I Saw The Devil
2011 ‘Akmareul boatda’ Directed by Kim Jee-Woon
Synopsis
Abandon all compassion.
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 imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiance Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will 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 this monstrous and inhumane killer.
Cast
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"Revenge is for movies. That guy's a psycho!" Se-Yun
Holy shit. I haven't felt that way at the end of a film in far too long. I Saw The Devil is visceral, heart-wrenching, and absolutely fantastic.
It's a combination of perfect writing, flawless acting and overall tone which make this an extremely brutal but never exploitative masterpiece.
In the first 20 minutes, there is a scene where the beautiful score cuts out, and all we see is a character's face as he begins to realise what has just happened. The emotion on his face is completely understood, even without words, and I knew then that I was in for a ride. It plays with audience expectation too. In one scene,…
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A serial killer murders the beautiful fiancée of a secret agent said secret agent then tracks down the serial killer. A simple formulaic premise there that is no different from a huge number of Hollywood outings into crime thriller land. However, Korean film Ji-woon Kim’s ‘I Saw the Devil’ takes this overdone routine idea and turns it into a unique portrayal of an obsessive pursuit for revenge.
Bloody, brutal, stark and uncompromising in its scenes of torture if this extreme violence was handled by a lesser director it could have easily been lumped in with the media labelled so called horror sub-genre of “torture porn” but Kim also manages to make a beautifully filmed, emotionally rewarding, narratively well-structured movie that…
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The revenge genre is one of my favorites and this is one of the best. You know a film is badass when even the good guy is a crazy motherfucker. Some of the best genre films are coming out of Korea.
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I Saw The Devil tells a revenge tale that pushes the boundaries in a good way. Kim Ji-Woon's film will make you question where the acceptable limit is for taking revenge on a serial killer that has taken away the person that you love most in the world.
The two leads put in brilliant performances, but the stand out is Choi Min-sik as the sadistic killer. He plays this with such cold detachment and matter of factness that you can't help but be chilled.
There are moments of pure beauty throughout the film in the cinematography, most notably for me the snow fall throughout the opening scenes, contrasting with what we're being shown.
This may be a tough watch for…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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second pass because i want to get behind something this ferocious and technically adept but it's so repetitive, so criminally long and so fatally have/eat cake shallow that i have to stick to my guns and call it a failure. while my lizard brain thrills to the astounding violence and virtuoso camerabatics this is still a pretty tired "consumed by revenge" jam, so narratively convoluted and hypocritical in its rote moralizing that i'm wondering if it isn't just a big joke, that Kim is just making a comedy of errors that happens to be about a couple of raging psychopaths. i don't mind that this is a flimsy clothesline for expertly choreographed sadism, i mind that it's 2 1/2 hours long and almost gleefully stupid.
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Netter Revenge-Film, aber irgendwas hat gefehlt. Der Rächer hat mich kalt gelassen, da kam einfach keine Verbindung auf. Somit fehlte dem ganzen Feldzug die Glaubhaftigkeit. "Vengeance" von Johnnie To gefiel mir da um einiges besser.
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A serial killer murders the beautiful fiancée of a secret agent said secret agent then tracks down the serial killer. A simple formulaic premise there that is no different from a huge number of Hollywood outings into crime thriller land. However, Korean film Ji-woon Kim’s ‘I Saw the Devil’ takes this overdone routine idea and turns it into a unique portrayal of an obsessive pursuit for revenge.
Bloody, brutal, stark and uncompromising in its scenes of torture if this extreme violence was handled by a lesser director it could have easily been lumped in with the media labelled so called horror sub-genre of “torture porn” but Kim also manages to make a beautifully filmed, emotionally rewarding, narratively well-structured movie that…
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Just beacuse the cinematography in this movie was exceptionally beautiful that I gave it an extra 0.5!
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Pretty twisted thriller. Great performances, cinematography, and story.
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Another great dark, violent, Korean gem. Choi Min-sik is utterly terrifying.
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In 30 Films Around The World (5/30): South Korea
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Viena no skarbākajām filmām, ko esmu redzējusi. Dažkārt neturēja nervi.. Jūtos, kā tiešām redzējusi Sātanu.
Izcila režija. Un viss pārējais arī. -
I Saw The Devil... But I Did Not See His Deputy.
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Yet another Asian revenge thriller.
I Saw The Devil is okay but it pales in comparison to other similar films, Oldboy, Confessions, so on and so forth. There was some really nice scenes that looked amazing but I felt a bit sick watching the murders, I can normally handle gore, it might have been because they were committed with no motive other than pleasure.
It was quite a long film, too long for the type of film it is. I spent a lot of the time wondering what that extra part of material was on Syoo-hun's jacket. Was it an attached scarf? or was his hood just down. After 2 hours of film you get to find out and the outcome is mind blowing. (It doubles up as a hood and a scarf!)