FILM  MOVIE REVIEW

A scene from Kim Jee-woon's I Saw the Devil. [Photo: Magnet Releasing] I Saw the Devil

I Saw the Devil *½

by Nick Schager on February 27, 2011   Jump to Comments (3) or Add Your Own

Another Korean revenge fantasy that negates its moralizing by wallowing in the ghastliness it nominally asserts is unfulfilling and destructive, I Saw the Devil concerns the cat-and-mouse game played by secret service agent Joo-yeon (Lee Byung-hun) and the serial killer, Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik), who abducted and dismembered his pregnant girlfriend. After that opening bit of bloodshed, director Kim Jee-Woon's story charts Joo-yeon's plot to track Kyung-chul, prevent him from killing other innocent females, and beat him to a pulp, only to leave him breathing so that this process might repeat again. And repeat it does, as Kim's film is itself a maniacally cyclical affair, dragging out its tale with hunter-hunted sequences (all predicated on women functioning as lambs for the slaughter) that always culminate with some sort of extreme gruesomeness. As Joo-yeon plunges himself deeper and deeper into his obsessive quest, he begins—as one of Kyung-chul's serial-killing pals oh-so-bluntly puts it—"to have fun" perpetrating his mayhem, and that's really all there is to these faux-profound proceedings: a clichéd, irony-drenched message about how vengeance corrupts the vengeful, turning them into the very monsters they wish to destroy.

If I Saw the Devil doesn't have a single thought in its blood-splattered head that isn't borrowed from The Last House on the Left, at least it delivers its hackneyed lesson with some style, as Kim's direction has a sleekness that's creepily at odds with his bluntly depicted carnage. A knife fight inside a moving cab, shot with anxiously circling camerawork, is a visual tour de force. Yet Kim isn't interested in having his aesthetics speak to his material's critique of violence, and thus his revelry in depravity—the camera's gaze rarely turning away from murder and sexual assault—winds up trying to elicit excitement and entertainment from (and confer legitimacy upon) the very activities the story supposedly condemns. Consequently, the film is just hypocritical exploitation, which might still be acceptable—exploitation, by definition, need not be morally upstanding or insightful—if the action weren't so draggy and rote, full of grisly butchery that vainly strives to shock. Identification with Kyung-chul doesn't in any way complicate or electrify what amounts to a roundelay of increasingly numbing nastiness, and though both Lee and Choi are suitably intense, their characters remain nothing more than stock horror-action archetypes designed to function as vehicles for the film's pedantic notions about the across-the-board blindness that results from eye-for-an-eye justice.

  • Director(s): Kim Jee-woon
  • Screenplay: Park Hoon-jung
  • Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik, Oh San-ha, Chun Kook-haun, Chun Ho-jin, Kim Yoon-seo, Choi Moo-seong, Kim In-seo
  • Distributor: Magnet Releasing
  • Runtime: 141 min.
  • Rating: NR
  • Year: 2010

Comments

rado on March 1, 2011, 07:08 AM

Hello,

I saw "I Saw the Devil" and have to disagree. Firstly, it is NOT hypocritical or exploitative—not sure how one can get such impression? Yes it plays with exploitation but is most definitely not what you describe as a mindless thrill ride. It's too disturbing to be that. Every bit of violence hurts very hard and is very far away from entertainment. I saw it as an attack to the police procedural TV shows—respectively all contemporary culture. There, we watch mechanically the connect-the-dots plot and the wicked crimes from a glamourous glass wall that gives us a sense of security and numbs our senses. That is exploitation.

"I Saw the Devil" has traction, real consequences for all characters and the idea that we, as spectators, are doing exactly what the depraved agent does. Wielding the almighty power of the remote control, just like his GPS, to restart the horror again and again, in order to fill in the void in our thrill-less white-collar lives. Remember, Korea is an extreme case of capitalist over-achievement aspirations. Kim Ji-woon is nothing but a genius blocker, the moving car panorama being exceptional indeed. But why was this directed so masterfully? Because it makes you sit up and pay attention.

The ending is also perfect: there are no super-humans or superheroes, only a manufactured idea from media, imagination or religion.

Regards.

Gregory on March 2, 2011, 05:07 PM

I agree with rado.

Beyond that, I think its so masterfully made that I couldn't care less about how deep the film's intellectual or moral concepts run. Though I certainly thought the film carried plenty of moral weight simply by following through on its riveting cat and mouse structure.

In the end though, who cares? I Saw the Devil is a movie, I think, that is meant to be felt, and I felt it.

Glenn Heath Jr. on March 3, 2011, 12:00 PM

rado—I watched I SAW THE DEVIL back in November, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I honestly remember thinking the film doesn't have anything on its mind, let alone all the points you found in it. I think Nick's review points to the film's relentless repetition of violence and how silly it all becomes during the grueling duration. This film is at least 30 minutes too long, and the pacing is sluggish at best during the second half. I liked certain bits, especially the opening, but it didn't work as a critique of anything for me. I know our very own Simon Abrams is a huge fan of the film, so it seems to be splitting critics down the middle.

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