Directed by:
Jee-woon KimScreenplay:
Hoon-jung ParkCinematography:
Mo-gae LeeComposer:
MowgCast:
Byeong-heon Lee, Min-shik Choi, Kuk-hwan Jeon, Ho-jin Chun, Yoon-seo Kim, Moo-sung Choi, Si-woon Kim, San-ha Oh, Joon-hyeok Lee, Bo-ra Nam, Young-sun Kim (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even begin to imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have been chasing him for a long time, but unable to catch him. One day, Ju-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief, becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiancé Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), a top-secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He vows to do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get the monstrous and inhumane killer. (Umbrella Entertainment)
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Reviews (9)
Formally excellent but otherwise a dud of a revenge film. In bullet points: 1) Jee-woon Kim does a good job of pacing the scenes, but not the film. That's because revenge, by design, has to work as a gradually accelerating carousel, with scenes escalating and reining in or, as in Lady Vengeance, maintaining the same mood line. I Saw the Devil jumps back and forth between them the whole time, which achieves at most the effect of knowing from the start how it's all going to turn out, and the director makes it clear that he's not concerned with the film as a whole, but just the (in the words of Rob Roy) attractions. These are successful (in particular the stabbing of two guys in a taxi and the murder of a policeman with a baseball bat are perfect shots), but many times unfinished (which, as I later learned, is the result of the film being edited down film to a more tolerable level, phew). 2) As a Korean director, someone must have explained to Jee-woon Kim the necessity of using that visual brashness that characterizes that cinematic nation, which here in turn gets in the way. With such a spare plot, I think such overblown visuals take away from the concept. In particular, the constant perpendicular shots from above make it clear that the director is rather trying to meet the stipulated criteria. What’s more, it is with this visual that the film mystifies and the entire time convinces the audience that they are looking at something higher than it really is. 3) The characters are geometric points, not people. They have no background, no history, and none of the audience’s trust. The character of the killer, while unprecedented, is without charisma because he doesn't work on mythicization (like Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men) or as a twisted parody of humanity because he doesn't come into contact with any humanity he could be parodying. The protagonist operates on the same motivations as Marv from Sin City; unfortunately, I Saw the Devil provides a minimum of perspective, making him pretty hard to relate to. It's just the violence that works best on this film, and not in its brutality, but in its aggressiveness. It's got an awful lot of pace, but also a lot of twisted ankles.
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Ha, I don't even know why I've put off this pinnacle of Asian cinema for so long. The great director, the amazing leading duo, the perfect cinematography, the excellent technical aspect, the decent idea, the solid pace and, most of all, the awesome and uncompromising gore effects brought me a unique cinematic experience and one of the best serial killer movies that I will remember with pleasure for a very long time. 100%
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In a way, it's a work of genius. On the other hand, I'm a little ashamed to be so positive about so much evil. But I've been taught that "such is life". I have huge sympathy for Byeong-heon Lee and I understood all his inhumane actions the whole time. He simply had a lot to avenge. Again, no one could have been better chosen for the role of the devil than Min-sik Choi. I often thought it was too open-ended, but otherwise the viewer probably wouldn't have properly felt the desire for revenge. My 5 stars are for the fantastic script and great acting and direction.
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I Saw the Devil follows the ordinary thriller template of “lawful avenger versus serial killer”, but it’s so naturalistically brutal that we’d never see anything like it in its Hollywood counterparts. This cruel and cynically funny film will captivate you and won’t let go. There are some lapses but they don’t spoil the overall impression. The formal aspect and acting performances are brilliant, and had the screenplay been more sophisticated, I’d give it five stars. It’s not for the faint of heart.
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Too lengthy, too inconsistent. Ji-un Kim knows how to make a film, I won’t argue against that, but I don’t know whether I was supposed to get something out of this one, or only be entertained (or something else), it didn’t succeed at either anyway. I just watched it without much interest and forgot about it. There are a couple of suggestive scenes, the violence is unpleasant, but as a whole it’s from a different realm than I like visiting.
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