[Movie 2010] I Saw The Devil, 악마를 보았다

[xesre8]

Thank you, Rubie for always updating this thread & providing us with information on this movie

Happened to get hold of this show & i have watched this in raw (without subtitles). Though i do not understand korean language thoroughly, i had a hard time sitting through this whole movie with it's bloody & grotesque scenes. I sat through it though, anticipating what will happen next every moment. Both lead actors were awesome, bringing the characters alive! Gosh, my hair still stands when some of the scenes flashes in my mind now. Though it left me with an unsettling heart that night, i concluded this is still a movie worth watching.

[rubie]

Thanks xesre8 for the warm words, really appreciate the good thoughts and sharing of the movie feedback especially. I can't agree more with you on the fast pacing and strong acting of the 2 leads especially. They're just too good playing their incredibly intense onscreen personas that it's hard to imagine otherwise. I must say that it's truly an unforgettable movie.. though quite icky for me but braved it all to watch Lee Byung Hun .. and even after I've read enough spoilers to know where to cover my eyes.. it still didn't prevent the shock of watching such a revenge so brutal, yet it's the only ending fitting such a cruel monster.

May 3, 2011

I Saw The Devil Review

BY ADMIN thefilmpilgrim.com

Release Date (UK) – 29th April 2011

Certificate (UK) – 18

Country – South Korea

Runtime – 138 mins

Director – Jee-Woon Kim

Starring – Byung-Hun Lee, Min-sik Choi and Gook-hwan Jeon

I Saw The Devil is a typical South Korean gore fest thriller from A Tale of Two Sisters director Jee-Woon Kim. The plot follows the story of Soo-hyeon (Byung-Hun Lee), a secret agent whose fiancee is brutally murdered by serial killer Kyung-chul (Oldboy‘s Min-sik Choi). He takes a sebatical to get his revenge in a very unique way, playing a game of cat and mouse with Kyung-chul as he repeatedly gives him a savage beating but then lets him go. As the two fight battle after battle it seems that Soo-hyeon is becoming just as evil as psychopath Kyung-chul…

Although from a tired and repetitive avenge genre, I Saw The Devil is an impressively exciting and fresh take on the scenario. Yes the violence is savage (with everything from suffocation to rape), and certainly not for the faint hearted but the cat and mouse aspect of the chase invigorates the film with anticipation and tension, will Soo-hyeon eventually snap and kill Kyung-chul we wonder each time he meets this clearly evil man. Or will Kyung-chul eventually realise that Soo-hyeon has bugged him and retaliate?

As well as some fabulous pacing, acting and some very impressive action fights (a scene when the two first meet in a secluded greenhouse is a clear highlight) I Saw the Devil is worth watching alone for some iconic cinematography.

From some beautifully revealing close ups on our two protagonists expressions to the detail of steam rising up as Kyung-chul washes away the blood from the floor of his hideout, there are some truly memorable scenes.

As well as the issues of morality, one particular scene also provides a very interesting critique of the media and the modern lack of privacy. As the police search for Soo-hyeon’s fiance’s body and find her decapitated head, the media swarm over the crime scene as the film spirals into the almost farcical; the forensic team are attacked by the media mob, and end up dropping the box that the head is in and it rolls onto the floor in front of the grieving family.

However the film does run for over two hours, rather unnecessarily including some unmotivated attacks on randomers by Kyung-chul, that don’t progress the narrative.

The finale twist in the plot though is well worth waiting for and I Saw the Devil is easily one of the best films to emerge from the few exports of South Korean cinema that do manage to reach UK shores.

I Saw the Devil is out at cinemas now and released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 9th

[rubie]

May 6, 2011

I Saw The Devil: the Lee Byung-hun interview

Source: easternkicks.com

We talk to Lee Byung-hun (A Bitterweet Life, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, G.I. Joe) about his latest collaboration with Kim Jee-woon, revenge thriller I Saw The Devil..

Good looking and almost impossibly charismatic, Lee Byung-hun plays one of his darkest roles yet – and that’s from someone who has played a villain several times! Lee plays a special agent who goes to extraordinary lengths to revenge his pregnant fiancée, but in doing so becomes as much of a monster as the serial killer he taunts…

It’s your third film with director Kim Jee-woon, what keeps you coming back for more? I’ve heard this time your involvement was more by accident?

Kim Jee-Woon is famous for doing many different genres of film. I have worked with him many times before and wanted to do a different genre myself. I wanted to take that journey with him. Kim Jee-Woon thought I was going to be in the US so he didn’t approach me at first but when he found out I would be in Korea he gave me the script and it was decided very quickly.

This is perhaps one of your darkest roles; your characters determination to get revenge leaves him as amoral as the killer he’s trying to punish. What attracted you to the part?

Everybody has at one time had the feeling of revenge. For that feeling to actually be played out physically is very hard. The script is very strong and could actually make people feel a sense of relief. Even though we feel revenge, normally we do not act on it.

The film marked Choi Min-sik’s return to cinema after a four year gap with a typically exuberant performance, and you play your role as the complete opposite. How was it playing against Choi, and how was he to work with?

Choi Min-sik is an actor that has a lot of energy. Working with an actor like that made me feel more energized. The build up was incredible. It was a good experience working with him.

Previously Kim Jee-woon has put you through quite a lot during filming (if I remember rightly you broke an ankle, horse riding for The Good, The Bad, The Weird), and this role seems equally as physical. Did you run into any problems on this film?

When I first read the script I felt it was a revenge story that would make people feel good or relieved. Actually playing the role it was very difficult mentally. While filming, it was difficult because it was hard keeping a revengeful demeanour throughout the whole film. From beginning to end I had to feel the loss of my fiancée and have revenge on my mind.

The film caused some controversy when it was released in South Korea, requiring two rounds of cuts to enable it to be released. Why do you think that was, and were you disappointed by how it was received there?

The first time the rating was not approved it was the first time for me so it was amusing. It made me want to see the film even more. I was curious why it didn’t get approved. The second time I was worried it would not screen at all. I was worried the fans would not be able to see it.

Thanks to Lee Byung-hun for his time and Olivia from Optimum for (ahem) finally sending the answers through.

I Saw The Devil is released on UK DVD and Blu-ray on Monday, 9 May 2011. We reviewed the film at the London Korean Film Festival late last year, and also spoke to director Kim Jee-woon.

[rubie]

May 7, 2011

Korean film 'I Saw the Devil' wins 2011 Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival

The jury awarded the latest work of Kim Ji-Woon with the first prize as part of the Official Section

Source: eitb.com l news.nate.com 1 l 2

Korean film 'I Saw the Devil' wins 2011 Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival.

Photo: fantbilbado.net

FANT-Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival has awarded the Korean film I Saw the Devil with the top prize of the competition.

The jury decided unanimously to award the latest work of Kim Ji-Woon with the first prize as part of the Official Section after considering his film "daring and courageous". They also considered "interesting" the way in which the South Korean filmmaker shot the film.

I Saw the Devil tells the story of the boyfriend of the latest victim of a terrible serial killer who decides to take revenge. The film arrived to FANT after being screened in the Toronto, San Sebastian, Sitges, Sundance and Gérardme Film Festivals. Kim Ji-Woon is also known for A tale of two sisters and The good, the bad, the weird. He received the Best Director Award in Fantasporto 2011.

[rubie]

May 8, 2011

I Saw The Devil ranked #14 at IMDB list of best titles for 2010-2011

Source: imdb.com

[rubie]

May 8, 2011

I Saw The Devil DVD review

Ryan Lambie denofgeek.com

I Saw The Devil is, therefore, as much an exploration of our morbid fascination with the revenge movie genre as it is a revenge movie in its own right

The latest in a long line of South Korean revenge movies, I Saw The Devil arrives on DVD. Here’s Ryan’s review of a relentlessly disturbing film..

The last decade has seen a number of quite extraordinary revenge movies emerge from the shores of South Korea. Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy is perhaps the most well known, but Chul-soo Yang's low-budget Bedevilled is equally notable, with a moving central performance from Seo Yeong-hee.

While the topic of revenge is often associated with cheap exploitation flicks like I Spit On Your Grave or Last House On The Left, both Bedevilled and Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy have more in common Ingmar Bergman's 1960 drama, The Virgin Spring (which undoubtedly influenced many revenge films that came after, including Last House), and are marked out by their startling violence, sombre tone and stunning cinematography.

Directed by Kim Ji-woon, I Saw The Devil follows in the footsteps of those earlier South Korean revenge pictures and is quite possibly the most extreme and disturbing film of its type yet made, matched only by Gaspar Noé's Irreversible for sheer gut-wrenching ferocity.

Choi Min-sik (who played Oh Dae-su in Chan-wook's Oldboy) stars as greasy sociopath Kyung-chul, a school bus driver who spends his free time kidnapping and murdering women in graphic, horrible ways. One of Kyung-chul's victims happens to be the fiancée of Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), an athletic secret service agent whose single-minded thirst for revenge proves to be more than a match for the killer's depravity.

Revenge movies generally fall into two camps. In the first, we have such films like Death Wish and its sequels, in which the central character is an avenging angel triumphantly vanquishing his enemies. In the second, we have films such as Last House On The Left or The Hills Have Eyes, in which the protagonists' lust for revenge sees them become almost as barbaric as those who have wronged them.

I Saw The Devil is an unusual mixture of these two genre strands. Soo-hyun, in his search to find his fiancée's killer, begins beating up and torturing the lowlifes of Seoul, gradually working his way down a list of suspects until he catches up with Kyung-chul.

It's here that I Saw The Devil's events take an unusual and disturbing turn. Rather than simply killing the despicable killer, as Death Wish's Paul Kersey would have done, Soo-hyun instead beats Kyung-chul to a pulp and then lets him go. In what soon develops into a perverse game of hide-and-seek, Soo-hyun follows the killer everywhere he goes, swooping in to inflict further injuries on him as soon as he attempts to harm a potential victim.

Intoxicated by the repeated act of carrying out his revenge, Soo-hyun becomes addicted to the tracking and tormenting of Kyung-chul, and appears oblivious to the collateral damage his pursuit causes.

I Saw The Devil is, therefore, as much an exploration of our morbid fascination with the revenge movie genre as it is a revenge movie in its own right. Any frisson of guilty pleasure evoked by Soo-hyun's initial hunt for the killer is soon replaced by the bludgeoning repetition of the film's violence, which refuses to allow the viewer to rest.

Its exploration of the corrupting nature of violence is a familiar theme from numerous other revenge movies, and like Last House On The Left, appears to question why people watch such films in the first place.

It's an undeniably horrible, nihilistic film, and would probably be entirely unwatchable if it were not for Lee Mo-gae's sumptuous cinematography. 'Restraint' may seem like an odd word to use to describe a film as excessive as I Saw The Devil, but Kim Jee-woon uses a surprising amount of discretion in much of the film's more violent moments, and there are isolated instances - an aerial shot of falling snow, or a car interior at night - of stark, surreal beauty.

As well made as it is, I Saw The Devil lacks the sly brilliance of Oldboy, however. Choi Min-sik's seething performance as the repellent serial killer is typically brilliant (and bears a passing resemblance to Robert De Niro's turn as Max Cady in Martin Scorcese's 1991 Cape Fear remake), but his nemesis Soo-hyun is a thin and underwritten character, and even an athletic, sad-eyed performance from Lee Byung-hun fails to give him much more depth.

The constantly shifting tone of I Saw The Devil will be decidedly unsettling for some, too, with the film bombarding the viewer with hideous imagery in one scene and neatly choreographed martial arts sequences the next. There are moments, too, where the film feels gratuitous and misogynistic.

Most certainly not a film for everyone's tastes, I Saw The Devil is like a distillation of fifty years' worth of revenge movies, an occasionally absurd, frequently unpleasant shriek of cinema. Those brave enough to watch I Am The Devil are unlikely to forget the experience in a hurry. Like Gaspar Noé's similarly disturbing Irreversible, it's among a handful of movies I'd prefer never to see again.

Extras

Once you've cringed through the main feature, there's a ‘making of' documentary, which largely consists of behind-the-scenes footage, a trailer and TV spot, as well as some brief yet illuminating interviews with the film's director and crew.

Film: 3/5 stars

Disc: 3/5 stars

[rubie]

May 9, 2011

"I Saw the Devil" awarded top prize at film fest in Spain

Reporter : Lucia Hong luciahong@ Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@ <ⓒ10Asia All rights reserved> news.nate.com

Korean thriller "I Saw the Devil" was awarded the top prize at the 17th annual FANT-Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival over the weekend, according to the official website of the fest on Monday.

"Devil," helmed by famed Korean auteur Kim Jee-woon, beat out other international films including director Park Chan-wook's "Thirst" under the official selection for the jury award for best feature film at the fest held in the city of Bilbao of Spain starting from May 2 to 8.

The jury of the official selection considered "I Saw the Devil" as "daring and courageous" and "interesting" in the method of how the movie was shot by director Kim.

"Devil," starring Lee Byung-hun who plays a secret agent who plots revenge against a serial killer played by Choi Min-sik, has garnered much attention from both fans in Korea and overseas.

Since opening in local theaters on August 12 last year, the pic has attracted over 1.2 million moviegoers which amounts to a gross of about 9.3 billion Korean won.

The films was pre-sold to France, England Taiwan and Turkey during the Cannes film market in May and has also been invited to this year's Toronto International Film Festival under the Special Presentations category, which recognizes major films from famous directors.

[rubie]

May 9, 2011

Extended House Call: "I Saw The Devil", 2011's Most Badass Movie (So Far)

BY MATT BARONE complex.com

It takes a special kind of filmmaker to please both gorehounds and cinema purists. Though unfairly at times, advocates of higher art tend to scoff at movies punctuated by severed limbs and close-ups of skin-cutting and dripping blood. It’s one of the many reasons that many critics are quick to condemn horror films before their opening credits ever roll.

South Korean director Ji-woon Kim’s I Saw The Devil isn’t technically a horror flick; in the spirit of David Fincher, Jee-woon’s brutal character study is more of a midnight-dark psychological thriller. But with some of the rawest violence seen in some time, I Saw The Devil is sick enough to leave the Fangoria in effervescent glee.

Kim is no Eli Roth, though; similar to his past genre victories (A Tale Of Two Sisters, The Good, The Bad, The Weird), Kim treats the butchery as a bonus. He’s more concerned with developing rich characters and telling a powerful story in his own unique way. The result isn’t just a dream come true for violence junkies—it’s also the best serial killer movie to come out since Fincher’s Zodiac, and it'll probably remain just as underrated.

I Saw The Devil Is A Case Of Evil Vs. Good-Turned-Evil

Kim isn’t the only mind behind I Saw The Devil worth saluting; screenwriter Park Hoon Jung's script is a truly brave and impeccably paced knockout. Korean A-lister Lee Byung-hun stars as Soo-hyun, a special agent whose fiancee is savagely murdered on the side of the road. The killer is Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi), a methodical and even-keeled serial killer obsessed with abducting pretty young girls, taking them back to his secret lair, and dismembering their body parts while they’re still alive and screaming in agony. Once Soo-hyun figures out Kyung-chul’s identity, he makes it his mission to exact vengeance, but he’s not interested in jail time or any other form of traditional justice. Soo-hyun instead turns Kyung-chul’s life into a broken record of repeated richard simmons-kicking, torture, and graphic comeuppance. The killer, in effect, becomes the prey.

“I Saw The Devil is the best serial killer movie to come out since David Fincher’s Zodiac.”

What’s truly fascinating about I Saw The Devil is how well Jung’s script handles the Kyung-chul character. Despite his abhorrent tendencies, he’s a tough guy to loathe, a personality trait established through spending most of the film in his presence. Choi, a great actor at the top of his game here, is largely to credit. He could’ve degraded the character into a generic madman, the type of one-note slayer whose only concern is to scare all in his path. But that’s what makes I Saw The Devil so fascinating—in a clever reversal of guilt, Kyung-chul seems like the victim, a likeable man being stalked by an absolute psychopath. Of course, that’s not the truth, but Kim and Jung don’t want you to adhere to the facts. I Saw The Devil is a serial killer pic that blurs the line between villain and hero.

Choi’s strong performance is complemented by that of Byung-hun, who’s tasked with keeping Soo-hyun alternately sympathetic and maniacally infatuated with cruelty. He’s also an imposing physical presence, maneuvering through a series of fights and cat-and-mouse chase scenes with authentic stunt-work, which explains why Hollywood tried to utilize, but ultimately wasted, his talents to play Storm Shadow in 2009’s poorly executed G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra.

Squeamish Folks Be Warned: I Saw The Devil Is That Raw And Uncut Goodness

In I Saw The Devil, Byung-hun gets to pull off some ghastly moves: amongst other grotesqueries, he rips a guy’s mouth open with his bare hands, wallops an eyes with a dumbbell, and carves Choi’s Achilles heel with just the right amount of horridness to have a viewer upchuck his or her buttered popcorn.

For virtuoso action, I Saw The Devil is quite generous; two sequences in particular are worth citing in veneration. The first encounter between Soo-hyun and Kyung-chul is a grand slam of a brawl, set inside an enormous greenhouse and brilliantly staged, with easily discernable visuals and raging energy.

The second of Kim’s home-runs takes place inside a cab, in which an injured Kyung-chul rides shotgun, joined by a shady backseat passenger and a jumpy driver. Kim manipulates the respective characters’ motives before the scene erupts in a seemingly edit-free stab-a-thon captured by the director’s spinning camera. It’s hard not to draw comparisons to the widely heralded single-take, one-versus-many hallway fight in Old Boy, which also featured Choi as its lead. The guy’s catalog of badass scenes is pretty superlative at this point.

The year is still young, so it wouldn’t make sense to cast any “Best of 2011” praise upon I Saw The Devil just yet. But let’s just say that Kim’s film is certainly in the running; to take the fawning a step further, I Saw The Devil sets the standard for all genre films being released this year, whether made in Hollywood or shipped over from foreign markets. As an intense drama, it’s an actor’s showcase that’s unpredictable and, most importantly, emotionally potent. And then there’s the horror lover’s viscera scale, on which I Saw The Devil ranks as a must-see. Really, how often can you lump together those two degrees of commendation?

COOLEST EXTRA: "HDNet: A Look At I Saw The Devil" featurette (DVD/Blu-ray)

[rubie]

May 10, 2011

I Saw The Devil – Blu-Ray Review

by Kev Brown FilmShaft Staff filmshaft.com

Meet Kyun-chul, he enjoys playing guitar, taking late night drives and loves to go clubbing with women… that is, he likes to bash their heads in, torture them for a bit and then chop ’em up. He is the top notch cinematic psycho of I Saw The Devil and is so brilliantly played by Min-sik Choi that he could even make Hannibal Lector richard simmons his posh pants.

We are introduced to Kyun-chul as he prowls the night looking for a fresh victim. He comes across a lonely woman in a broken down car by the side of the road and after offering to help change a flat tyre, attacks her and then drags her back to his den for a spot of torture and murder. Unlucky for him, the woman’s husband is Kim Soo-hyeon and he’s in the secret service. Her heartbroken husband (another top performance by Byung-Hun Lee) identifies the loon that is responsible and goes about making him pay… big time.

He is not just after revenge; he wants to seriously john tesh the psycho up both physically and mentally. Throughout the film he catches him, gives him a taste of his own violent medicine, and then lets him go. And just when Kyun-chul thinks he’s safe to attack another woman, Kim Soo-hyeon appears again to dish out more pain. The hunter becomes the hunted or, to put it another way, the good guy becomes the psycho.

I Saw the Devil successfully mixes horror, comedy and action into what could have been a straight forward revenge thriller. In places it is genuinely frightening, very funny, and offers some great fight scenes. The film is expertly directed by Jee-woon Kim (A Tale of Two Sisters) who can successfully freak his audience out with a disturbing torture scene as much as he can make us laugh with a comedic stabfest in a speeding cab.

The sound and picture quality are of course sharper than Kyun-chul’s guillotine and the gallons of claret spilt looks dead red on blu-ray, but then you would still get the same extreme experience if you watched it on DVD, or if you had a time machine, VHS.

Rating: 4/5 stars

I Saw The Devil is released on Blu-ray and DVD from Monday 9th May

[rubie]

May 11, 2011

Jee-Woon Kim: I Saw The Devil director gives censors nightmares

Written by John Black Color Magazine

One of the leaders of the new Korean wave of cinema, director Jee-woon Kim faced the challenge of his young career when the Korea Media Rating Board demanded he make cuts to his latest film, I Saw The Devil, if he wanted it to be shown in theaters in his homeland.

"There's nothing in my movie that people haven't seen before," Jee-woon explained in a telephone interview. "If I had made it ten years ago, it would have been allowed to go to theaters as it was, but the political climate in Korea is very different today. It's much more conservative. Instead of letting people see the movie and make up their own minds, they'd rather censor it with their own changes."

Jee-woon eventually made the cuts the government demanded and the film was a huge hit in Korea. Before releasing it to American theaters, however, the director put back every single frame that he had been ordered to cut out.

There's no denying that I Saw The Devil is intense. The film starts with the brutal murder of a young woman stranded on the side of a highway with a flat tire in a snow storm. The man who stops to help her, played with unnerving intensity by Min-sik Choi (Old Boy) beats her into submission in the car, unaware that her boyfriend (Byung-hun Lee), the last person she called before the killer broke through her window, is a government agent. When the woman's severed head (and not much else) is found floating in a river, the agent takes a leave of absence from his job to track down her killer and make him pay.

By the end of the film, audiences will see several brutal murders, a number of gory fights, some torture scenes and, unless they look away in time, a stomach-churning dinner scene where the meat on the table was probably screaming for its life a few minutes before the guests sat down to eat. It's not for the squeamish, but that doesn't mean it's just another exploitation film; the graphic nature of the film makes it difficult to appreciate the art and style that director Jee-woon pours into every frame of his riveting thriller.

"It's never done just to shock or manipulate the audience. The movie doesn't glorify violence, but it also doesn't try to hide it," Jee-woon said. "If you tell a story about violent men, you need to show people the results of their violence. The story takes the time for the audience to get to know the men involved, both the killer and the cop. That doesn't mean you sympathize with either one through the entire film, but once you know a person, their actions become more important to you as a viewer."

I Saw The Devil is a big departure from Jee-won's last film, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, a Korean-style spaghetti western that was an international hit mainly due to its seamless blend of comedy with large-scale action scenes. The action in I Saw The Devil is far bloodier than anything Jee-woon showed audiences in his western, and the humor tucked in alongside the carnage is so dark you feel bad for laughing at it.

"After (The Good, the Bad, the Weird), which was such a big movie with lots of extras and big action scenes, I wanted to do something smaller, something more intense," Jee-woon said. "I really wanted more control over everything in the movie. When you're shooting dozens of people chasing each other across a desert, there is only so much you can control. When it's just two actors in a room, you can concentrate your energy a lot more to make every second count. Sometimes that means using music to underscore a scene or an emotion, sometimes that means just using silence to get the same results."

And sometimes, as audiences will see when they watch I Saw The Devil, it means filling the screen with images that will give them nightmares.

Copied from GBW.cafe.daum

6676

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Limited Edition 185

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Available at hmv.uk I Saw the Devil

May 9, 2011

I Saw the Devil | Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by AshFoo dogatemywookie.co.uk

Release Date: 9th May 2011

Genre: Bluray, Drama, Horror, Thriller

Rating: 18

Director: Jee-woon Kim

Studio: Optimum Entertainment

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

Having heard solely positive remarks about I Saw the Devil back in February at Glasgow’s Frightfest, the quick arrival on DVD and, thankfully, Blu-ray was welcomed with open arms, a kiss and a quick snuggle. After discovering how intensely gruesome the film was, to say i felt a tad dirty afterwards is a vast understatement. Not for the film, of course, for it’s a masterpiece, in my oh so humble opinion.

After his pregnant wife is brutally murdered, secret agent Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee) uses his talent and inside knowledge to track down serial killer Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi), a man who claims pleasure from murdering. Kim seeks revenge, as well as teaching the murderer a lesson that’ll stretch the boundaries of good and evil.

I Saw the Devil opens within a striking snowy backdrop, with cinematographer Lee Mo-gae claiming reign over the film’s visual stand point instantly, and once the blood begins to stream, it literally doesn’t stop. Jee-woon Kim’s thriller is relentlessly disturbing; this isn’t pretty for a second, and it doesn’t let you forget it. Kyung-chul’s obsession with the occasional female victim leads to either sexual harassment or visceral torture; both of which are increasingly more alarming than the previous. He’s a character that’s ridiculously repugnant, littered with detestable qualities that are displayed throughout that shows little boundaries. Both the character and the violence that arises continuously through the 141 running time depicts a film that’s more gratuitous than the worst, most blood-drenched excuse of torture porn you can imagine. Yet, comparing it to such tripe is such an injustice.

It escapes being boxed within the confines of torture porn-ism by maintaining a perpetually gripping screenplay that fuses unimaginable horror with character-driven drama. While the story treads familiar terrain, it’s never been as oddly poignant as this. Kim’s wife’s death fuels the anger that drives his emotion that carries undertones of overwhelming sadness and profound realism. It’s this that motives him to overthrow the line of good and evil; to surpass the boundary of fulfilling the roles of the hunter and the hunted.

Fantastic pacing, astonishing cinematography and dozens of cool, thoroughly impressive shots caught by director Jee-woon Kim — specifically, the excruciating scene at an isolated house where Kyung-chul catches up with an equally cracked-up friend — passes the duration within a flash, despite lulling during the second half somewhere between an attempted rape and a case of the mini coopers.

It’s an epic battle between Kim and Kyung-chul that culminates in an agonizing, haunting and powerful cat-and-mouse thriller, with lessons taught and received that deviates I Saw the Devil from the typical revenge thriller. The passionate writing and clear investment adds depth that differentiates it, and with central performances that are simply outstanding and undoubtedly career-defining roles, it deems the film as a compelling, utterly grotesque but highly distinguished revenge thriller that isn’t for those with an easy disposition.

Picture:

From the opening scene, it’s apparent that Optimum’s transfer is absolutely spot on. Lavish, strong blacks and the occasional bright colour that alleviates the dank broodiness that the film is riddled with. Exploding with colour in short intervals, it highlights cinematographer Mo-gae’s wonderful visual flair.

Sound:

It’s deep, heavy and utterly convincing of the atmospheric qualities that I Saw the Devil possesses. Often as frightening as the lack of the murderer’s motif, the clarity of the picture aids the haunting surround sound near perfectly.

Special Features:

-Interviews

-Making Of

-TV Spot

-Trailer

[rubie]

May 11, 2011

I Saw the Devil Blu-ray Review

By Ian White bigpicturebigsound.com

The Film

In 2003, a little film from Korea became a cult classic around the globe; it took a little longer for American viewers to appreciate it, but Oldboy eventually found a receptive audience on our side of the Pacific. The film made director Park Chan-wook a superstar at home (the film was the second installment in his Vengeance Trilogy) and Choi Min-sik, the most popular Korean actor in the world. Oldboy was a watershed moment for the Korean film industry that has always played second fiddle to the Japanese. Hollywood may be devoid of original story ideas, but Asian filmmakers have been pumping out great films for the past eight years. I Saw the Devil firmly belongs in the top tier with the likes of Oldboy.

Choi Min-sik is back, but this time he is a sadistic serial killer who preys on a pregnant fianceé; whose future husband is a secret agent. Her brutal murder shakes everything up and the enraged agent (Byung-hun Lee) decides that death is too easy for the sadistic killer who must pay for his crime. The killer must suffer and that he does. The plot sounds pretty cut and dry, but unlike most Hollywood studio garbage, I Saw the Devil has more twists and turns than the Tokyo Grand Prix, and the ending will force you to call your therapist (or get one if you don't have one already).

Korean dramas are not for the faint of heart. The story is always very important, but so is the violence and that has turned off a lot of viewers who find the graphic nature of the films very off-putting. I Saw the Devil surpasses Oldboy in terms of the gore, but the story is also quite compelling and you feel this sick sense of satisfaction watching Byung-hun Lee take out his pound of flesh. There is a weird vibe circling the globe at the moment; between the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the revolutions in the Middle East, and the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan -- people seem to be looking for their pound of flesh and this film feeds into that; perhaps in a disturbing way that may not be so apparent to some.

Needless to say, this is not a film to watch with the kids around. The imagery is strong stuff for adults and you want to keep that pillow or paper bag handy. A truly mesmerizing film that Hollywood couldn't make in 2011 -- even if they stuck all of the decent screenwriters in the same room who would probably just come up with a sequel to some Tarantino film.

The Picture

Minus a few dark scenes where some of the graininess could be distracting to some viewers, this 1080p transfer is drop-dead gorgeous. Blacks are near reference quality with an amazing amount of shadow detail being present and I may use this Blu-ray as a test disc going forward. The transfer has a nice degree of grain, but is incredibly sharp looking and the color absolutely pops; fantastic saturation levels. The image is clean looking and one of the best looking Blu-ray discs I have reviewed in a very long time.

The Sound

There are two DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes; one in the original Korean and an English dub. Neither one is really that spectacular as the midrange is rather thin sounding, but if I had to pick one, I'd stick with the Korean mix as it had a slightly better dynamic range and the surround channels were better utilized. Also, the lips match the sound, which is always a bonus. The audio is crisp, but that's not a good thing in this case; the film is dialogue-heavy and I felt the need to adjust volume levels sporadically to discern all of it. The LFE channel is utilized too infrequently, but what exists is decent and does not detract from the mix. The audio is the weakest part of the package, but it doesn't make the film any less shocking. Disappointing, but tolerable.

The Extras

Magnolia has included a minimal amount of bonus material on this Blu-ray transfer (all in standard definition) but what exists is quite informative and relevant to the creation of the story and how Kim Jee-Woon decided to direct the film. Unlike the traditional fare from the major Hollywood studios, the commentary is not a love fest with the actors and crew; it is a collection of deleted scenes and a matter-of-fact explanation of the making of the movie.

Final Thoughts

Brilliantly executed and over-the-top, I Saw the Devil is a new feather in the cap of Korean cinema which continues to push the envelope as Hollywood flounders making remake after remake. A must-own for fans of Oldboy and a really intense two and a half hours of filmmaking that is certainly not for those with weak stomachs. I, on the other hand, can't wait to watch it again. Highly recommended.

Product Details:

Actors: Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik

Director: Kim Jee-Woon

Format: Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen

Video Codec: MPEG-4 AVC

Video Resolution: 1080p/24

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Audio Codec: Korean DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Subtitles: English, English Narrative, English SDH, Spanish

Rated: Not Rated

Region: A

Discs: 1

Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment

DVD Release Date: May 10, 2011

Running Time: 142 Minutes

MSRP: $29.98

Extras:

Deleted Scenes (480i/60, 24:50)

Raw and Rough: Behind the Scenes of I Saw the Devil (480i/60, 27:06)

BD-Live - Trailers for other Magnolia Home Entertainment releases

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I SAW THE DEVIL

by Paul Quinn hangulcelluloid.com

"He's one of our kind... he's playing a game. The hunter becomes the hunted."

Synopsis:

Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-shik) is a deeply twisted psychopath who kills for pleasure, and though he has been committing serial killings for years, the police have, so far, been unable to even come close to catching him. However, when he stalks, tortures and brutally murders the daughter of a retired police chief, the girl’s secret agent fiancé, Kim Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), decides to track the killer down and exact revenge, regardless of what depths he must stoop to in order to do so…

Both the plot and themes of I Saw The Devil are largely centred around the characters of serial killer Jang and Agent Kim - with similarities between the two becoming increasingly apparent as Agent Kim's desperation for utter revenge takes hold - and, as his character darkens, we see all too clearly that, like Jang, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants (or thinks he wants), even when the consequences of his actions threaten to impact further on those around him.

I Saw The Devil is a graphic and gruesome hardgore thriller, but while the story itself is relatively simple and straightforward, that doesn't, in fact, work against the film, and instead helps to allow the underlying themes to be deftly addressed without infringing on the natural pacing of the plot, the action, or the emotional content within.

Female characters are majorly, and noticeably, objectified within I Saw The Devil - deliberately serving only as a means to an end (more often than not, a means to Jang's twisted ends) - adding further to the, already present, feeling of misogyny within his actions, which is also so inherent to his entire persona. However, the depictions of women within the film still manage to elicit emotional resonance throughout, thereby increasing both the shockingness of the graphically gory scenes, and viewer empathy for each of the female victims - despite viewers knowing a great deal less about them than the male characters.

At its core, I Saw The Devil deals ostensibly with the concept of revenge and the idea that, far from bringing closure, payback actually creates an emptiness equal to, or perhaps even greater than, the feelings and events which caused the need and desire for it in the first place, and shows, in no uncertain terms, that in order to exact that revenge, a person must be prepared to take on, and (at least partly) become, a persona somewhat akin to that of the individual(s) on whom retribution is sought.

There can, of course, be no happy ending to a story such as this, but that's the whole point, and it is made blatantly clear that once the act of revenge has begun there's no turning back, no comfort, no appeasement of loss or longing, and ultimately no resolution to the darkness created by it.

I Saw The Devil is certainly brutal, visceral and, at times, shocking, but fans of extreme cinema watching the uncensored version (the film was twice given a "restricted"/"limited" rating in South Korea and was only eventually released in normal cinemas after sufficient cuts had been made to sufficiently appease the ratings board) may question why the film has been the subject of so much controversy since first being submitted for ratings classification. Director Kim Ji-woon (you can read the Hangul Celluloid one-on-one interview with Kim Ji-woon by clicking here) believes the reason for the ratings issues lies, at least partly, in the fact that many of the violent, gory scenes feature two of the most well known and popular actors in South Korea, and were therefore seen as much more shocking there than in other countries. There is indeed a lot of graphic violence in I Saw The Devil, but not to an extent which "severely damages the dignity of human values", as claimed by the Korean Media Ratings Board.

While the brutality is (as already mentioned) widespread throughout the film, it must also be said that there is a noticeable beauty to many of the scenes - with genuinely moving and poignant moments taking centre stage on several occasions - and, with vicious acts regularly juxtaposed with ideas readily associated with culture (killings often carried out while the murderer listens to classical music, for example), Jang's killings repeatedly seem almost like an artist at work on a new canvas, albeit a canvas painted with blood.

As would be expected in any Kim Ji-woon film, I Saw The Devil is visually sumptuous throughout. The direction and cinematography is exemplary and fans of Kim Ji-woon's previous films will be in no doubt, at any point, that they are watching his work.

The musical score further raises the level of proceedings and perfectly complements each scene, almost effortlessly.

Summary:

A visceral, brutal, yet at times beautiful, film, I Saw The Devil deftly shows that no closure, appeasement or fulfillment is to be found in the act of revenge, with only emptiness and the unforeseen consequences of vengeful actions ultimately resulting from it.

Cast:

I Saw The Devil is Choi Min-sik's first film in four years, but his phenomenal portrayal of Jang makes it seem like he has never been away. Choi actually brought the original synopsis for the film to director Kim Ji-woon (a rare example of an actor choosing a film's director, rather than the other way round) and it is clear from his impassioned performance that he utterly revels in playing the role of the twisted serial killer.

Lee Byung-hun was cast, by Kim Ji-woon, as Agent Kim because of his ability to play cold-hearted and calculating characters so well and, in I Saw The Devil, his performance does not disappoint. His portrayal of the heart-broken secret agent who becomes obsessed with revenge, and gradually becomes somewhat of a monster in his own right, is pitch perfect throughout, and regularly leaves viewers with questions as to how much on his side they really are, or should be.

The very different acting styles of Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun fit together perfectly, and routinely add a further level of quality to an already exemplary film.

The rest of the cast play very much supporting roles to those of the two main characters, but each gives an excellent performance throughout.

***UK fans of South Korean cinema will be glad to hear that Optimum Releasing has acquired the rights to distribute the uncensored version of I Saw The Devil in the United Kingdom.***

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May 11, 2011

DVD Releases: 'I Saw The Devil'

Edward Frost cine-vue.com

Like so many films of a similar ilk, the opening scene in director Kim Jee-Woon’s stylishly brutal I Saw the Devil (2011) sees a vulnerable young woman viciously murdered in her car by a sadistic serial killer, whilst awaiting rescue in the shadowy outskirts of town. Starting as he means to go on, Jee-Woon takes the revenge thriller and turns it on its head, delivering an incredibly enjoyable, albeit nihilistic, tale of one man’s intense passion for revenge with more than a few tricks up its bloody sleeve.

South Korean cinema has gone through somewhat of resurgence of late, taking universally acknowledged genres and twisting them to create an originality that is so few and far between in modern Hollywood fare. In a similar vein to Oldboy (2003) with its fearless use of violence to accommodate its gritty narrative, I Saw the Devil mixes bone crunching action with, at times, excessively gruesome gore to great effect.

Following the murder of his pregnant fiancée, Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, A Bittersweet Life) a secret agent who masters in stealth, goes about finding and destroying the man responsible, picking off each suspect until he finds his guy.

The man in question is Kyung-Chul ('Oldboy' himself, Choi Min-Sik), a sadistic, seemingly indestructible murderer who is both psychotic and devious in equal measure; a man who will stop at nothing to acquire his prey. However, this is no simple revenge tale, and once Hyun locates Kyung-Chul, a rigorously twisted game of cat and mouse ensues as the hunter becomes the hunted and all bets are off, set in a world rife with decay and social ruin, where psychopaths reign supreme.

First off, I Saw the Devil is not for the faint of heart, it is relentlessly bloodthirsty in every sense of the word and prides itself on its unpredictability and mastery of Lee Mo-Gae’s cinematography, with some scenes mixing beautifully captured vistas with high levels of graphic violence.

Take the aforementioned opening sequence for instance; snow gently falls through the air as this defenceless woman is butchered, her blood staining the snow carpeting the ground beneath her. It is a striking way to open a film, acting as a cruel precursor to the oncoming events that only become more merciless as the film goes on.

Though it may not be wise to applaud a film for its potentially harmful content, it is however important to stress the mature demographic Jee-Woon is aiming for, an audience who will appreciate the dark sense of humour and the wildly inventive sequences that run through the films grisly veins.

Perhaps the film's downfall lies with the progression of its own narrative: a nonstop cat and mouse pursuit that causes it to become repetitive as it draws to a prolonged conclusion, with a predictability that contrasts with the erratic events that followed. However, this is outshined by a rare focus on its characters, with as much time spent with the antagonist as with the protagonist, perhaps more so, allowing Choi Min-Sik to fully embody his larger than life psychopath.

Though I Saw the Devil may not for everyone, Kim Jee-Woon’s inventive twist on the vigilante-style thriller genre is packed with a deft balance of visceral thrills and visual panache, ensuring that nothing gets lost in translation.

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May 16, 2011

Home Video Roundup: VANISHING ON 7TH STREET and I SAW THE DEVIL

by Josh Katz culturemob.com

Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures, I went about getting a horror fix with two of their recent releases—Brad Anderson’s Vanishing on 7th Street and Kim Ji-woon’s I Saw the Devil. Let’s see how they fare...

Brad Anderson could become the great American director of horror. Looking at his work in The Machinist, Session 9, and now Vanishing on 7th Street, I’m struck by how off-center his scares are. Anderson never comes at you with both barrels—he prefers to insinuate, to marinate fear at an even temperature—and his new film is no exception. Ostensibly, Anderson has cooked up a story about the end of the world, but what he’s really interested in is the fear of the unknown.

Vanishing on 7th Street centers on the dark coming to life to claim human souls, and when Anderson concentrates on the struggle to stay in the light, the film delivers like gangbusters. Two white-knuckle suspense sequences, a hunt to find transportation with failing light sources all around and another where a character seeks salvation in an underground tunnel, are as thrilling as the horror genre has produced in some time.

The problem is that the shooting script can’t compete to Anderson’s filmmaking savvy. Crackerjack as they may be, the terror sequences suffer when placed against the film’s long stretches of his heroes talking, and talking, and talking. They get into unconvincing arguments and ponder about the nature of the malignant darkness and get misty about their interrupted lives, and it’s all so…boring. This action/exposition dynamic works in a 22-minute long “Twilight Zone” episode; at 91 minutes, the bad stuff drones on interminably. Only John Leguizamo and newcomer Jacob Latimore rise above the banality of the scripted words, and they don’t have as much screentime as Christensen and Thandie Newton, both of whom attack the lion’s share of bad dialogue with all the misguided aplomb of dinner theater thespians.

You can survive bad dialogue. Psycho ends with some of the worst psychoanalytical babble ever written. The Mist plays, at times, like its screenwriter learned to write conversations from watching daytime soaps. Yet these two endure through their endgame, their respective comments on human nature. By comparison, Vanishing on 7th Street adds up to little, throwing its faults into harsher focus. Mark my words: Brad Anderson will leave a Wes Craven or John Carpenter-sized imprint on horror.

But he isn’t there yet.

The DVD features a wonderfully spooky Dolby 5.1 track and a quirky widescreen picture. Anderson shot the film on HD and did a fair share of digital tinkering in post; the image is inconsistent, but I suspect it’s true to his intentions. Talking special features, Anderson contributes a dull audio commentary (it’s “waking up from a nap” bad), and there are four mini-documentaries that are glorified EPK promos. The alternate endings aren’t revelatory—just slightly different takes on the final selection—and neither is the theatrical trailer. Ultimately, a slight package for a slight film.

If Vanishing on 7th Street only works intermittently, then I Saw the Devil flips that equation—its unconvincing beats are few and far between. I Saw the Devil is not for all tastes. It is graphically violent. It is uncompromisingly bleak. It is also darkly funny, exciting, sad, well-acted, and scary as hell. In its own way, I Saw the Devil is a near-perfect genre example.

At its core, this is a revenge tale. After the savage murder of his fiancée, secret service agent Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun) hunts her murderer Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik). But then (and SPOILER WARNING)...

An hour into the film, Byung-hun’s hero catches Kyung-chul. Stops him from killing another woman, beats him half to death, and just when you expect to see the credits roll, he plants a tracking device on the killer and lets him go. Soo-hyun wants to put the fear of god into his fiancée’s killer, to make him suffer as she did, and if that means hunting Kyung-chul, administering another savage beating, and then regrouping to start the cycle over again, then so be it.

What he doesn’t expect is an adversary incapable of fear. Min-sik’s serial killer is one for the books; the man cannot feign normalcy, striking out against any and all with unpredictable aggression, and every time Soo-hyun tears into him, he stitches himself up and goes about his bloody way. Their interactions reveal I Saw the Devil’s hidden agenda—to personify pure evil and regard it with a trembling awe.

That description reads like the film is an endurance test, and violence-wise, it probably is. In many ways, though, it’s an attractive endurance test. Both Byung-hun and Min-sik give committed performances, and Ji-woon directs with formalist control. I Saw the Devil is always perfectly stylish, perfectly composed—think the Coen Brothers directing Seven, and you’ll be on the right track—and the violent confrontations between cop and killer are a wonder, equal parts Hitchcockian suspense and Looney Tunes-style chaos. I’ve never seen anything quite like them.

I Saw the Devil does falter a little around the midpoint; its 142-minute runtime isn’t wholly justified, and the midsection, where Kyung-chul takes refuge in a special friend’s home, could stand some trimming. The film quickly recovers, though, and the third act takes matters to an unexpected and altogether horrifying conclusion. Somehow, it’s a strangely perfect finish to a strangely perfect film.

The DVD has great picture and sound, but I do wish the bonus features were more substantive. There’s a solid featurette on the stunts of the film and about twenty minutes of deleted scenes, and that’s it. I would’ve liked a deeper look at Ji-woon’s overall approach to his movie, or some insights from the lead actors, but what can you do? Maybe I Saw the Devil’s very existence is benefit enough.

Verdict: I Saw the Devil beats Vanishing on 7th Street. No contest. Real winner—the audience for getting to explore them both.

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The actress playing the pregnant fiancée in I Saw the Devil is really sweet-looking and cute, imo. Too bad her moments on-screen & on-the-phone with Soo-hyun were too limited.. at least in the 'before' part.

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May 18, 2011

Kim Jee-woon Keeps the Serial-Killer Slasher Flick Alive With 'I Saw the Devil'

By Lee Gardner metropulse.com

The world needs another serial-killer movie like it needs another hitman-out-for-one-last-job movie. Leave it to cult fave Korean director Kim Jee-woon, though, to come up with a twist that makes one of the hoariest screen clichés of the past decade worth watching again. Even more admirable is that Kim makes it work by combining it with one of the other hoariest screen clichés: a supersecret government operative. And more, of course, but more on that in a minute.

As I Saw the Devil (Magnet DVD and Blu-ray) opens, Kyung-chul (Oldboy star Choi Min-sik) happens across a pretty young woman stranded by the side of a snowy road, whereupon he brutally beats her and hauls her back to his lair to dismember her. Unfortunately for all concerned, Kyung-chul especially, the pretty young woman was the fiancée of earpiece-wearing agent Soo-hyeon (charismatic young Kim regular Lee Byung-hun). Soo-hyeon takes a leave of absence from work and sets about tracking down the man who slaughtered his wife-to-be. There’s something almost funny about his vicious, implacable approach to the first few scumbags on his list of suspects (the moped delivery boy, especially); he soon gets to Kyung-chul, and a similarly swift revenge would make this feature-length a short subject. But Soo-hyeon doesn’t want to kill Kyung-chul, at least not right away. He wants to make him suffer. And he does. And you, too, a bit.

While Kyung-chul is a reprehensible predator, Soo-hyeon’s drawn-out punishment of his nemesis is so gorno brutal, so inhumanly single-minded, that it makes Kyung-chul, well, perhaps not sympathetic, but you soon understand that I Saw the Devil’s title can be taken a number of ways. And yet, even among some of the more shudder-inducing flashes of ultraviolence seen onscreen recently, I Saw the Devil pulls you in. Best known in the United States for flashy style exercises such as A Bittersweet Life and the gonzo Eastern Western The Good, the Bad and the Weird, Kim often exercises exquisite restraint here, drawing out scene after scene of agonizing suspense and even telling emotional moments. The magnetic Choi creates a most fascinating monster/victim, and Kim otherwise ups the revulsion/attraction ante in astounding but subtle ways: Shots of a tear pooled in the corner of the eye of a cowering victim or steam rising from brutalized body parts exposed to the cold air will stick with you longer than might be comfortable. Lee’s Soo-hyeon is perhaps too subtle a character in some respects, but I Saw the Devil outstrips the bloody genre junk it draws from to channel a ferocious vision that earns its extremity.

More caps

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Captures copied from GBW.cafe.daum 6693

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May 22, 2011

I SAW THE DEVIL Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte collider.com

It’s hard to know how interesting another country’s cinema is when all you get are a handful of films each year, but South Korea has produced some of the most interesting genre films for the last decade. From the works of Bong Joon-Ho (Mother, The Host) to Park Chan-Wook (Old Boy, Thirst), to the great adventure yarn The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Whether we’re getting the best of the best, or if there’s more to discover is hard to know, but regardless, they are some great film-makers working there today.

The latest film to hit stateside is I Saw the Devil, which takes the serial killer genre and finds a new way to make it fresh for the modern era. The film stars Lee Byung-hun (G.I. Joe’s Storm Shadow) and Choi Min-sik (star of Oldboy), as a cop and a killer whose lives become intertwined in a tale of revenge from director Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters). Our review of the Blu-ray follows after the jump.

Lee Byung-hun plays Kim Soo-hyeon, a federal agent on assignment when his fiancée gets her car stuck in the snow. Kyung Chul (Min-sik) stops to help her – which she refuses – only for him to break into her car, rape, torture, and then murder her. The film then grieves with its main character for a while, but then brings the film to its greatest invention: Kim decides that it isn’t enough to arrest the man who did this to his lady, but he wants to make him suffer. And so he finds him. And beats him up. And then lets him go, only to follow him wherever he goes.

Kim’s goal is to make Kyung suffer. But what he doesn’t understand is how to hurt someone whose entire existence is based on causing other’s pain. And therein lies what makes this film great (or near-great): it takes the post-modern view of serial killers and finds a way to make it relevant after September 11, 2001. There’s no denying that pursuit of this serial killer, and finding a way to get revenge is meant to parallel the war on terror, and that’s where the film gets its great strengths. What does it mean to become a monster to hurt and kill a monster?

But the director also sees this as a comic book story, and so another thing that makes the film work is that the world is populated with serial killers – who in some cases are friends. There is no dark and deserted highway that doesn’t have some crafty predator lurking, waiting for a person to kill. It’s cartoonish, but not to a fault, it’s a heightened reality, and the number of serial killers who keep showing up helps the film strike the right tone.

But if the film falters, it’s that pacing-wise, it’s a little slower than it should be (it feels bloated at 141 minutes), and that the ending tries to have its cake and eat it too. It feels like some punches were pulled, and it could have gone in some much bleaker and more interesting directions in the final moments. But everything that comes before is so strong, it’s a minor quibble. It’s also worth noting that like many of the filmmakers to emerge from Korea, director Kim Jee-woon’s sense of camera is elegant as all get out. You are watching a film that is well put together, well directed, and there’s no time for master shots, or close-ups for a conversation. You watch this, and you can sense that there is a visual design to everything – it enlivens the film. It’s a smart genre film that deserves to be discovered.

Magnet/Magnolia’s Blu-ray is presented in widescreen (1.78:1) and in DTS-HD 5.1 surround. The picture quality is good, but not outstanding, and the soundtrack is fine. Extras include twenty five minutes of deleted scenes, and a making of (27 min.). The deleted scenes are substantial, but obviously cut, offering more details about the killer, and his friends, while the making of is more standard. The film’s trailer is also included.

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May 23, 2011

Sometimes chasing monsters creates monsters

By Tom Von Malder waldo.villagesoup.com

(Photo by: Magnolia Home Entertainment)

Elite special agent Soo-hyun, played by Lee Byung-hun,

is so bent on revenge in the Korean film “I Saw the Devil”

that he becomes a monster himself.

OWLS HEAD — I Saw the Devil (Korea, Magnet/Magnolia, Blu-ray or standard DVD, NR, 142 min.). Korean star Choi Min-sik found international fame as a man bent on revenge in Park Chan-wook's film “Oldboy.” Here, in director Kim Jee-woon's wildly violent, genre-pushing vengeance epic, Choi is the embodiment of murdering, torturing evil, and Lee Byung-hun plays the equally single-minded elite special agent seeking maniacal revenge for the death of his pregnant fiancée, Ju-yeon. There is lots of blood, as sickening realism is a main selling point of this film, unlike any other you have seen.

Ju-yeon was on the way home when she has a flat tire in a remote area. A man stops and offers help, but she refuses as she is on the cell phone with Lee. However, the man comes back, smashes the window and savagely attacks her, before dragging her body off to his secret hideaway, where he kills her, after she begs for her life. Ju-yeon also was the daughter of a retired police chief and he is given the dossiers on four possible suspects. He turns the files over to Lee, who violently attacks the first two on the list, before hitting pay dirt with the third, Kyung-chul (Choi). Lee finds where Kyung-chul kills his victims and Ju-yeon’s engagement ring. Fifty minutes in, Lee finally catches the killer, sparing another victim accidentally in the process, and then the film turns very interesting. Instead of turning Kyung-chul over to the police, he beats him, plants a tracker on him and then leaves. For the rest of the film, they plays a deadly cat-and-mouse game of increasing violence, as Lee keeps interrupting Kyung-chul’s evil work and further maims him. However, there is a price to pay, both in Lee’s turning into a monster himself and the at least three deaths and three major injuries Kyung-chul is allowed to commit by not having been brought to justice immediately.

This is not a film for the faint of heart, but it is a riveting journey, as were “Silence of the Lambs” and “Se7en.” Kyung-chul even has a friend who is a practicing cannibal! The Blu-ray DVD includes 11 deleted scenes (24:50), including an extended ending that hints Lee will not give up his search for other monsters. There also is 27:06 of behind-the-scenes raw footage. Grade: film 3.5 stars; extras 2.5 stars.