Director Kim Jee Woon 김지운 Kim Ji Woon

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January 21, 2011

'I Saw the Devil' stage greeting with Dir.KJW-LBH at Sundance Film Festival (Jan 20-30), thanks to allteena at twitter

Lead actor: Byung-hun Lee, Director: Ji-woon Kim, and translator. Sundance movie, "I Saw The Devil."

I Saw the Devil Official US Website I Saw the Devil at Sundance 2011

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Source: Sundance 2011

Kim Jee-woon's latest masterpiece, I Saw the Devil, floored audiences at the Toronto Film Festival and Fantastic Fest with its visual audacity and gut-wrenching violence. We’re honored to welcome him to the Festival.

A remorseless psychopath stalks deserted roads looking for women to rape and slaughter. But when he murders the pregnant fiancée of a secret-service agent, the tables turn, and the stalker becomes the prey as the grief-stricken agent pursues a gruesome revenge. Soo-hyun hunts down the killer but does not turn him over to the authorities. Instead, he exacts a punishment designed to make the psycho truly suffer. The sadistic mayhem escalates as the pair enact a gory cat-and-mouse game that quickly spirals out of control.

As excellently crafted as it is blood soaked, Kim Jee-woon’s hard-edged revenge thriller leaves an indelible mark on its audience. The brutality and unrelenting violence of I Saw the Devil is only half as jarring as its unflinching

portrait of the dark side of human nature.

fsuplaya2003

4:26 AM

Visceral and powerful. Dark, super violent. It's a fantastic revenge epic, a twisted game of cat and mouse. Powerful stuff. 5/5 stars

leoxdicaprio

2:15 AM

A very good thriller, although graphic violence borders on excessive. I did not squirm when violence happens to the serial killer(s), since the evil characters depicted on-screen deserve it. Not wholly original, but a thrill ride if you can handle disturbing images of violence, maltreatment, misogyny, and gore. This is "Se7en" in reverse. Do not see this film if you can't handle tons of graphic violence and gruesome scenes of mutilation, decapitation, etc. I gave the rating for its well-paced story and well-rounded acting, but excessive amount of gore dilutes the impact of terror. The ending is a bit twisted and weird, though. 3/5 stars

by Jeanette D. Moses

slugmag.com

Korean filmmaker, Kim Jee-woon, brings Sundance audiences a gruesome psychological thriller that spares no gut-wrenching graphic detail with I Saw the Devil. After a psychopath rapes and murders the pregnant fiancée of secret-service agent Soo-hyun, the psychopath becomes the unsuspected prey of the grief-stricken man. Soo-hyun’s mission is to hunt the man down who murdered his wife-to-be and make him suffer. Soo-hyun feels that murdering the man or turning him over to the authorities wouldn’t be a harsh enough and instead decided to enact his own form of revenge—teasing and torturing the killer and ultimately making him feel like a victim. I Saw the Devil has plenty of scenes to make you squirm—a child finding a dismembered ear in a field, severed heads, an Achilles tendon being sliced in half and even cannibalism. The gratuitous violence is broken up with numerous one-liners (translated from Korean) to make the audience laugh and lighten the mood. I Saw the Devil stands with some of the best in the genre. It’s a film to watch for the “seriously f***** up” factor and one that would probably do well with audiences at Brewvies Cinema Pub.

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Thanks to the highlight by by

youyo712

Copied from twitter,

MackThat

I saw the devil, and it was GOOOOOOD! #bestfilmatsundancesofar

sundance_kate

I saw the devil was excellent. Disturbing at times, but good. #sundance

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Source: movies.msn.com, thanks to parkmisoo's highlight

A preview of the Sundance Film Festival's creepier offerings

"I Saw the Devil": Korean director Kim Ji-woon gave us one of the better Asian horror tales with "A Tale of Two Sisters" some years back, but nothing will prepare you for the all-out assault of this 140-minute epic involving revenge, murder, obsession and cannibalism. Lee Byung-hun ("G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra") plays a cop who seeks vengeance after his wife falls victim to a ghastly serial killer (Choi Min-sik in a truly monstrous performance), but rather than simply slay the beast, he tracks him and delivers more punishment every time they cross paths. Intense, brutally violent, occasionally meandering (especially in the middle act) and at times morbidly funny, "I Saw the Devil" is often brilliantly executed -- but absolutely not for the squeamish.

Captures from twitter-sharing, photos courtesy allteena l ItsHopkins l GettyImages

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January 24, 2011

I Saw a Movie (Sundance Film Festival Edition): I Saw the Devil

By Nathan at Wires and Waves

Due to some scheduling conflicts (having a baby this week!), my special lady friend and I limited our Sundance Film Festival attendance this year to three films. Of course, this meant that selecting the right films was much more important than usual - I Saw the Devil seemed like a sure thing. For one thing, the film's director Kim Ji-Woon is one of Korea's best-known filmmakers, and I liked both the slow-burning horror film A Tale of Two Sisters and his "spaghetti-Eastern" adventure film The Good, the Bad, and the Weird. Also, this film had a great cast anchored by Oldboy's Choi Min-Sik and JSA's Lee Byung-Hun. Director Kim and the swoon-stastic Lee got up before the screening to welcome us to the show, warning us that we were about to see an ultra-violent film about the limits of revenge. Lee went so far as to request that the audience not walk out of the screening.

Photo courtesy wiresandwaves.com

Their warnings were easily justified, although I was impressed that I didn't see a single walk-out (although there were plenty of people shielding their eyes for certain scenes). The film begins with a middle-aged loner named Kyung-Chul (Choi) kidnapping a beautiful young girl and dismembering her in a back-woods workshop. When her body parts turn up in a river, the girl's boyfriend Soo-Hyun (Lee), who happens to be a special agent for Korea's National Intelligence Service, decides to go on a "revenge sabbatical" from his day job. Seem a little over the top? Kim Ji-Woon is not really known for his subtle touch, and I Saw the Devil is right in line with his typical approach, with plenty of overly dramatic music and borderline melodrama. Anyone expecting a slow-burning crime drama like Bong Joon-Ho's brilliant Mother and Memories of Murder will be disappointed, but that isn't really a fair comparison to make.

The over-the-topness of Kim's style is essential to what makes I Saw the Devil interesting. By setting the movie up as a face-off between a deadly secret agent and a remorseless sociopathic killer, Kim is able to play with the structure of the typical "revenge" movie in interesting and often humorous ways. The amped-up twists and turns of the plot are mirrored by the amped-up violence, which works up to a point but then threatens to cross over into "torture porn" territory. What saves the movie from descending into pure grotesquerie, though, is in the performances of the two extremely charismatic leads - Choi and Lee are both a lot of fun to watch, and they get to do some great Korean-style scenery-chewing in I Saw the Devil.

It's worth noting that this movie, in its original cut, was banned from theaters in Korea for "damaging the dignity of human values." I'm not sure if we saw the original edit or the modified one that eventually got released in Korea, but it was fairly extreme. I wouldn't recommend it for any squeamish movie fans - this is one for the "Asia extreme" crowd, although any iron-stomached fan of modern Korean cinema will find some great acting and humor in I Saw the Devil, under a liberal coating of human entrails.

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January 31, 2011

I Saw the Devil: True blood

By Nofil Naqvi tribune.com.pk Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, January 30th, 2011.

I Saw the Devil is certainly not for the faint-hearted.

I Saw the Devil is the fourth Ji-woon Kim film I have seen and loved, and amazingly, each one is vastly different from the next.

A Tale of Two Sisters was a horror flick, A Bittersweet Life became one of my favourite action movies, and The Good, the Bad and the Weird was a hilarious comedy-western. Which brings us to I Saw the Devil, a nail-biting crime thriller. Kim’s versatility and his ability to excel in each genre he explores reminds me of my all-time favourite director Stanley Kubrick.

I believe this is the third consecutive Ji-woon Kim movie starring Byung-hun Lee, and here he plays Kim Soo-hyeon, an agent working for a South Korean intelligence agency. His fiancée is brutally murdered by a serial killer Kyung-chul (played by Choi Min-sik from Oldboy), and Soo-hyeon makes it his life’s purpose to track down the killer and exact a revenge that truly, and I mean truly, makes the killer feel the pain that he inflicted on his victims.

Every time Soo-hyeon catches Kyung-chul he tortures him, then proceeds to have him treated for the injuries that he has inflicted on him, so that he can feel the pain all over again the next time he catches him. Perversely, not only does Kyung-chul start enjoying this cat-and-mouse game with his hunter, but Soo-hyeon also begins to cross the line, slowly becoming a monster himself, The ensuing internal conflict the protagonist suffers after realising this makes the movie psychologically so much more interesting than a straight-up revenge thriller like, say, Taken. Indeed, the question is: how easy is it to become a ‘monster’? If a ‘normal’ person was pushed beyond a certain point, could he or she do something as horrible as what Soo-hyeon does?

Byung-hun Lee is absolutely brilliant in the film, reminiscent of his role in A Bittersweet Life. He is unbelievably tough and resilient, yet emotionally vulnerable. And Min-sik Choi plays his character superbly: he is menacing, chaotic, and a slave to his wanton desires. Anything is possible with Kyung-chul, he has no limits, and that is a reality that Soo-hyeon has to face and pay for dearly when he messes with him.

Along the way, Soo-hyeon also meets some pretty messed up friends of Kyung-chul’s and these encounters are some of the best parts of the movie, a darkly comic celebration of madness and murder. In fact, we go through a directory of psychopaths, and one begins to see that there is a kind of hierarchy amongst them, with Kyung-chul undoubtedly coming out on top. Oh yes, I Saw the Devil is certainly not for the faint-hearted, there is much blood-gushing severing of limbs that goes on throughout the movie. And I won’t say that it isn’t indulgent, because what else should a director do if not indulge his audience?

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January 31, 2011

Film Comment Selects Arrives with 16 Undistributed Features for U.S. Audiences

By Daniel Loria at indiewire.com

Subway Cinema co-presentations

“I Saw the Devil,” Kim Ji-woon, 2010, South Korea

Giving new meaning to catch-and-release, a secret agent searches for the serial wacko who murdered his fiancée and takes a very special form of vengeance. The twisty, gruesome new thriller by the director of The Good, the Bad, the Weird was initially banned in South Korea for its meticulous attention to bloody detail. Marked by Kim’s agile set pieces, and a sustained mood of encroaching darkness, it stars Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad, the Weird) and Choi Min-sik (Oldboy). Also: don’t miss the six-film Kim Ji-woon retrospective at BAMcinematek, February 25 to March 2!

February 25 - March 2, 2011

BAMcinématek Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Ji-woon

Source: BAM.org

I Saw the Devil l A Bittersweet Life l Tale of Two Sisters l The Quiet Family l The Foul King l The Good The Bad The Weird

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February 9, 2011

Dir. Kim Ji Woon and Lee Byung Hun at stage greeting session of the 'I Saw the Devil' Japanese premiere at Shinjuku Tokyu Milano. There were two premiere screenings for the Korean thriller which set to open in Japan on February 26th.

Thanks to ylin at LBH thread for the info and captures' highlight courtesy various media sites & fan-sharing.

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Thanks to the highlight at GBW cafe.daum 6574

Captures from

pia.jp

, thanks to the highlight by

youyo712

at twitter

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February 10, 2011

'I Saw the Devil' Japan Premiere & Stage Greeting

Source: news.nate.com, gist guessed by EverythingLBH

(Tokyo AP - Lee Tae Mun Correspondent)- Hallyu star-actor Lee Byung Hun and Director Kim Ji Woon attended the Japanese premiere for 'I Saw the Devil' at the Shinjuku Milano Tokyu on the 9th. The two had specially flown to Tokyo to meet the fans at the movie's stage greeting which the official release has been set on February 26th.

Dir. Kim Ji Woon started his greeting by apologizing that the fans and movie audience watching would find the movie extremely gruesome and brutal. He then continued that "in an act of revenge there was a strong emotion that affected the action.. also an element of romance as Soo Hyun played by Lee Byung Hun who deeply loved his fiancee and that strong feeling pushed him to the limits."

Lee Byung Hun then added that "revenge is basically the same human reaction but there're such different views on how it's to be done, especially when the actual terrible situation happened to a person."

More captures at moviecollection.jp, thanks to the highlight by ylin/youyo712

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Thanks to

ylin

, ISTD Stage Greeting VOD from moviecollectionjp

'I Saw the Devil' Japan Stage Greeting - 9 Feb 2011

Thanks to Melody Yoko Reilly for sharing via Twitpic, highlighted by ylin

February 11, 2011

[News Clip] 'I Saw the Devil' high response in Japan

Watch the streaming

HERE

or download the short clip

HERE

.

Thanks to the highlight by Angel70, more stage greeting captures from kejnews.com

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February 11, 2011

Another Stunning Poster Revealed for Kim Ji-woon's 'I Saw the Devil'

Source: IMPAwards by Alex Billington at firstshowing.net

Evil Lives Inside... Magnet has debuted another incredible new theatrical poster (following the last amazing one) for Kim Ji-woon's I Saw the Devil, the newest gripping and extremely bloody Korean horror-thriller from the director of A Bittersweet Life and The Good, the Bad, the Weird. This gorgeous bit of artwork was first posted on IMPAwards (via BD) and can be seen below, which it should immediately, because it's just stunning - subliminal, minimal, great fonts, this has it all. The film has been receiving fantastic reviews all around and gorgeous poster art like this only makes me more anxious to see it. Check out the poster below!

Starring Byung-hun Lee (The Good, the Bad, the Weird) and Min-sik Choi (Lady Vengeance) the story in I Saw the Devil follows a young secret agent as he tracks a brutal serial killer who murdered his fiancée, but the hunter decides he likes playing with his catch. Quint from AICN calls it "brutal, intense and just plain old awesome," while our own Jeremy Kirk says the film is "nothing short of staggering, dark and confident" and "sometimes stunningly beautiful." The film also played at the Sundance Film Festival last month and will finally be arriving in limited theaters starting on March 4th. I'm definitely going to see it.

'Bedevilled' Murder Thriller Goes to Distrib Films (Berlin)

by

Park Soo-Mee

hollywoodreporter.com

"Midnight F.M.," screening at the European Film Market, sold to three Asian territories.

SEOUL -- Bedevilled, the latest murder thriller from Jang Chul-soo, which recently won the Grand Prix at the Gerardmer Fantastic Film Festival, was sold to France’s Distrib Films, a Seoul-based sales company Finecut announced Friday.

Separately, a creature film Chaw and a blockbuster war movie 71 — Into the Fire, which is scheduled to be released in Japan this month by Kadokawa Pictures, were sold to CTV for French distribution. 71 — Into the Fire was also sold to Hwa Yea Multimedia for Malaysia and Brunei.

For other thrillers, Midnight F.M., which will be screened in EFM, was sold to Hong Kong’s Mei Ah Selection, Taiwan’s Eagle International and Singapore’s Shaw. The film centers on a psychological game between a female radio DJ and a psycho killer during a live radio show.

Helmer Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil, another thriller, added a Spanish deal with Mediatres along with Maywin Films for ex-USSR, Portugal’s MPA, Atlantic for Scandinavia and Iceland and Mei Ah Selection for Hong Kong

.

Cyrano Agency, a romantic comedy inspired by the French drama Cyrano de Bergerac, was sold to Taiwan’s CatchPlay and Singapore’s Clover Films. Also sold to Taiwan’s Catchplay is action film Troubleshooter. The film was also sold to Thailand’s J-Bics before EFM.

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Dir. Kim Ji Woon "I Saw The Devil" Portraits - 2011 Sundance Film Festival

Source: zimbio.com

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Bloody Fight or Showdown VIP Premiere

Screenwriter Park Hoon-jeong — the man responsible for penning both “The Unjust” and “I Saw the Devil” — makes his highly-anticipated directorial debut with “Bloody Fight”, a historical action flick that, in my humble opinion, has some serious potential. As you may know, Kim Ji-woon’s “I Saw the Devil” was one of my favorites of 2010, due in part to Park Hoon-Jeong’s remarkably whip-smart script. As such, I’m extremely anxious to see what the guy is capable of behind the camera, particularly since “Bloody Fight” seems to be a completely different film than what we’re used to seeing from him.

Here’s the plot in a nutshell:

In the 11th year of Kwang Hae-gun, Jo-seon soldiers go to war with China after an invasion. In the middle of Manchu, three people who have barely survived are being cornered by the Chinese forces, and begin a bloody battle not with their enemies but with their friends.

“Bloody Fight”, which stars Park Hee-soon, Jin Goo, and Ko Chang-seok, opens in South Korean theaters this February. (BeyondHollywood.com)

February 15, 2011

Dir. KJW at the 'Bloody Fight' VIP Premiere

Source: innolife.net

Bae Soo Bin, Dir. Kim Ji Woon, Lee Byung Hun

The streaming on

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Thanks to the highlight and translation by taprokh, please refer article posted at http://bit.ly/g5amyT

CONGRATULATIONS!

'I Saw the Devil' wins three prizes at The Fantastic'Arts 2011 film festival, France

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February 24, 2011

Roads Less Taken, Spirits Awakened

By STEVE DOLLAR online.wsj.com

BAMcinematek/Magnolia Pictures

Lee Byung-hun in Kim Ji-woon's 'I Saw the Devil,' which was nearly banned by the Korean government.

Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Ji-woon

BAMcinématek 30 Layfayette Ave., Brooklyn, (718) 636-4100

Friday-Wednesday

Korean film has a reputation for maniacal violence. The bloody hammer is practically a trope. It was fetishized in Park Chan-wook's "Oldboy," in which the title character, played by Choi Min-sik, swung it with brutal fury, exacting vengeance after a mysterious 15-year imprisonment by unknown captors.

The actor returns, hammer at the ready, in "I Saw the Devil." Only this time, he's the villain: a relentless serial killer named Kyung-chul. He deceives his usual victims—pretty, single women stranded along frosty roadsides—by pulling up in a yellow mini-bus. He offers assistance, in the guise of a harmless, grizzled bypasser. Some sudden blunt force trauma and it's back to a dank abattoir, where the killer savors their tears and pleading, taking pleasure in his own perverse ritual. But when one of his victim's noggins turns up in a watery ditch, Choi invokes the wrath of a super-cop (Lee Byung-hun) whose wife it belonged to. An escalating game of sadomasochistic cat-and-mouse ensues, with devastating collateral damage.

Director Kim Ji-woon pulls out the stops with his latest movie, which leads off a six-film retrospective at BAMcinématek. The series takes its cue from the Korean government, which threatened to ban "Devil" because its scenes of graphic torture could "severely damage the dignity of human values." That's the best review a work like this can have. But Mr. Kim's game is not one of shock and exploitation. His skills as an image-maker are highly stylized, imbuing unthinkable horror with a disturbing poetry that makes the most overplayed plot points in the genre feel charged with vitality. The old "cop versus psycho" theme is pushed to the hilt: To catch a monster, you must become a monster.

The two terrific (and apparently indestructibly superhuman) leads make an ideal pair. One grizzled, one pop-idol pretty. The story's twists and the committed performances toy with audience sympathies as the pain threshold is pushed to the max and beyond. Instead of desensitizing the audience, the violence threatens to rewire our nervous system. Rough humor, squishy special effects and elegant action choreography can't finally distract from profound questions about violence and its justifications.

The director will be present for the opening-night screening of "Devil," where he'll field questions through a translator. The series continues with "A Bittersweet Life," "A Tale of Two Sisters," "The Quiet Family," "The Foul King" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird." The final film, a Spaghetti Western variant set in 1940s Manchuria instead of Mexico, thrives on the comic antics of Kim regular Song Kang-ho as "The Weird," a motorcycle-riding thief caught in a three-way race toward buried treasure.

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February 25, 2011

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Bloody Attempts to Escape From Fate

By MIKE HALE nytimes.com

When an Asian serial-killer movie is deemed to be so violent that it severely damages human dignity — and is effectively banned from public exhibition until cuts are made — large segments of the international cinéblogosphere get very excited.

The buzz that the South Korean censors created around Kim Jee-woon’s “I Saw the Devil” was so strong, in fact, that the Brooklyn Academy of Music has borrowed their words for the title of its current celebration of Mr. Kim’s work. “Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Jee-woon” began Friday at the BAM Rose Cinemas with a screening of “I Saw the Devil” (which opens theatrically in New York and Los Angeles next Friday) and will include all five of his previous features.

Mr. Kim’s newest film, about a government agent pursuing an extended revenge against the psychopath who killed his fiancée, is undeniably generous when it comes to bludgeonings and dismembered body parts. But as the series demonstrates, he has been doing damage to human dignity, in a variety of ways, from the very beginning.

In “The Quiet Family” (1998), Mr. Kim’s first feature and the only one not released in the United States, violent death is an embarrassing inconvenience that needs to be swept under the rug — or, in this case, buried in a mass grave — in the name of family pride and good business.

This pitch-black comedy — in terms of both rarity and mordant humor, it’s the program’s biggest find — details the attempts of an unexceptional, rather dim family to run a musty mountain lodge. The first challenge is attracting customers, which they try to do by gathering out front and staring expectantly at the hikers passing by (then loudly cursing them when they don’t stop).

The real problems set in when guests do arrive, however: they keep dying before they can check out, and the innkeepers’ frantic attempts to cover up the deaths soon lead from body disposal to homicide. Between bouts of violent farce, Mr. Kim brings the perpetrators back to the kitchen and the living room to enact the rituals of Korean family life, and their exhausted stupefaction as they dine or watch television is quietly hilarious.

Unlike some South Korean directors who have established larger reputations in America partly through specialization — Park Chan-wook with his revenge melodramas, Hong Sang-soo with his ultra-dry comedies of sexual politics — Mr. Kim, 46, has resisted categorization. In fact, he has jumped from genre to genre, as if testing his ability to deliver stylish entertainment in each.

After the social satire of “A Quiet Family,” he stayed with comedy, though in a more personal vein, in “The Foul King” (2000), an alternately sweet and bleak tale about a man who fails as a bank clerk but finds success of a sort as a professional-wrestling villain.

Then Mr. Kim’s filmography really became an exercise in eclecticism. “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003) was an elegant, intelligent, truly creepy take on the long-black-hair Asian ghost film. “A Bittersweet Life” (2005) was an example of gangster film noir, while “The Good, the Bad, the Weird” (2008) was, as its title suggests, Mr. Kim’s version of a spaghetti western, set in Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

There have been constants in Mr. Kim’s work, though, beyond solid craftsmanship and a certain voluptuousness of mood, whether in the service of comedy, horror or crime drama. One has been blood, which spills in various quantities from inn guests, wrestlers, ghosts, crooks, adventurers or psychopaths in all of his films. (Its presence is matched by an absence of sex or any kind of serious romance; surprisingly, for a Korean director, “I Saw the Devil” is the first of his films to include female nudity.)

Another hallmark is the clever use of interior space. The traditional inn of “The Quiet Family”; the country house in “A Tale of Two Sisters,” with its claustrophobic patterned wallpaper; and the neon-cool nightclub of “A Bittersweet Life,” with its warren of private rooms and antiseptic corridors: all become utterly familiar, like characters in their own right.

Perhaps the most common thread among Mr. Kim’s films — all of which he wrote himself except for the most recent, “I Saw the Devil” — is that they focus on people who are trapped in their lives, by a combination of circumstance and character, and chronicle their mostly unsuccessful attempts to escape.

The hero of “The Foul King” takes to wrestling to get away from his failures as a salaryman; the enforcer of “A Bittersweet Life” yearns for a beauty and humanity that are outside the midlevel gangster’s grasp. “A Tale of Two Sisters” revolves around a young girl literally haunted by her memories; in “I Saw the Devil,” both cop and killer are trapped in a cycle of revenge that becomes almost comic in its inexorability (and that leaves you with a less than clear sense of where to place your sympathies).

A good reason to see Mr. Kim’s work, in addition to his storytelling skill and some great set pieces — like the hero’s whirling, kicking, daredevil escape midway through “A Bittersweet Life” — is the fact that a couple of South Korea’s best actors regularly show up in his films. Song Kang-ho and Choi Min-sik weren’t stars when they played, respectively, the irritable brother and clueless uncle in “The Quiet Family.” Mr. Song would go on to star in “The Foul King” before becoming one of Korean film’s most ubiquitous faces in movies like “Joint Security Area,” “Memories of Murder” and “The Host” (as well as “The Good, the Bad, the Weird”).

Seeing Mr. Choi as a comical lecher in “The Quiet Family” may be particularly surprising for American viewers who know him as the emblem of implacable Korean violence from Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy,” a role he fills again as the serial killer in “I Saw the Devil.”

Having proved himself in most of the Korean film industry’s masculine genres (he has yet to make a musical or a syrupy romantic comedy), Mr. Kim is again moving on — this time to the United States. His next assignment is to extend Liam Neeson’s action-hero resurgence in “Last Stand,” about a sheriff facing off with a Mexican drug cartel.

“Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Jee-woon” continues through Wednesday at the BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; (718) 636-4100; bam.org.

A version of this article appeared in print on February 26, 2011, on page C1 of the New York edition.

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February 25, 2011

Exalting Crazy: See Kim Ji-Woon's movies at BAM, but brace yourself

BY SIMON ABRAMS capitalnewyork.com

While a couple of his films already been released in America, South Korean filmmaker Kim Ji-woon only really became a major force among film buffs here after the limited theatrical release of The Good, The Bad, The Weird, which pays homage to the “Manchurian Action” subgenre of films that thrived in the late ‘60s in Korea. Manchurian Action films are similar to the spaghetti westerns in that they’re both blatantly revisionist genres. (One of the main characteristics of the Manchurian Action film is the frequent appearance of anachronistic motorcycles and Jeeps.)

By emulating that kind of patchwork film, Kim began to show off the common thread that unites his films: celebrating, or at the very least sympathizing with, introverted, sometimes crazy protagonists. In time for the theatrical release of Kim's latest work, I Saw the Devil, BAM has put together a survey of all of Kim’s feature films to highlight, as the series’ title aptly calls it, the “severely damaged” minds of Kim’s antiheroes.

The Good, The Bad and the Weird is a great place for anyone curious about Kim’s work to start. It’s his most accessible film, revolving around three different demented characters whose obsessive personalities fuel what is essentially a 150-minute chase. The plot is deceptively simple: Everyone, including Park "The Good" Do-won (Jung Woo-sung), Park "The Bad" Chang-yi (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra’s Lee Byung-hun) and Yoon “The Weird” Tae-goo (Song Kang-Ho), wants to get their hands on a mysterious treasure map, but for different reasons. Chang-yi wants to stop Tae-goo and earn some money for himself while Do-won just wants to stop Chang-yi, and Tae-goo just wants to get his hands on the treasure.

From that straightforward set-up, Kim establishes the layers of insecurity and conflicting identity that define his characters. Do-won doesn’t really know much beyond the fact that he needs to stop Chang-yi since he doesn’t put much faith in anything but his own abilities (“Life is about chasing and being chased,” he offers to Tae-goo at one point). Chang-yi is mostly looking out for himself, though he does have selectively political motives too, as when he murders a Korean collaborator that worked with the occupying Japanese government.

Tae-goo, the most complex character of the bunch, wants everyone to think he wants to use the treasure to settle down and start his own ranch. Though he almost never gives himself away, he’s actually harboring a secret that is the real reason Chang-yi is interested in him in the first place, and that Do- won feels like he’s not chasing the right guy. In Kim’s eyes, Tae-goo is the guy to watch in the film: We don’t know what he’s capable of because he’s always so disarmingly clumsy. But it’s that very ability to get you to prematurely write him off that makes him the wiliest of the group.

If any one actor is a mascot for Kim’s films, it’s actor Song Kang-Ho. Song’s characters speak to Kim’s preference for characters who can’t relate to the world around them once they’ve experienced some transformative event. In The Quiet Family, Song plays Young-min, the most erratic member of a family undergoing a perpetual nervous breakdown. Young-min’s father Tae-gu (Park In-hwan) bought a mountain inn that no one wants to come to until their first customer, a morose-looking drifter, kills himself. After that, more and more people start to visit the inn and many of them wind up dying there. Hiding corpses becomes such an everyday practice to the family that at one point, Tae-gu remarks to nobody in particular, “Digging is becoming a job now. Now everybody’s a pro!”

Kim clearly favors Young-min over the other members of his Quiet Family because he’s the one trying the hardest to maintaining his loosening grip on reality. It’s up to him to maintain some level of sanity about the place, burying bodies, protecting his younger sister Mis-soo from unwelcome advances and keeping his own libido in check by peeping on the customers who only use the inn for sex.

Ironically, this makes him the family member who's the most disconnected from what's actually going on: He tries to excuse listening in on customers using the inn’s phones by insisting, “I was talking to a friend.” His father’s deadpan response: “You had a friend?”

At another point, Young-min tries to tell his lazy uncle Chang-ku (Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik) what their first lodger is like and he he can’t even process anything beyond a very cursory level:

YM: “‘Hey, kid: do you know what loneliness is?’”

CK: “So what did you say?”

YM: “I said, ‘I’m not a kid!’”

CK: ”Then what?”

YM: “He said, ‘OK,’ and told me to leave.”

CK: “Man, he really must think we’re all so weird.”

You might think, based exclusively on this exchange, that Young-min is the butt of Kim’s jokes, but the opposite is true: He’s the film’s hero.

Kim’s interest in characters who have essentially gone mad has resulted, most recently, in I Saw the Devil, a gore-soaked revenge thriller that blends wicked intelligence and borderline taste. After his wife is brutally murdered by a serial killer (also Choi Min-Sik), Kim Soo-hyeon, a secret agent (Lee Byung-hun again) takes it upon himself to find and torture his wife’s assassin.

Soo-hyeon’s descent into insanity unfolds over the course of 140 minutes of violence and chase scenes that out-and-out refuse to give the audience the comfort of rooting for a hero. I Saw the Devil ends with a shot of Lee’s character with an irrepressible grimace on his face, half-sobbing, half-laughing at all the damage he’s done. That scene might be the culmination of Kim’s filmography to date, a draining image of a man destroyed by his inability to reconcile his inner turmoil with the grim world around him.

[rubie]

'I Saw the Devil' in Japan interview

Watch the interview streaming on

Youtube

I Saw the Devil in Japan: LBH-Interview clips and captures

http://everythinglbh.com/entry_view.php?id=1505

February 28, 2011

'I Saw the Devil' Blu-ray Announced

Source: highdefdigest.com l bluray.highdefdigest.com

The widely acclaimed 2010 South Korean film is getting a Blu-ray release in May.

In an early announcement to retailers, Magnolia has revealed 'I Saw the Devil' is coming to Blu-ray on May 10.

The crime thriller from director Ji-woon Kim ('The Good, the Bad, and the Weird') is about a secret agent who tracks the serial killer who murdered his fiancée.

“The textbook definition of an instant cult classic... See it as soon as you get the chance.. Don’t miss this one.” – Ryan Daley, BLOODY DISGUSTING

“Every performance in this masterpiece is outstanding... The cinematography is gorgeous, and the editing is flawless.. The best thing to come out of Sundance this year.” - Kalebson, DREAD CENTRAL

“At the center of this maelstrom are a pair of riveting performances that allow the story to maintain a grim fascination, even as it leaves the possibility of sympathy or empathy far behind.” - Michael Gingold, FANGORIA

“Korean genre master Kim Jee-woon ('A Tale of Two Sisters') has once again proven the versatility of his talent, effortlessly switching genres to craft a uniquely terrifying experience.” - SIGHT ON SOUND

Specs and supplements have yet to be revealed, but suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $29.98.

[rubie]

March 2, 2011

Exclusive: Director Kim Ji-woon on 'I Saw the Devil' and 'Last Stand'

by Joseph McCabe fearnet.com

Korean director Kim Ji-woon's reputation has been growing steadily among U.S. genre film lovers in recent years; thanks in no small part to the exposure he gained from his creepy psychological nail-biter breakthrough A Tale of Two Sisters and his segment of Three Extremes II ("Memories"). More recently, he helmed the cult favorite The Good, The Bad and The Weird and his latest work I Saw the Devil. Like A Tale of Two Sisters, Devil hinges on the theme of duality, albeit this time between a killer and the good man whose life he destroys. The result is a unique twist on the revenge thriller, with the genre taken to horrifying new extremes. I recently chatted with the director (via translator) about I Saw the Devil, and he offered a few tantalizing words about his next film, Last Stand. Check out our conversation after the jump.

Could you talk about the differences that you see right now between Korean and U.S. thrillers?

I think the viewpoint regarding serial killers is different in the U.S. than in Korea. Serial killers in the U.S. tend not to be grown from societal factors or external factors, but it's something that is within them, that manifests itself that way. Whereas in Korea I think a lot of how these serial killers are shaped and brought about is because of the group, the greater society, and how the environment and the conditions of that society affect the person [who becomes] a serial killer. And how some of these people may stray or be left out of the greater, larger entity is, I think, what really brings about a serial killer in Korea. Whereas it is not so in the U.S. It's more dependent on that individual.

Another thing that interests me is how killers portrayed in the US often have had a relationship [with] or put blame upon God, or a Christian element, or they're shown to be left out by God or thrown away by God.

Even the word "devil", while it is kind of dependent of a Christian or religious concept, my interest in using the word in my film is more centered on the human darkness, or a darkness that is possible in a human, and what that entails -- to become a devil. That's what I'm interested in hearing, rather than any kind of Christian or religious reference.

Can you talk about what inspired your work on the film? Was your interest born out of the story itself, or did any experience with the way in which society can destroy an indivdual inform your work on the film?

I first approached the script from a cinematic point of view. From a filmic point of view I was interested in the fact that the script has this kind of catch-and-release element of targeting the killer and then releasing him. Reliving the pain and the hurt that he's gone through and putting that same emotion upon the killer. That was interesting to me, compared to previous revenge films. Also, that this target of revenge also [leads to] revenge as well. So you see revenge after revenge after revenge where they're kind of attacking each other. That was another interesting thing for me as a film director to take on. Of course this isn't how it started with the film, but as production went on I did come to ask bigger questions as to why Lee Byung-hun's character descends into this devil himself. I was asking bigger questions about the basic nature of good and evil and what is capable in a person. I think those questions guided me as well when I was making the film.

There are a number of incredibly intense, violent scenes in the film. Was there any one scene that was especially difficult for you to film?

Of course there are many qualities that are hard to shoot and portray. We did take much care in shooting those action scenes. But in fact those scenes were not difficult to shoot, I would say. But rather what was more interesting and challenging was trying to portray the emotions that the characters are going through. To portray and express the madness that these characters are descending into, in a different way than what we normally see. I think one of the central things about this film is the decline of Lee Byung-hun's character, from a normal character turning into that devil, and declining into that from the emotions and the inner struggle that he has. To portray that on screen and capture that on screen was, I think, more challenging than any action scene.

Like A Tale of Two Sisters, I Saw the Devil deals with the concept of duality. What fascinates you about this theme?

A Tale of Two Sisters was concerned with the repressed memories that are evoked from a relationship with a space or an object from that memory. In I Saw the Devil, we see a good person becoming a devil because he's put in the inescapable circumstance of having to become a devil. It's the central theme of this movie. And it's what drives that duality as well, this inner conflict of having to become and accept this devil, and becoming that to defeat it as well.

Can you briefly say anything about your next project, Last Stand?

Right now I have an adapted version of the script submitted to a studio, and I'm waiting for a reaction to it. If everything goes as planned, we'll be shooting in New Mexico sometime around August or September.

Can you describe the film?

It's about a small town on the border that is standing up against a high-tech, kind of manufactured enemy. And I think it will become a very spectacular kind of film. The script not having been completely finalized and approved, I'm sorry that I can't answer too deeply this question.

No worries. One last question – In real life, what's your greatest fear?

[Laughs.] There are a lot of things that I'm frightened of. But I think one of the more frightful things is what could possibly happen if the world runs out of coffee.

[Laughs.] I've never heard that one before. That's a very sensible answer.

Because my routine starts with coffee and ends with coffee. [Laughs.]

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.