3 Film Excess nominations:
Best Cinematography: Mo-gae Lee (lost to Wally Phister for Inception)
Best Practical Effects (lost to Inception)
Best Music: Mowg (lost to Treme S1)
+ Best Korean Movie of the Year
+ Best Revenge movie of the Year
+ Most Violent Movie of the Year
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| A cool, minimalistic poster for Kim Jee-Woon's I Saw the Devil |
A strong intelligence agent's girlfriend gets coincidentally murdered and dismembered by a merciless serial killer who drives a school van. The agent consequently takes two weeks off work to hunt and inflict a comparable pain upon the guilty man.
I find it really wild that it is possible in South Korea to find the money to make as big, ambitious and crazy a film as I Saw the Devil. SPOILER The maddest thing about it, from a Western standpoint at least, must be that it is initially quite hard to sympathize with its hero, because he lets the serial killer go again and again, so that more innocents are beat up, killed and/or raped, just so he can capture and maim the lunatic some more. Crazy is also the enormous amount of violent and explicit sufferings depicted, which makes I Saw the Devil an almost sadistic film to watch for some, but as a connoisseur in film violence I have to compliment the filmmakers for their achievement in this arena of suffering. I Saw the Devil is a runaway train of gasping, writhing, looking away and whooping for audiences that can take it.
The film doesn't shy away from the local predilection for the melodramatic, and certain plot details hardly make sense, but then the film clearly aims for the operatic and super-realistic, meaning that which transgresses the boundaries of 'realism', which makes the criticism a mute point. Byung-hun Lee (The Magnificent Seven (2016)) is bad-ass as the grieving hero, and Min-sik Choi (Oldboy (2003)) is extremely menacing and out of control as the terrorizing mass-murderer villain.
The score, by Mowg (The Last Stand (2013)), is outstanding, highlighting the stampede-like feel of the blood hunt. The film's action scenes are carried out supremely; the violence is extreme and will be too much for many. The cinematography, by Mo-gae Lee (The Good, the Bad, the Weird/Joheunnom Nabbeunnom Isanghannom (2008)) is detail-oriented, full of surplus and ingenuity, very strong work.
The film is written by Hoon-jung Park (The Unjust/Boo-dang-geo-rae (2010)) and directed by Kim Jee-Woon (A Bittersweet Life/Dalkomhan Insaeng (2005)). It is one of the most exciting and singular cinema experiences.
Related posts:
Kim Jee-Woon: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
The Last Stand (2013) - Arnold's great comeback
Watch a clip for the film here
Box office: 12.7 mil. $
= Flop
[I Saw the Devil was released August 12 and runs 144 minutes. It was only allowed release in its native South Korea after 7 cuts of 80-90 seconds of material were made. It opened #61 in just 2 theaters to a 13k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 15 theaters and grossed a paltry 129k $ (1 % of the total gross). The film made the vast majority of its gross at home in South Korea: 12 mil. $ (94.5 %). And most of the rest in Japan with 0.5 mil. $ there (3.9 %). The film has inspired an unofficial 2014 Bollywood remake. I Saw the Devil is certified fresh at 80 % with a 7.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of I Saw the Devil?
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