[Movie 2010] I Saw The Devil, 악마를 보았다

[rubie]

I SAW THE DEVIL

[WARNING]

Watch I SAW THE DEVIL trailer (the US version release) -- pretty brutal and showing more from the movie compared to the first trailer last year

STREAMING at

YOUTUBE

IN ONE NIGHT

EVERYTHING HE LOVED

WAS TAKEN FROM HIM

NOW, CONFRONTED BY PURE EVIL

HE'S NOT GETTING EVEN

HE'S JUST GETTING STARTED

YOUR NIGHTMARE'S ONLY GETTING WORSE

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February 21, 2011

'I Saw The Devil' Review

by Kofi Outlaw Screen Rant

'I Saw The Devil' takes the serial killer thriller and twists it into a meditation on the corrupting nature of evil that his both disturbing and engaging. This is not a film for squeamish viewers.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Korean director Ji-woon Kim is quickly gaining notoriety as a cinematic auteur who is able either bend and/or blend genres in order to create something new, unique, strange and/or disturbing. Kim’s horror movie / family drama A Tale of Two Sisters became the highest-grossing horror movie in Korea, and his homage to spaghetti Westerns, The Good the Bad, the Weird, has become a cult-hit in its own right.

With I Saw The Devil, Ji-woon Kim explores the serial killer thriller from something of a unique angle, and the result is a film that is sure to solicit visceral reactions from viewers that will likely include shock, disgust, horror and even a fair bit of laughter.

The story center’s around Soo-hyeon Kim (G.I. Joe‘s Byung-hun Lee), a highly-trained special agent whose fiancée goes missing one night after her car broke down on the side of the road. The girl’s father is a local police chief, and after an extensive search the worst is confirmed when her body is found hacked to pieces and scattered in or around a creek. Her father is shattered, but Agent Kim deals with his grief in a different way: by seeking vengeance.

It doesn’t take Kim long to find his man: a deranged psycho named Kyung-Chul (Oldboy star Min-sik Choi) whose great thrill in life is abducting young girls, degrading them, then chopping them up into bits after he has them begging for their lives. If that wasn’t enough, we quickly learn that sexual assault, intimidation, and generally hurting and/or murdering anyone he comes across are also personal passions of Kyung-Chul; this man is clearly evil incarnate -- a mad dog that needs to be put down.

But Agent Kim isn’t interested in simply killing Kyung-Chul -- no, that would be too simple. Instead (and here is where this film will surely polarize viewers), Agent Kim chooses to trap the psychopath in an intricate game of cat-and-mouse, in which the killer’s every move is countered by Agent Kim, and for every new foul deed Kyung-Chul attempts, Kim extracts another pound of flesh as punishment.

However, the line between hunter and prey is a thin one, and Agent Kim soon finds that he may be in over his head (and risking his sanity) in his quest for the ultimate revenge.

If you’re a fan of Korean cinema, then you should already know how extreme it can be at times. I don’t mean “extreme” in terms of the juvenile display in taboos or shockandawe that you get in American films, but rather the tendency to gaze into the darkest of human experiences with an unflinching eye. I Saw The Devil starts off on pretty horrific foot and only builds upon that horror from then on. Kyung-Chul is probably one of the most brutal and frightening cinematic killers we’ve seen this side of Hannibal Lecter -- but like Anthony Hopkins did with Lecter, Min-sik Choi’s sheer charisma and talent as an actor makes his reprehensible character totally engaging and at times very funny…if only inappropriately so.

By contrast, Agent Kim is quiet, mostly expressionless (save for that raging-yet-tempered fury in his eyes) and he’s really not the most exciting character to watch (except for when he’s in the midst of a graceful martial arts display). This film embraces the modern obsession with featuring villains as protagonists: we meet Kyung-Chul very early on in the film; there are no illusions that this guy is the killer; he’s a lively and charismatic scene-stealer; and most of the movie’s run time is (wisely) dedicated to following this psycho from one dark encounter to the next.

The film gets especially bizarre in the second act when Kyung-Chul attempts to take refuge in a hijacked home with a serial killer “pal” of his who also happens to be a cannibal (yeah, you read that right). It is stops like these along this “odyssey” of sorts that will likely distinguish I Saw The Devil as a cult hit. The other thing about the film that will likely burn it into viewers’ minds (for better or worse) is the commitment Ji-woon Kim has to his often off-putting subject matter.

There are is a distinctly purposed way in which Kim shot this film, making it grossly intimate at the most disturbing moments possible (Kyung-Chul’s encounter with a young girl in a doctor’s office comes to mind) -- but not in a gratuitous way, where there is some deep-seeded thrill at seeing these horrible or violent acts occur onscreen. In fact, the film’s awesome tension comes from seeing tightly-framed and excruciatingly long takes of Kyung-Chul (or his cohorts) gleefully committing some sick and merciless deed, while we, the audience, are held hostage as powerless voyeurs, practically praying in each instance that Agent Kim will swoop in to stop the bad guy and punish him before more human misery can be doled out.

The fact that this cycle continues for well over two hours was utterly draining for me, and will likely be for most viewers; there were multiple instances where I checked my watch hoping that this film was done with its macabre exhibition, only to find myself have to sit through yet another squirm-inducing scene. I couldn’t look away, but I also wanted it to be over sooner before later, which left me somewhere in a neutral zone in terms of how much I “enjoyed” the film.

One great accomplishment of I Saw The Devil is that Ji-woon Kim manages to in some ways make the hero’s retribution equally as disturbing if not more disturbing than the killer’s indulgences. Each time Agent Kim “punishes” Kyung-Chul, it’s in a way that makes your skin crawl; you don’t really want to applaud this guy so much as you’re left wondering just how twisted his grief and loss are making him. Byung-hun Lee’s chiseled face, blank expression and that possessed look in his hollowed eyes are often scarier than the mischievous smile Min-sik Choi flashes before dispatching yet another victim. It’s a great juxtaposition that perfectly exhibits the concept of what happens when one stares too deep into the abyss.

As I stated before, there is one hinge to this movie that will surely polarize viewers: whether or not you can understand the idea of someone allowing a vicious killer to roam free for the sake of some deeper concept of justice/revenge. Every time Kyung-Chul hurts another person in the film, its hard not to be annoyed with Agent Kim for not killing this guy from the outset, and that agitation is enough to make a some viewers write this film off as another example of a “stupid” story that hinges on a character making “idiotic” decisions that no one in their right mind would make in real life. Whether that assessment is true or not is irrelevant -- it’s going to be the knee-jerk reaction that some people have after seeing I Saw The Devil, and its arguably a fair criticism to level at the film.

In the end, this movie is for cult fans who know exactly what they’re getting into and have experience with the extreme nature of Korean cinema. Those looking for a more conventional serial killer thriller, this film would likely turn your stomach and dim your soul.

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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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Thanks to the highlight by mandi_ at EverythingLBH

February 21, 2011

Quint talks South Korean filmmaking and revenge storytelling with I SAW THE DEVIL director Ji-Woon Kim and star Byung-hun Lee!

Source: aintitcool.com

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with more of my Sundance interview catch-up! This time we have possibly my favorite chat to come out of Park City. It was a big deal for me to interview Ji-Woon Kim and Byung-hun Lee. I mean, when else could I talk with South Korean filmmakers, especially when Kim is at the top of his game now with his directorial powerhouses THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD and I SAW THE DEVIL.

This was the first interview I locked in and the one I was the most excited for.

And it’s a good chat, I think. Doing translator-assisted interviews is always awkward because there are long pauses between asking a question and getting it answered, which really takes the conversational aspect away from these chats. If you’ve read anything I’ve done you’ll know that I lean on the conversational stuff like a big ol’ crutch, so I feel a little naked without the ability to spin a little conversation to get people talking.

But I think I did okay here. So, read along as director Ji-Woon Kim, star Byung-hun Lee and I discuss the dark world of I SAW THE DEVIL, how the original script evolved once Kim joined the project and the reason why South Korean cinema is so amazing right now. Enjoy!

Quint: I’m a big fan of your work. I especially loved THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD. I’m a huge Sergio Leone fan, so to see such a love letter to him was really a big thing for me. I’m also quite a fan of I SAW THE DEVIL. I really enjoyed the whole cat and mouse aspect to it and I loved that the line between the villain and the hero was very blurry. Is that what attracted you both to the film?

Ji-Woon Kim: To explain the process of coming to the script for this film… The script was already written by someone else and it wasn’t my script that I was working on. The original script you could say was a lot tougher and it was definitely more focused on the action than the emotions of the characters, especially Soo-Hyeon. If other revenge films were very intent on portraying the completing their revenge and having an ending that’s a false kind of happy ending, where he’s morally justified in exacting that revenge, you could say that this film is definitely much greyer in that area by the end of the film.

By having the villain and the protagonist meet at the beginning of the film, rather than in the later parts of the film, more common in other revenge films, you see them meet at the beginning. Going through the process of heightening that tension was definitely interesting and there were rought, but shiny elements in the script that drew me to it. Obviously, there were those things that you said already with intrigued me as a director to take on the project as well.

Quint: How did you approach that as an actor? I have to imagine the greyer the character, the more fun it is for you to play.

Byung-hun Lee: Well, the reason why I decided to participate in this project was that there is no hero in this movie. Nobody is “cool” in this movie. We normally feel some kind of a sense of satisfaction with these kinds of revenge films, but not in this movie. As time goes by, it grows more difficult or more uncomfortable and this film makes the audience think about the true meaning of revenge. I think that’s the attractive point.

Quint: I really liked just the way you play the character as harder than even the way the villain is, because he’s actually a very likable and sympathetic person until he starts killing people. (laughs) I like that dynamic. There’s just something about Korean cinema and how they handle revenge; it’s just refreshing for American audiences. I don’t know what it is abut the culture or the filmmaking that’s coming out of Korea right now, but it never ceases to blow me away. Especially when it comes to revenge films, like Chan-wook Park’s stuff. Why you think that there’s such an amazing wellspring of talent coming out of Korea right now.

Ji-Woon Kim: (Laughs) I’m not exactly sure myself. I’m not exactly sure as why we would say that Korean revenge films are so successful, but I think geographically and historically Korea as a nation was surrounded by two very big forces on the borders and we have had invasions and colonization within the history. I think as a culture maybe there are definitely things that are kept down in our culture because of that. It might be the basis of one of the elements of explaining this, but I think revenge films as a medium kind of act as releasing these desires and wants in a person like a shaman would release the deep desires of someone in some sort of ritual.

Ultimately, I would say that this is not a film about revenge, rather this is a film about the emotions of revenge. We experience a very electric catharsis by seeing the revenge exacted in a way and we see that there is a Devil and that one man completely descends to become a Devil to defeat that Devil. Very boggy waters there. The question that I’m trying to pose is “Is there really any true revenge when that kind of revenge is exacted?”

If someone was killed, it’s not going to bring that person back and there’s always going to be these desires that don’t get fulfilled even though revenge has been exacted. So the film is addressing those false happy endings where the revenge is done and there’s a false happy ending, but that’s questionable because there’s always something left over behind that. In this film we kind of get to see that and that’s one of the things that interested me as well.

Quint: Can you talk a little bit about working with Min-sik Choi? Just knowing him for his work in OLDBOY, I was a real big fan of that and I love what he does here and I would especially like to hear how you worked with him because your chemistry is great in the film. Obviously from the screenplay you had an idea where of where to start, but you had to actually develop that chemistry.

Byung-hun Lee: Actually, he is a well known actor for doing “hot” acting.

Quint: Yeah?

Byung-hun Lee: Hot-tempered acting... My style is kind of cold, so people were sort of expecting that combination, where one is hot and the other one is cold. (The casting) was really calculated by the director, I think. That point was so interesting for the audience, so the combination was so good in this movie, I think, and yeah it was really good.

Quint: Did you have to work closely or a lot with him or was that something that just came about naturally with your interaction?

Byung-hun Lee: I think both. Naturally we would do that and in the movie all of the characters are already chosen like that, so it was good.

Quint: Cool.

Ji-Woon Kim: To add a little more to that, there were comments about how it was the character from A BITTERSWEET LIFE, which Byung-hun Lee was in, and the character from OLDBOY colliding together. This is one of the comments that were on the internet or something about this film and you could say that it’s about the almost hottempered, very burning psychosis of Min-sik Choi’s character and the very cold, cruel kind of extreme psychosis of Byung-hun Lee’s character colliding on the screen. I myself was interested in that as well and then I was curious to see what would happen if those two forces collided and it was one of the things that drew me to develop the film, honestly.

Quint: Can we backtrack just a little bit to the script stage? I’m actually intrigued, because usually you write your own material and I really liked what you were saying, how you got it and tonally it was a bit different. I would like to know a little bit more about your process in bringing your voice to the material.

Ji-Woon Kim: I was approaching this project as kind of… I was thinking to myself as a “cleaner” or a “problem solver.” You accept a certain amount of money and you go and finish the job kind of thing… Because it was already a script that was done by someone else and I was being brought into the project. In my previous films I was able to experiment and do whatever I wanted to do with my own ways of doing my own scripts, I felt there were some things I had to tone down in order to complete this film versus original material.

The original script was definitely much more rough and tough and maybe instinctual in a way, like an artist’s sensibility, focusing a lot more on the physical actions of the story. I would say my interpretation that resulted in the film is that it comes out to be focusing more on the emotions of the characters and inside the mental dilemmas of the main character. So when the original screenwriter told me after seeing my film that he never expected that such a film would be possible, that his script could come out to be solved this way. I think he was impressed by that and I think it speaks to the ability to the talents of the two actors who are able to carry the film so successfully.

Quint: Lee, I’m no actor and I never would be an actor, but the thing is I can’t really picture putting myself in the mindset, especially of this slow decent into madness that your character goes through. Is that something that you can just throw on in front of the cameras and then shake off and walk away or is that something that you actually have to psyche yourself up for?

Byung-hun Lee: Falling into the situation is the most important thing as an actor and of course when it’s done, coming out from the character is hard as well. As you know, this movie and especially this character has to be so depressed and has to keep the emotions of a huge sense of loss from the beginning until the end, so that was really a hard part for me to do.

Quint: You also underplay it a lot, which I know might go against an instinct to just really express it, but so much of it is bubbling under the surface and I think that’s much more effective.

Ji-Woon Kim: Keeping that just right under the surface, where it’s just about to burst, but it doesn’t and being able to control that psychosis, that madness, and those emotions will exact exactly the same kind of revenge, the same kind of violence onto him. Using that emotion I think is what it really means to have gone crazy, to be a psycho in a way; to be at that level and to be able to exert that control and then exact it as well is the definition of psychosis.

Byung-hun Lee: One of my favorite scenes was… Do you remember the scene in the car and I see the mirror with my face and there’s some blood, so I try to clean up, but stop. He stopped it and he just looked at the mirror like he feels something. I really liked that scene. If the audience were really sensitive, then they might feel what he feels there. I like those kinds of expressions, but it’s hard.

Quint: And it also shows your character isn’t just this ultimate badass that has no richard simmons in the armor or anything, where he has this moment where he might recognize that he’s losing some of his humanity and that obviously doesn’t stop him from completing his job, but..

Ji-Woon Kim: To put it simply, this is not a film about revenge, but a film about the emotions of revenge. It’s about the idea of a person that must become the Devil to defeat the Devil. It’s about someone that is completely content on transferring the pain that he’s experienced back onto the culprit and, obviously, to show those emotions in a compelling way. My starting point was putting myself in that situation. If I were in that situation, what would I have done? This was one of the main questions I was asking myself and that’s kind of where the film took off.

Quint: Great! So, what do you guys have coming up? What’s the next step for you guys? What’s your next project?

Byung-hun Lee: I’m going to shoot G.I. JOE 2.

Quint: Yeah?

Byung-hun Lee: I’m not sure, but I think I’ll be doing that in June or July.

Quint: Cool, you were one of the best parts of the first movie.

Byung-hun Lee: Thanks.

Ji-Woon Kim: Nothing is set in stone yet, but I think because I’ve done such a dark film, I want to maybe do something lighter or happier. Maybe something like I Saw An Angel. (laughs) But I think I have to be honest to myself and realize that my talents might lay in a different direction and I think as a person that gets satisfaction form being able to portray violence in a creative and clever way, like many other directors and filmmakers, I think I want to continue that and then possibly look for something in a different mood; a new, fresh kind of mood that may be able to carry me.

Quint: I wouldn’t sell yourself short; the tonal difference between THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD and I SAW THE DEVIL is huge and I don’t know a lot of directors that could make that jump.

Ji-Woon Kim: Thank you.

Quint: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really appreciate it.

Byung-hun Lee: Thank you.

[rubie]

February 26, 2011

HKIFF 2011 Source + Info English l Chinese

I Saw the Devil

Director: Kim Jee-woon

Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik, Jeon Gook-hwan

Country: South Korea

Year: 2010

Colour: Colour

Duration: 142 mins

Official webstite: isawthedevil

Date: 26 Mar 2011

Time: 11:45 PM

Code: 26UL3E3

Venue: UA Langham Place

Date: 29 Mar 2011

Time: 9:15 PM

Code: 29KG3E2

Venue: Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre

[rubie]

February 25, 2011

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Bloody Attempts to Escape From Fate

By MIKE HALE nytimes.com

Lee Byung-hun in “I Saw the Devil” (2010), part of a retrospective of the director Kim Jee-woon at the BAM Rose Cinemas.

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.

[rubie]

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]

February 25, 2011

EXCLUSIVE

Instant Action in 'I Saw the Devil' TV Spot

By: MrDisgusting bloody-disgusting.com

Watch the TV Spot Streaming HERE.

Last week you saw the red band trailer (also inside) for Kim Jee-woon's absolutely fantastic I Saw the Devil (two reviews), which opens in limited theaters on March 4. This afternoon Bloody Disgusting was provided with an instant action exclusive TV Spot for easily one of the best horror films of the year. DO NOT MISS OUT.

"Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad and the Weird) stars as Dae-hoon, a special agent whose pregnant wife becomes the latest victim of a disturbed and brutal serial killer, captivatingly played by Oldboy's Choi Min-sik. Vowing revenge, Dae-hoon blurs the lines between hunter and hunted and good and evil, eventually becoming a monster himself in his twisted pursuit of revenge."

From Korean genre master Kim Jee-woon (The Good, The Bad and The Weird and A Tale of Two Sisters) Devil is shockingly violent and stunningly accomplished, transcending the police procedural and pushing the boundaries of extreme Asian cinema in surprising and thrilling new ways.

'I SAW THE DEVIL' US play dates

(source:

Magnet Pictures

)

Opening

3/4/2011

West Los Angeles, CA: Nuart Theatre

New York, NY: IFC Center 5

3/11/2011

Berkeley, CA: Shattuck Cinemas 10

San Francisco, CA: Lumiere Theatre 3

Minneapolis, MN: Lagoon Cinema

3/18/2011

San Diego, CA: Ken Cinema

Denver, CO: Mayan Theatre

Washington, DC: E Street Cinema

Cambridge, MA: Kendall Square Cinema

Portland, OR: Hollywood Theatre

3/25/2011

Atlanta, GA: Midtown Art Cinemas 8

Chicago, IL: Music Box

University City, MO: Tivoli Theatre

Austin, TX: Alamo Ritz

4/1/2011

Tucson, AZ: The Loft Cinema

Salt Lake City, UT: Tower Theatre

Seattle, WA: Varsity Theatre

4/2/2011

Columbus, OH: Gateway 8

4/15/2011

Houston, TX: River Oaks Theatre

4/22/2011

Tempe, AZ: MADCAP Theaters 3

4/24/2011

Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia-off screen

4/28/2011

Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico

[rubie]

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]

February 27, 2011

I SAW THE DEVIL

by KJ Doughton filmthreat.com

A woman’s broken body being dragged through stark-white snow. A human head rolling along a river-bottom, its raven hair swirling with the tides. The flashlights of a forensic team, gleaming off black waters and casting light into even darker skies.

Awful. Beautiful.

“I Saw the Devil” is a gorgeous film about horrible things. Days after the screening, I still carry its unsettling baggage with me. Korean genre master Kim Jee-woon has assembled this Frankensteinian beast with surgical skill. But do you really want his bloody hands leaving their imprint on your brain?

Remember when “Se7en” was subversive and shocking? Compared to “I Saw the Devil,” it’s a life-affirming lifter-upper. Did “Blue Valentine” bum you out? It’s visual Prozac compared to this cinematic Quaalude overdose. Even so… “I Saw the Devil” is art of the highest order, an unflinching vision brought to full bloom. I love it. I hate it.

“I Saw the Devil” is like pitch-black Charles Bronson with subtitles (it was made, and then banned, in Korea). Elite special agent Dae-hoon (Lee Byung-hyun) is forever scarred by the brutal death of his pregnant fiancée. Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik of “Oldboy,” another feel-bad classic), a deplorable serial killer, is the culprit.

Completely and utterly warped by his lover’s tragic demise, Dae-hoon seeks revenge. But not just any old payback. He wants to toy with Kyung-chul. Wants to maim his nemesis one fleshy bit at a time. Wants to paw, catlike, then watch this lunatic squirm before inflicting the next clawed swipe.

“I Saw the Devil” begins where other thrillers typically wrap up. Early into its first reel, Dae-hoon has already captured Kyung-chul, force-feeding the dangerous cretin a transmitter-pill. While this ingested tracking device remains in the killer’s digestive system, our scarred “hero” can hone in on him. Sever an Achilles tendon, perhaps. Then set him loose again.

But there’s a big problem. The longer that Kyung-chul is toyed with, the more pissed off he gets. Worse yet, he seems impervious to conventional human feelings like pain or sorrow. Each moment out of custody is another opportunity to gleefully inflict more mayhem onto innocent bystanders. By keeping this creeper alive in selfish, single-minded pursuit of vengeance, Dae-hoon is aiding and abetting his prey.

Delicate moments provide respites from the violence – or do they? Two grieving men share a park bench, cocooned by comforting clouds of mist. But their sad, empty eyes merely magnify the impact of their loss. Another scene lingers on the face of a man confronting an awful truth. His hand rises to stunned face, jaw dropping in mortified disbelief.

These are the film’s “light touches.”

As for the “dark” factor…. just when you think the film’s gory cycle of revenge has reached its limit, something even more despicable happens. Think cannibalism, fish hooks, and guillotines. Kim Jee-woon further intensifies the film’s projected human wounds through vivid music and sound effects. Mournful strings. The cold jingle of metal chains dragging across a concrete floor. The dull “clunk” of metal hitting bone.

Strong stuff. But however furious its violence, “I Saw the Devil” is no exploitation film. It’s as serious as a heart attack, posing two fascinating questions: is vengeance really all that sweet? Can a jaded psychopath be “forced” to feel emotion? Kim Jee-woon has perspectives on both, and they’re hit home with maximum impact. Dae-hoon and Kyung Chul come across as real men. We feel for the former. We loathe the latter. Reluctantly, we come to understand both.

“I Saw the Devil” is a dazzling downer. Artistically, it’s a great piece of work. But do we really need another onscreen trip to hell, however well-crafted the hand basket?

[rubie]

March 2, 2011

The Weekend Warrior: March 4 - 6

Source: Edward Douglas comingsoon.net

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies. Tune in every Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check back on Thursday night for final projections based on actual theatre counts. (Sorry, we're a bit late this week due to Oscars and other commitments.)

This week's "Chosen One" is the dark serial killer thriller I Saw the Devil (Magnet/Magnolia) by Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters), which you can read more about below.

THE CHOSEN ONE:

I Saw the Devil (Magnet/Magnolia)

Starring Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik, Oh San-ha, Kim Yoon-seo

Directed by Kim Ji-woon (The Good, The Bad, The Weird, A Tale of Two Sisters)

Written by Hoon-jung Park

Genre: Thriller, Crime

Unrated

Tagline: "Evil Lives Inside"

Plot Summary: After a brutal serial killer (played by Old Boy star Choi Min-sik) kills his pregnant fiancée, a secret service agent played by Lee Byung-hun decides to take things into his own hand to find and get revenge on the psychotic murderer, leading to a chase across the city.

Interview with Kim Ji-woon

I've been a fan of Korea's Kim Ji-woon ever since I first saw his horror movie A Tale of Two Sister, a really disturbing take on a ghost story, and while I thought the premise for his latest I Saw the Devil sounded a bit too similar to the Korean film The Chaser, I was not prepared for what I would witness when I first saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival last September.

Serial killer films have been a cinematic mainstay, especially in the last 10 or 15 years with David Fincher's Se7en and Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs paving the way for many international knock-offs. South Korea has particularly embraced the genre, but in exploring this territory, Kim Ji-woon takes things to the extreme just like with everything else he does, making the viewer uneasy from the very opening as a pretty young woman is stranded in the middle of nowhere and is found by an odd-behaving stranger who happens to be exactly the wrong person you want to meet when you're alone and vulnerable. But her fiancé, a special agent played by Korean superstar Byung-hun Lee, is also the wrong guy you want to mess with, and when he finds out what has happened to the pregnant mother of his child, he swears to find and make the perpetrator pay. It doesn't take him long to find Choi Min-sik's character, breaking a lot of bones along the way, but instead of outright killing him, he knocks him unconscious and forces a GPS tracker into his system so he can keep tabs on what he does.

Director Kim always gets great performance out of his casts and this time, he has two of Korea's biggest male stars at the top of their game playing polar opposites and each delivering some of their finest work. The character played by Choi Min-sik is fairly despicable because he doesn't just kill women, he also uses them to fulfill his sexual urges, something we see in two of the film's most disturbing scenes. Throughout these tortures, Ji-woon's camera never flinches and it's really hard to look away as well, which makes the viewer question their own entertainment by what they're watching.

Eventually, the killer seeks refuge among a group of similarly-minded murderers who actually cannibalize their prey for food, but he's eventually found again and their battle resumes. In that sense, I Saw the Devil isn't just a creepy and disturbing thriller but also quite a solid action flick, though one that's extremely violent and brutal, and it's always clear that Choi's character is quite outmatched by Lee.

While it's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend I Saw the Devil because it's not for the squeamish and some viewers may be highly disturbed by what Kim puts you (and Choi) through, those looking for a journey into the darker side of human nature that's on par with some of the best serial killer thrillers should be significantly impressed with the results.

I Saw the Devil opens in New York and L.A. on Friday.

MOVIE REVIEW

I Saw the Devil

(2011)

Reviewed by

Lisa Schwarzbaum

ew.com

EW's GRADE: B

Limited Release: Mar 04, 2011

Length: 141 Minutes

Genres: Drama, Foreign Language

Charismatic Korean star Choi Min-sik found international fame as a man bent on revenge in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy. In director Kim Jee-woon's wildly violent, genre-pushing vengeance pic (I Saw the Devil), Choi goes to town as the embodiment of murdering, torturing evil; Lee Byung-hun plays the equally mono-minded special agent seeking maniacal revenge for the death of his pregnant fiancée. Somewhere in all the blood (sickening realism is a selling point), a question is posed: When does the one fighting a monster become a monster himself? B

[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.

[rubie]

March 3, 2011

Korean horror film blends gore and philosophy

by Alison Driscoll Washington Square News

In the same vein of Korean revenge films as Park Chan Wook's "Lady Vengeance" and "Oldboy" is horror auteur Kim Jee-Woon's "I Saw The Devil," a disturbing cat-and-mouse chase of redemption, revenge and regret.

The film centers around special agent Soo-hyun's (Lee Byung-hun) attempts to avenge his fiancée's graphic torture and murder. Like most Korean films, the protagonist finds his quarry within the film's first 45 minutes, unlike American thrillers in which the majority of the film is the chase. The rest of its runtime focuses on the interactions between the two enemies.

Soo-hyun uses his connections at the police station (aside from his gig as a secret agent, his late fiancée's father was a police chief) to compile a list of four possible suspects. After finding the first two and determining that they are not culpable, Soo-hyun finds the murderous Kyung-chul ("Oldboy"'s Choi Min-sik). Soo-hyun repeatedly runs into Kyung-chul, each time letting him go after beating him horrifically.

Interesting philosophical questions arise throughout the movie that recent American thrillers have not bothered to bring up. Soo-hyun's circle of friends and family know what he's doing, and, like the audience, ask how far he will go before he's finished. "It won't bring her back," says Se-yeon, the victim's sister. An even more frightening point is made by one of Kyung-chul's friends, resident cannibal Tae-ju (Moo-seong Choi): "He's the same as us. He's enjoying the excitement of going out on a hunt." At about the two-hour mark we've seen enough violence to last us a lifetime, and the disquieting question of "When will Soo-hyun stop?" comes to the forefront. Of course, Tae-ju is right; Soo-hyun has begun to lose himself in his hell-bent revenge spree and is close to usurping Kyung-chul's position as resident torturer. But neither Kyung-chul nor Soo-hyun know when to stop, each continuing to find new ways to make the other bleed.

The two continue their downward spiral of revenge and pain until the very end. Neither makes it out unharmed and even Soo-hyun, a South Korean James Bond — if James Bond had the guts to rip your Achilles tendon out and floss with it — is reduced to tears. The film is a Nietzschean take on the usual revenge story, gazing into the abyss and so on, but still retains a gratuitous amount of blood and gore. "I Saw the Devil" attracts with its thrilling chase and intense performances, but maintains its chokehold in its ethical labrinynth.

Alison Driscoll is a contributing writer. E-mail her at film@nyunews.com.

[rubie]

March 2, 2011

KIM JEE-WOON, “I SAW THE DEVIL”

By Damon Smith filmmakermagazine.com

Kim Jee-woon talks cult filmmaking, violence and the theme of vengeance.

Korea’s love affair with genre film continues unabated in the hands of cult favorite Kim Jee-woon, the versatile 46-year-old writer-director of A Bittersweet Life (revenge thriller), The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (Eastern Western), and the award-winning A Tale of Two Sisters (ghost story). This avatar of Extreme Asian cinema certainly has his share of fans at home and abroad—a major retrospective of Kim’s work, “Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Jee-woon,” ends a five-day run at Brooklyn’s BAM Rose Cinemas this evening—but his latest ultra-stylish provocation, I Saw the Devil, made the censors queasy. Several minutes of the film were trimmed before its world premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival so that it could be publicly exhibited in South Korea, and now Magnolia Pictures (through its genre-focused wing, Magnet Releasing) is releasing the director’s cut with the offending scenes intact.

Turning catch-the-serial-killer conventions on their head with dark flashes of humor and imaginative flair, I Saw the Devil introduces a psychopathic part-time school-bus driver named Kyung-chul (Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik) whose latest victim, dispatched in the grisliest manner imaginable, happens to be the daughter of a retired police chief. Most distraught is her fiancée Soo-hyeon (Lee Byung-hun), an agent for the National Intelligence Service who acquires a dossier on a few of the most likely suspects—repeat sex offenders and men suspected of killing for sport—and begins to hunt them down, meting out punishment as he sees fit. When he finally catches up to the monstrous Kyung-chul, however, nabbing him in the act of sodomizing a new victim, Soo-hyeon’s real agenda becomes clear: He intends to torture the maniac, inflicting as much pain and humiliation as possible, then release him so the brutal pattern can be repeated. (After battering the unconscious Kyung-chul martial-arts style in a botanical garden, he forces him to swallow a pill-size GPS tracking device—and then leaves him in an open grave.) Subsequent meetings bring them closer together, spiritually as well as physically, in the manner of John Woo’s The Killer. Gruesome visions of dismemberment and cannibalism are not to all tastes, clearly, even if Kim’s stated concern is to examine the irony of audiences identifying with a sadistic hero. But suffice to say that the film’s noirish, color-saturated visuals and one tour de force setpiece—a knife attack in the back seat of a taxi choreographed for a 360-degree shot—are where the film tilts into genuine artistic expressionism.

Filmmaker spoke briefly with Kim about genre, the limits of violence, and the ethics of vengeance. Magnolia Pictures opens I Saw the Devil on Friday.

Filmmaker: Do you think different genres reflect different values?

Kim: There are many kinds of fears in our lives, and each genre of film has a very representative fear that it [represents]. You could say that sci-fi is the fear of the future or uncertainty, melodrama would be the fear of losing love or love that may not be achieved, horror could be the fear of something unseen, and thriller or action films could be the fear of violence or danger. So I think genre is one of the most immediate and adequate ways of dealing with these different kinds of fears and dilemmas.

Filmmaker: What do you think is the proper mode of expression for the thriller?

Kim: I think suspense is the most important aspect of thrillers—visually expressing that in the frame. That can take many different forms, [whether it's] a Hitchcock film or a Coen brothers film or a David Fincher film. They’re all working with thriller elements, but execute them with different styles. What I wanted to do with I Saw the Devil was to see this kind of thing pushed to the very limit of what’s possible, to really drive it all the way to the edge and see where that takes us.

Filmmaker: Could you say a little more about what “going to the limit” means in this instance?

Kim: There are moments in this film that are very close to the limit of what we think is acceptable and are pushed a little further. There are moments where you could have said “enough” and ended the scene right there, but we linger a little longer than usual. Really what I was trying to do was drive home the pain and the shock just a little harder and stronger to the audience. Of course, vengeance is the central theme of this film, but I was sticking very close to the emotional journey of Soo-hyeon, the cop character, and that’s probably why it comes to be so direct in that way. It’s about transferring my hurt and my pain and what I imagine my spouse to have felt when she was killed. And transferring that in exactly the same proportion to Choi min-sik’s character, and in effect, directly to the audience. If people were shocked by this, I don’t think it was purely a reaction to the violence. Rather there’s a certain recognition that audiences will make, an emotional connection that is possible, with seeing this normal person descend into such despicable and horrible acts. To see how far someone can go [with vengeance] is another shock that happens when you see the film.

Filmmaker: The theme of vengeance has been important in the Western literary tradition, in the plays of ancient Greece, for example, but moments of violence that were enacted for an audience were always connected to an ethics or moral lesson of some kind. What would you say are the ethics of I Saw the Devil?

Kim: If there’s a moment of confusion or discomfort or feeling that the subject matter is heavy in this film, it’s probably at that point when [a viewer] realizes what this vengeance really means. People have a fantasy regarding vengeance. At one point, every person thinks about something like this, but there are ways to suppress or contain it in their normal lives. Seeing this kind of vengeance that they fantasize about so literally and directly onscreen is a surprise to many people. There is the ethical and moral dilemma. Hopefully, they realize what is driving these actions, because there are circumstances that have brought it to this point. But there’s also a dual nature in that they want it to be carried out. So people will see both sides of what that really means—going to extremes to carry out this vengeance but also knowing that morally, socially, and ethically it is unacceptable in our own lives. In thinking about what direction I could take this story, since it wasn’t my own script, I came upon a passage from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, which roughly paraphrased was, “One that hunts the monster must be careful not to become the monster.” And the other passage was, “The longer you look into the abyss, the abyss will look back into you.” I felt those words very strongly and thought I could use those passages in flushing out Soo-hyeon’s character. Ultimately, the story is about one man’s very desperate, tragic circumstance, where he must become the devil to defeat the devil. It’s an inescapable situation he has no other way of resolving.

Filmmaker: Is it natural for you to work and express yourself in a way that appeals to critics and general audiences alike?

Kim: It’s definitely not an easy thing to do! [Laughs] It’s becoming more and more difficult for me to satisfy both of those audiences. There’s always going to be that divide of commercial and artistic films and I think there are times, because it’s becoming difficult, when I’d rather just cater to one of them. Ultimately, I make the film I want to make. That’s one of my first priorities, and I work in that direction.

Filmmaker: In what ways did the two actors you worked with here, Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun, express different shades of the monster you alluded to before?

Kim: There’s a moment in the film when Soo-hyeon puts the GPS device into Kyung-chul’s body, by forcing him to swallow the pill, and what that means symbolically is that he is becoming the same as the devil. He is breathing the same breath, he’s doing the same movements and speech, he hears everything that character is hearing by tracking and emulating him. By ratcheting up the action, the vengeance that he takes portioned out over the course of the film, he becomes an even more fearful force than the serial killer. Once that pill is out of Kyung-chul, that’s when the tables are turned.

Filmmaker: Does it surprise you the level of interest that people outside Korea have in your body of work?

Kim: I’m very happy that the film is being shown at what I hear is such an excellent and artistic institution, and the fact that it’s here in New York, such a culturally rich place, is obviously a happy occasion for me. Being able to show these films in a different context like this, and to be able to see the film met with a different kind of mindset, by different people with different kinds of lives, is an honor. So I’m glad it’s happening.

[rubie]

March 3, 2011

Heads Will Roll

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS nytimes.com

Magnet Release: Lee Byung-hun in the South Korean film “I Saw the Devil.”

Heads roll in “I Saw the Devil,” though not very far. The first, belonging to a lovely young woman (Oh San-ha), exits a police evidence box and stops at the feet of her dumbstruck fiancé, Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun). The second head is not nearly so pretty, but, by the time it tumbles from its torso, rather more eagerly anticipated.

Bookended by these severed noggins, this latest tale from the unpredictable South Korean director Kim Jee-woon is an operatically violent revenge fantasy in which leaky veins trump airtight logic. But who can blame Soo-hyun for behaving erratically when his lady love is in pieces, and her psychotic, school-bus-driving killer, Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik), is still racking up trembling female victims?

“Revenge is for movies,” says Soo-hyun’s should-have-been sister-in-law, batting her lashes at his anguished, impossibly handsome face. But Soo-hyun, a very special government agent, is having none of it, and off he goes on a cycle of catch, torture and release, assisted by a tracking device pinging in Kyung-chul’s cast-iron gut. With each gory encounter, both men will emerge more damaged, but only one will emerge battier. And it’s not the killer.

Despite an abundance of sanguinary glee (and a noticeable contempt for women), “I Saw the Devil” is a droll Nietzschean fable that’s fully aware of its lapses into absurdity. From an unexpectedly moving first act to a hilariously disgusting sojourn with Kyung-chul’s cannibal pal, Mr. Kim and his cinematographer, Lee Mogae, retain complete control of the film’s fluctuating tones and impressive set pieces.

As for Mr. Choi, his chief attribute on screen is a kind of implacable durability. After the worlds of hurt he absorbed as the avenger in the deliriously inventive “Oldboy,” this new batch of beatdowns probably feels like a vacation.

I SAW THE DEVIL

Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

Directed by Kim Jee-woon; written by Park Hoon Jung, adapted by Mr. Kim; director of photography, Lee Mogae; edited by Nam Na-young; music by Mowg; production design by Cho Hwa-sung; costumes by Kwon Yoo-jin; produced by Kim Hyun Woo and Jo Seong-won; released by Magnet Releasing. In Manhattan at the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. In Korean, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 21 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Lee Byung-hun (Soo-hyun), Choi Min-sik (Kyung-chul), Chun Kook-haun (Captain Jang), Chun Ho-jin (Detective Oh), Oh San-ha (Ju-yeon), Kim Yoon-seo (Se-yeon), Choi Moo-seong (Tae-ju) and Kim In-seo (Se-jung).

A version of this review appeared in print on March 4, 2011, on page C12 of the New York edition.

[rubie]

March 3, 2011

I Saw The Devil

B+ By Scott Tobias A.V.Club

The idea that revenge corrodes the soul of the avenger is an old theme in vigilante movies, perhaps because it’s the only moral route down an exceedingly dark path; otherwise, retribution and lawlessness rule the day. Korean director Park Chan-wook explored this theme thoroughly in a trilogy bookended by 2002’s Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and 2005’s Lady Vengeance, and epitomized by the 2003 cult smash Oldboy, a mega-revenge tale set to an operatic pitch. Enter Park’s countryman Kim Ji-woon, a gifted genre alchemist who fused J-horror style with florid melodrama in 2003’s A Tale Of Two Sisters and Eastern-ized the spaghetti Western with 2008’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Not to be outdone, Kim goes to ever-nastier extremes with I Saw The Devil, but he also extends the revenge theme into a mesmerizing study of the nature of evil itself.

Executed in high style, with a narrative coherence that sometimes eludes Park, I Saw The Devil opens with serial killer Choi Min-sik (star of Oldboy) claiming his latest victim, a female driver caught with a flat in a snowstorm. Turns out the woman’s fiancé, played by Lee Byung-hun, is an richard simmons-kicking special agent who receives the news stoically, then sets about finding the perpetrator and making sure he pays dearly for the crime. Using a high-tech GPS capsule that makes him constantly aware of Choi’s location, Lee seeks to torment before he kills, hoping to make Choi feel the same fear and pain he inflicted on Lee’s wife-to-be. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game that twists and turns and escalates in tension as it unfolds.

It should come as no surprise that Lee’s spectacular quest for revenge comes back to haunt him, but I Saw The Devil is less about that than about the immutability of evil, which can’t be transformed or obliterated, but simply exists, cold and black, as a force of absolute destruction. Lee looks into the abyss and the abyss looks back at him, with a twinkle in its eye. Though Kim’s penchant for black comedy makes it more palatable, I Saw The Devil is still a nasty piece of work, extreme even by the hair-raising standards of extreme Asian cinema. But for stout-hearted genre aficionados—“sickos,” if you will—it’s essential viewing.

[rubie]

March 3, 2011

Kim Jee-woon and Lee Byung-hun Interview: Vengeance is Mine

by Anne Thompson thompsononhollywood

Korean director Kim Jee-woon is the real deal. He’s a smart visually canny director with a sharp sense of humor who adeptly plays with genres, from his sixth film, the wacky Oriental western hit The Good, The Bad, and the Weird to the serial killer thriller I Saw the Devil, which also features Good Bad Weird star Lee Byung-hun.

This time, Lee plays a homicide detective on the hunt for an insane serial killer who wacked his pregnant wife in an opening sequence that will haunt me for life. This movie is not for the squeamish—Kim takes the violence about as far as anyone ever has—but he’s working out ideas; this vengeance plot with all its gore and evil, is in the service of art. After seeing the film in Toronto, I interviewed Kim and Lee at their first Sundance Film Festival, where the film played well. It opens Friday. The interview and a round-up of early reviews are below:

AT: Last year there was a movie here from Michael Winterbottom, The Killer Inside Me, that ignited a real firestorm of controversy because it was so violent. And I wondered, in Utah, was there any reaction? Because this movie is still going to ignite a little bit of response. Have you shown it in Korea yet? How big a hit was it in Korea?

Kim: The film was restricted two times for what was deemed violent content and somehow the film itself became a kind of monster to the Korean cinema, for some reason because of that. It was the first time a film was restricted like that twice.

AT: It means that certain people of a certain age cannot attend? What’s the cutoff there?

Kim: It has to be shown at only a restricted number of theaters that are allowed to screen restricted material. It can only show in specific theaters, not a general wide release, you have to go to a specific theater to watch the film, and it happened twice. But the problem is is that there is pretty much no theater that you can screen a film that’s been restricted like this because there’s so few of these theaters.

AT: So there are lines around the block to see it?

Kim: So basically they’re saying you can’t watch this film, that’s pretty much what it means by such limited number of screens. You pretty much can’t get to it.

AT: Did you know when you made this film that you were transgressing the taboos of your culture by making a film at this level of violence?

Kim: The level of violence that I was portraying in the film I thought was very on par with what I’ve seen in international films that were brought into Korea – and films in Korea that were released before, so I was surprised that my film and the portrayal of these things would be so adversely accepted.

AT: I would suggest the issues there are similar to the Winterbottom film, The Killer Inside Me. Did you by any chance see that film? I’m curious because it asks the audience to identify with the protagonist who is doing all of these things, as Hitchcock would do, you know, or Ripley. It’s a question of identifying with the perpetrator.

Kim: I heard a lot about the film, especially last year, and I think I heard that there were some very harsh reviews on it, and I should definitely take a look at the film, but I don’t particularly like very violent films myself, so…

AT: Really (laughs). Well let’s go back to the beginning. The villain is so insanely, egregiously horrible, that you want the cop to catch him, obviously, and the fact that he goes a little insane in the process of doing that, and adopts the same methods, is part of what’s so interesting about it. I want to know from you what was the genesis of this, and why if you don’t like violence, you took on this subject?

Kim: This kind of violence is the most prominent form of sickness in our modern society, whether it be person-to-person, or maybe organized governmental violence towards inequality and violence and just being forceful in that way. I think that kind of phenomena is one of the most prominent problems we see in modern society today. For me to portray this there has to be a point of irony in the film and trying to capture that irony is what I was coming up with, and the personal dilemma of a man that must become the devil to defeat the devil was what I was most interested in.

AT: Mr. Lee, you are the one who has to become the devil in order to beat the devil. Talk about what happens at the beginning of the film and what sets you off, who you are and what happens to you that makes you become this relentless pursuer of the devil, who slowly heads over in that direction.

Lee: Actually people think this is about one normal guy who becomes the devil, but I think this movie tells about the process of revenge and the telling. When the audience sees the process of revenge, people will think differently, because if we say somebody’s killed by someone, so he revenged him, then that makes sense, everybody agrees with the “Ok, you could do that.” But, if they see the detail of the revenge then they will think different.

AT: Yeah, you do get caught up in it. The movie sucks you into identifying – these people are so horrible, so awful, and they’re funny. They’re deliciously horrible, they’re entertainingly horrible, but at the same time you’re dead serious, and you get caught up in all the methods, all the different crazy ways that you achieve your ends. Who’s smarter than who? The villain is so brilliant that you have to be pretty damn good to get him. For you, what was the line between making the film entertaining and making it horrific?

Kim: I think that when I’m trying to make a film I want to make something that I would want to watch myself, rather than comparing myself to other films that have been made. I like to give the line of reference where I personally am able to enjoy the film that I am making. As far as filmmakers that I respect and like, Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, David Fincher, even Tarantino. I think these directors know how to use violence well and effectively so that the audience can feel the same kind of thing that way. Those are the kind of things I’m looking for and I’m trying to do, I’m trying to transfer these emotions to the audience.

AT: I understand. What sequence in the film for both of you was the most challenging and difficult to execute just logistically as you were shooting? I’m thinking perhaps of the elaborate sequence in the house.

Kim: Many people after they see the film are very curious about the camera rotating in the taxi scene, and the logistics of that, and the camera tracking the people inside the mansion moving around the whole thing is also of curiosity to people. I think those scenes are definitely time-consuming, but they weren’t particularly difficult. More so than any particular scene that was difficult was portraying the darkness of human beings and squeezing that out of people, I could say. To portray that and carry that on film was the most emotionally draining and painful thing to do. I think portraying the dilemma of becoming the devil that Shin has to go through, I think that’s the most difficult thing to film.

Lee: From the beginning to the end, it was so hard mentally and physically because from the beginning I have to keep the emotion of a lot of pain and loss –

AT: You lose your wife right at the beginning, your pregnant wife.

Lee: Yeah, I have to keep those emotions till the end, so that’s one of the hardest one. But one good thing was the ending. Actually, there was another ending scene, but I suggested to him to make this one the ending.

AT: Explain what the two different endings were.

Lee: It was really good and he was satisfied. Actually the Korean version and the oversees version is different. Especially the ending, there was no sound in the Korean version just only some music. Yesterday I was really surprised by that there was real live sound of my voice in the ending, so it was a little different. I always suggested, make the sound coming out in the theater, but he didn’t accept it in Korea, but he changed it in the overseas version.

AT: Tell me why (SPOILER ALERT).

Kim: It’s a small difference, but in the Korean version the last moments of him sobbing are kind of muted out and there’s no sound from him, but rather the ending is carried through with a bit of swelling music. I felt that maybe it was imposing too much on the audience to identify with the music and draw out some more emotion. I was thinking that maybe for the international cut that I would keep his sobbing as regular audio and focus more on the person and maybe tone down the music a bit more so I’m not forcing you to feel. It’s less of an imposition on the audience, so I wanted to draw the focus back to the person on the screen. I think if the Korean version was focused on some definite ending for the film, than this focus on swelling emotion and stuff like that. In the international version I was trying to focus on more of his last moments of his visage, of what we see on camera, and focusing on the actor.

AT: Were those the only changes made in the international version, or did you tweak it throughout?

Kim: I put back in a lot of the more violent scenes that were taken out for the Korean cut because of the restrictions.

AT: So what I saw in Toronto was the international version?

Kim: Yes.

[taebins_luver]

after watching this movie two days ago, i still couldn't get the images out of my mind.

just the blood, guts and gore of it all, stuck literally.

Byung Hun's character in this movie kept me at the edge of my seat,

the ideas of what to do next just kept spinning in me, almost making me just as insane as Min Sik's character lol

the bf was almost scared to sit next to me as to all the 'ideas' i was spitting out at the screen.

but i really have to say, the ending itself just wasn't what i would have expected it to be,

merely cutting the monsters head off just didn't do justice for me

i give it a A-

i just felt the ending was rushed much since it was a 2+ hour movie already

[rubie]

March 4, 2011

Korean film "Poetry" sold to a total of 20 countries

Reporter: Lucia Hong luciahong @ Editor: Jessica Kim jesskim @ <Ⓒ

10Asia

All rights reserved>

Related excerpt only

Hallyu star Lee Byung-hun starrer "I Saw the Devil," which was already sold to France, Japan, Germany, the United States, Russia, Turkey, Portugal, Hong Kong and Taiwan, raked in additional sales from Australia's E One Entertainment, Spain's Media Tres and Thailand's STG. The film is set to open in various countries later on this year. "I Saw the Devil" also starring top Korean actor Choi Min-sik, is about a secret agent (Lee) who plots revenge against a serial killer (Choi) who killed his fiancee

.

March 3, 2011

Finecut reveals post-Berlin sales

Deals signed for 'Ghost,' '71,' 'Devil'

By HAN SUNHEE variety.com

SEOUL -- South Korea-based sales agency Finecut has revealed a number of deals inked at Berlin's European Film Market.

It sold Korean pic "Hello Ghost" to Catchplay for Taiwan and MegaFilm for China. Pic, which stars Cha Tae-hyun ("Speed Scandal"), is a family comedy about a man who sees ghosts. It has sold more than 3 million tix for local distrib N.E.W. and is playing in U.S. theaters through CJ CGV Holdings.

As previously announced, Finecut closed a deal at the EFM with Chris Columbus' 1492 Pictures to remake the film.

Finecut also inked deals at Berlin for "71 -- Into the Fire" with Showbox Media Group for the U.S. and Australia, Atlantic for Scandinavia and Hwa Yea Multimedia for Malaysia.

Helmer Kim Jee-woon's "I Saw the Devil" added an Australia/New Zealand deal with eOne Ent. and Thailand with STG. The film is being released in the U.S. this week by Magnolia Pictures.

The most successful Korean romantic comedy of last year, "Cyrano Agency," was sold to Japan's Fine Films and Thailand's STG, in addition to its deal for Singapore (Clover Films) and Taiwan (Catchplay).

[rubie]

March 3, 2011

MOVIE REVIEW

I SAW THE DEVIL Sweet smell of revenge

V.A. Musetto nypost.com

In Korean, with English subtitles.

Running time: 141 minutes.

Not rated (nudity, gore, nonstop violence).

At the IFC Center, Sixth Avenue and Third Street.

When it comes to bloody revenge movies, it's difficult to beat the South Koreans.

You might remember "Oldboy" (2003), which inspired a South Korean student to go on a shooting rampage on a Virginia college campus, killing 33 people, including himself.

That film, which was warmly received by critics before the murders, stars Choi Min-sik, one of his country's most popular actors, as a businessman held prisoner in a hotel room for 15 years, unaware of his kidnapper's motives.

Now Choi is back in another revenge chiller, "I Saw the Devil," by Kim Jee-woon ("A Tale of Two Sisters").

Korean horror star Choi Min-sik portrays a serial killer stalked by a cop seeking revenge.

This time he's a serial killer being tracked by the government agent (Lee Byung-hun) whose pregnant fiancée is killed and dismembered in the film's gory opening.

But this is no ordinary revenge caper. The G-man quickly tracks down the killer, beats him to a pulp, implants a tracking device and lets him escape -- so the whole process can be repeated over and over and over, even if it means more women must die.

He wants the murderer to suffer as much as his victims did.

You'll squirm in your seat as blood flows and bodies crunch for nearly 2½ hours. Even so, "I Saw the Devil" is a masterpiece of its genre -- superbly acted, directed, filmed and composed.

You won't soon forget it -- if you have the guts to see it.

The Movie Watcher’s Guide to March 2011

Features By

FSR Staff

filmschoolrejects.com

We realize that you’re probably sitting at home right now, chewing your own nails off and wondering what movies are coming out this month. Maybe you’re even wondering why no one on the entire internet has said anything about them. Strange, we know.

How will you know what to watch this month?

Fortunately, Rob Hunter and Cole Abaius spent the entire month of February drinking tiger’s blood, wandering the Oscar red carpet, and copying by hand every copy of Below The Line in order to keep you informed about what’s coming out in March.

You watch movies, so this guide’s for you.

I Saw the Devil

Who did it

? Directed by Jee-woon Kim; Written by Hoon-jung Park; Starring Byung-hun Lee and Min-sik Choi

What is it

? A cop goes outside the law to take revenge on a serial killer, to rescue his wife, to take revenge on a serial killer, and to take more revenge on a serial killer.

Why should we care

? What’s better than a movie where good triumphs over evil by seeking bloody retribution? A movie where a man gets that retribution and lets the bad guy go so he can track him down all over again and kick his

richard simmons

some more. Those fortunate enough to see it at Fantastic Fest (like me) reveled in the amount of red stuff and schadenfreude being spilled when Oldboy star Min-sik Choi gets tormented simply because he liked to kill people for fun. Plus, The Good, The Bad, The Weird director Jee-woon Kim sure does know how to make a beautiful flick. -CA