Review of I Saw the Devil (2010) by Johnny T — 11 Aug 2015

Director Kim Jee-woon's astonishing story of a serial killer who picks the wrong man's fiancée to murder, is so extreme and intense that it had to be trimmed down in its native country before it was released to theaters. We lucky westerners get to see it in all its hair-raising, stomach-churning glory, and that's a wonderful thing. This film features a spectacular performance by Choi Min-sik as Kyung-chul, one of the most scary and evil villains ever seen in any film. Although director Kim Ji-woon's inventive twist on the vigilante shocker is relentlessly bloodthirsty, it never loses sight of the human fallout from violent crime, deftly weaving Lee's eye-for-an-eye actions with moments of genuine emotional grief. Repugnant content, grislier than the ugliest torture porn, ought to have made the film unwatchable, but it doesn't, simply because Kim's picture is so beautifully filmed, carefully structured and viscerally engaging. Plenty of people die in I Saw the Devil, but it is that first attack on Ju-yeon in the movie's opening minutes that reverberates through the epic 141-minute running time. a gritty, brutal, and consistently uncompromising thriller that does, for the most part, feel like South Korea's answer to Se7en. Thanks to the strong directing we get a handful of really fantastic scenes and a number of thrills, which make this a wholly enjoyable film.

VERDICT: "High-Quality Stuff" - [Positive Reaction] This is a rating to a movie I view as very entertaining and well made, and definitely worth paying the full price at a theatre to see or own on DVD. It is not perfect, but it is definitely excellent. (Films that are rated 3.5 or 4 stars).