gorgeous,the action is hypnotic and the murders are savage and unrelenting.The plot is extremely dark and demented,so I was utterly enthralled.You will feel pain,agony and sadness in every inch of your body during "I Saw the Devil".The best serial killer movie since "The Silence of the Lambs".Watch it in pair with Gerald Kargl's "Angst" and be amazed.9 serial killers out of 10.

Just came back from the TIFF 10 screening of the UNCUT version of this film, and after reading the very first review posted here, I feel somewhat compelled to leave a short comment.

the movie is about revenge. a woman is murdered by a serial killer, the woman's soon-to-be husband, who happens be a highly trained special agent, takes revenge on the serial killer in some of the most gruesome ways ever presented on film.

The "TAKEN"-esque plot is fairly straight forward and even predictable at times, for some people, this unfortunately exposes the violence and turns it into a dominating theme, hence remarks of it being mindless and unnecessary are brought up.

But fans of this genre can easily see past the violence, and be drawn back to the noir nature of the film with each passing violence "segement", in the end, you can feel the main character's will for revenge, and that simply transcends the violence, and ultimately turns the film into an imaginative commentary on the human condition.

the film would also remind you of classic Fincher films, namely se7en, however, the theatrical construction of plot is a signature Ji Woon Kim style, the mise-en-scene, the soundtrack, you see it in every single film of his, especially bittersweet life.

after watching this film I found myself immediately comparing it to another masterpiece sympathy for mr.vengeance, so for those of you who have seen chan wook park's revenge trilogy and loved it, you should find time to see this film.