I Saw the Devil

This and THE YELLOW SEA (aka MURDERER, the sophomore feature from the writer/director of THE CHASER) are the 2 Korean films I'm looking forward to the most this year. Anxious to hear your thoughts, Matt.

Choi Min Sik has gotten pretty puffy over the years. I haven't seen him in anything for a while. But I haven't paid much attention to Korean cinema for years. Looks intense!

I just read that the current print just got hit w/ the Korean equivalent of NC-17. Apparently the kill scenes are pretty gnarly. It'll probably get trimmed before it hits local screens in mid-August as a wide release.

That's the first time I heard about THE BATTLE OF THE YELLOW SEA. Hope it's good. FRIEND is a bonafide classic. Shit, I even enjoyed TYPHOON (for the most part).

So on the 3rd pass (or 2 trims from the original submitted version later), this got passed by the Korean ratings board w/ an "over 18" rating. Which is basically the same as NC-17 technically, but is the most restricted rating that's still allowed to screen in multiplexes and gets mainstream advertising (SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE was "over-18" as well).

The reviews and comments from the advance screening held yesterday have been extremely entertaining to read. Apparently some people have gotten physically ill from the various on-screen depictions of carnage and violence against men/women/children. The reviews range from the enthusiastically positive to the fucking appalled, but they all seem to agree that it has the most strongest graphic violence quotient in any Korean film made yet. Which I guess means it's pretty fucked up.

NICE! Thanks for the advance word, man. Do you know if Kim brought his original cut, or the trimmed Korean release version?

Must have been awesome to see him in person too. That guy radiates quiet cool and intelligence. Was he wearing sunglasses the whole time? Song Kang Ho does a great bit in THE FOUL KING DVD interview where he gives him some shit for that.

Yeah, Lee probably won't be going back to Toronto anytime soon. Korean bitches be scheming yo.

Really looking forward to seeing this. Hopefully a home video release before too long. I was hoping the local Koreatown multiplex would get a print, but no luck. We get INTO THE FIRE, and we don't want INTO THE FIRE.

That's great news. Why would Lee Byung-Hyun avoid Toronto now?

Yeah, her moms got into it too apparently, looking for a handout. Classy.

Oh, and this just got picked up by Magnet for US distribution? Fuck yeah.

It looks like the Toronto version is missing some scenes that were in the Korean release as well. A blogger who's seen both versions preferred the Toronto cut for the pacing and overall impact, although he/she said the Korean version had some pivotal character moments and extended scenes that set up some of the humorous payoffs better. I'll probably end up picking up both the Korean and Int'l versions, like w/ GOOD BAD WEIRD.

Is that the guy that played the Shadow (the senior North Korean sleeper agent) in SECRET REUNION? He was great in that.

I like this trend in Korean cinema of using more classically trained stage actors w/ serious chops to counter the K-pop and junior level TV soap opera virus.

I just read this on a Korean film site so I don't know how legit it is, but apparently Kim just signed w/ Lionsgate to direct his first Hollywood flick LAST STAND, starring Liam Neeson. Pretty exciting news if true. Not quite as exciting as the proposed remake of MAX AND THE JUNKMEN starring Clive Owen, but shit, I'll take it.

This thread needs way more Chewer posts. I Saw The Devil is currently #2 in my top 10 of the year, which I'm still working on.

I'm going to assume this thread can be a post-release discussion? It's been out for a while now. In the mean time skip my posts to ignore spoilers.
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So Choi Min Sik. I am convinced that he is actually messed up in real life. And that when directors stop giving him crazy roles he'll snap and go on a rampage. I didn't even know it was him for the first ten minutes, not just because of his look, but his voice and mannerisms was so unlike anything I've seen of him.

It's an amazing film but a major flaw in my opinion is that there's not enough info on the main protagonist. At one point I was worried Byung-hun Lee's character would be just a cipher, but the director does insert his extended family more into the story to raise the stakes. Basically I would have liked to have seen a scenario in the beginning where we either see him, for example, interrogate a suspect but pull back on the punches for fear of going too far, or the reverse of that, with him going too far with the suspect, showing that he always had the potential for violence within him.

Essentially showing his relationship to violence before his journey in the film, thus completing his arc better. But we don't really know enough about him in the film other than the basics = he was in love, he lost his love, now he's angry.

Focusing on the title of the film, if we were to assume Choi Min Sik's character as the devil in question, I noticed a lot of Christian imagery sprinkled throughout the film, with Choi even wearing a football shirt with a big cross on it. The dark humour running throughout the film is typical Korean style. It's like he's mocking the religion throughout the story. Any other thoughts on the title of the film though? What is the most literal translation of the original Korean title if anyone knows?

As for the censorship, if all that's missing are images of body parts then it's not so bad. You already know what's happening in the scene anyway, when the other psycho character says he's going to 'prepare breakfast' and you see him about to chop up a girl. No point in seeing extra limbs really, (and no point in cutting them out either, considering all that we see in the rest of the film)

Also: Yet another Korean film that depicts the police as inept buffoons, man those Korean directors really hate the police, eh?

We got to talking about movies in my Korean class and my Korean teacher said she'd seen it but found it very disturbing and didn't care for it. Obviously not her kind of film.

Then one of the next things she asked about was whether anyone knew anything about this film involving "centipedes" she'd heard about. Most off the wall segue in a movie discussion for me (especially given the theme leading up to it and where we were).

I shut down that line of enquiry really fast for the best interest of everyone in the room and told them never to even think about it again. I've never even seen a trailer for that film and yet I feel scarred by what I do know about it.

Strangest Korean class ever (and we've had a few strange ones).

Maybe I'm just desensitized but this film felt strangely hollow to me. I don't go out of my way for gore, so certainly some of it was momentarily disturbing to me. For sure the acting and cinematography was great. I was greatly disturbed by the taxi stabfest and loved the kinetic energy in the shotgun/hallway scene. The spinning car scoop up scene was also hilariously over the top and entertaining.

But some of the body chopping scenes seemed gratuitous and there were one or too victims too many, IMO. And I might have missed it but I didn't understand the killer's connection to the cannibals, maybe Korea has a Facebook for psychos? But by the end it all sort of mixed together. Like an overly spicy meal that overwhelms the actual flavor of the ingredients. Years past, films like Old Boy were more disturbing and stayed with me quite a while, though being tamer than this. A few days after I saw this, I only had a hazy memory of the film.

I also didn't really understand the agent's motivation behind his final guillotine revenge. The killer never once mentioned his own son and parents and seemingly didn't care about them. And since it quickly results in his death, the ultimate goal of this is to torture the innocent family by seeing him killed? Doesn't really ring true to the agent's persona for me.

The only connection is mentioned in passing by the cannibal dude when he reminisces about their past and how they wanted to be 'terrorists and flip the world upside down'. That's all the connection we need really, birds of a feather and all that.

The final revenge is actually genius. The agent swore that he would make the killer squirm in fear in his last moments, and as evidenced by the killer's flippant attitude even while hanging onto his life with the rope between his teeth, this was not an easy task to achieve. The only way to do it was to have his own family not only see, but be directly responsible for his own gruesome death.

I think the fact that he had a son and parents was proof enough that he had a weakness, a sign that deep down there was a human core underneath the monster. A real monster would not have any family ties. We have to assume that he intentionally dumped his son with his parents to spare him that kind of depraved life, but now the kid has to live with the image of his dad being decapitated.

The agent's breakdown at the end is just the visual signifier for his own torment at what he just did to the family who were essentially innocent, and now that the agent barely has any family ties he's basically become a real monster.

Seriously tied with Oldboy's ultimate revenge climax, I can't pick between the two! Seeing Choi Min-Sik turn from laughing and jeering at the agent via the tracking device, to panicking in a frenzy begging his family to not open the door was amazing.

I guess why it fell a little flat for me is that I didn't make the assumption that he cared. Maybe a little more evidence to this would've been good, though I suppose the assumption is sound. At the time, I couldn't discern whether his panic was for the family, or just for his own skin.

Oldboy's revenge ended up being far more psychological in nature in that it was meant to torture him long term, and the secondary twist that he accepts it is even more wonderfully disturbing black humor. Maybe ISTD just suffers in comparison because of all it's similarities, but I suppose it still deserves a place of respect alongside the Vengeance trilogy.

Yeah, when we first cut to him after the agent has left, he's laughing and saying he's not afraid to die, but when he hears his family he's suddenly panicking like crazy, so the only assumption left for us is to assume he cares about them. But the genius thing about this is that his family aren't even in danger, and he obviously doesn't care about his own life, he's just terrified of what his death will do to them. He may have won more battles but the agent won the revenge war. The killer dies a horrible death while terrified and his family will be scarred for life.

I suppose to play devil's advocate one could argue that Oldboy's climax (and the film in general) is a tad too cartoonish when compared to I Saw The Devil, which would be an apt argument considering it's an adaptation of a manga. With the Bond-type bad guy, side-kick and bad guy lair, Oldboy is definitely operating in a heightened reality and although I Saw The Devil occasionally seems to follow suit, I think it manages to stay a bit more grounded.

I'll probably watch Oldboy more than I Saw The Devil anyway, its stylistic flair makes it a much easier watch that's for sure.

I know I'm gonna get stick for this as I don't think the author has fans on this forum, but I Saw The Devil sometimes reminded me of a Dean Koontz thriller. I like Koontz thrillers though...

This didn't do much for me.  Maybe it's because I saw it by myself (yay for Korean video stores!), but I didn't see much 'point' in it.  Especially at a film that's 2 hours and 15 minutes long.  It didn't start to get interesting until the main conflict of the movie really got going and even that dragged on.  I pretty much agree with Joshua's review on the front page as well as SamTanry's reaction above.  Several moments of great tension, great action, and dark humor (giggles when Choi Min Sik's family arrives in the final scene!), but it didn't really add up for me.  I lost interest in Lee Byung-Hun's non-character.  I was never that involved to begin with, but then it just goes on and on.  His final moment of laughing/crying torment just made me go, "Whatever."  I got a good look at his teeth and was reminded of Lea Michele.  All the "extreme" violence didn't mean much when I wasn't all that invested in the main character.  And the movie gets a little bit too much mileage from putting women in peril.  I dunno, instead of feeling horrified, the violence mostly felt in bad taste.

 

I kinda enjoyed it as a super-bleak take on a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon... that is if the Road Runner was always after Wile E. Coyote, maiming him, and then going after him again.  Choi Min Sik takes about as much punishment as a cartoon coyote, actually.  That man... what a trooper. 

 

My favorite parts of the movie... him running into a taxi-driver serial killing duo... and THEN stopping by his cannibal buddy's house for dinner and a kitchen quickie.  OutRAGEous!

 

Maybe this director's work just does nothing for me.  I wasn't much affected by Tale of Two Sisters or A Bittersweet Life.  I can't even seem to get into The Good, the Bad, and the Weird.

 

 

 

 

Edited by mcnooj82 - 3/6/11 at 10:12am

Oh, and to answer cognizant's old question about the title (which he's probably had answered by now...):  the English title is a pretty direct translation.  Though, "ahck-mah" doesn't always mean 'the devil.'  Usually, I equate it with 'demon' or something.  But in this case, I'm thinking it's all one and the same.  Devil sounds better in this case anyway.

 

I read "the devil" as an abstract in this film.  No particular character represents it, but one is far into its depths while the film focuses on a man who is about to fall knee deep in it.

I flat out LOVED this movie. I was riveted and revolted the whole way through. At some point around the hour and forty mark, I just wanted the violence to stop but I suppose that was the point. The final scenes are as powerful as anything I have ever seen.

Awesome movie.  Tension & suspense, bursts of catharsis, harrowing despair, fits of laughter, moments of shock and awe, rinse & repeat.  I honestly laughed more watching this than most other recent Korean "comedies".  So many hilarious scenes - "Who broke your junk?", the interrupted rape (uh, the 2nd one), the knife handle, the scooter ramming, etc.  Mixed w/ some extreme graphic violence (the taxi stabathon, whoa), and nicely balanced w/ some quiet character moments (that final scene between Lee and his fiance's father was heart-breaking).  I felt like I had a full course meal.

 

Mcnooj, the kitchen quickie scene is absent from the US release but shows up as a deleted/extended scene on the Magnet BR.  Man, Choi Min-Shik likes him some sloppy sex.  I bought his sex scene in OLDBOY since his character's been locked away for 15 years.  Nah, that's just how the dude gets down. 

We'll just have to wait for the Choi Min-Shik sex tape to leak to verify your theory!

 

I rented this because I loved every film I’ve seen by Jee-woon Kim, was generally unaware of the hype surrounding the film so I was caught pleasantly off guard by the film. Ended up loving the film, finding it to be a fantastic balance between shocking thriller and very, very, dark comedy. I swear I was laughing at this more than I’ve laughed at some straight comedies. Loved Choi Min-Sik waking up after the first beating, looking at the money in the envelope and just saying ‘What a psycho’. I also loved the cannibal trying to pull the knife from his hand and having the handle just pop off.

 

I was just really impressed by the energy and staging of the film, even if it did feel overly long for what it actually was.

 

I think if I’d been aware of the hype, like you guys were I might have expected a little more. As it was it reminded me a lot of the European thillers that were released in the early 90s. Stuff like the original Vanishing or Man Bites Dog, which really tried to explore the duality between man and monster. I think I liked this way more than you guys, largely because I wasn’t expecting anything.

I ended up getting a brutally staged, blacky humourous film starring two of my favourite Korean actors. 

 

Byung Hun-lee is just kind of terrifying in this. 

God what an awesome fucking film. Takes a well-worn trope into the kind of territory that only Asian filmmakers would think of. I was laughing my ass off throughout. Choi -Min-Sikh is brilliant as ever.

 

 

Definitely not what I got from the final scene. The killer doesn't give a shit about his family, the guy's a sociopath so any glimpse of the "man behind the moster" was just a mirage, what did on the other hand scare him was that they'd open the door and chop his head off. That wasn't even the point though.  Hyun knew he'd never get what he wanted from a guy who's incapable of feeling, so he decided to take revenge by doing what was done to him, hurting the man's family. His catharsis came in hearing their screams, which is pretty fucking dark.

So from what I've read above, the US DVD release isn't uncut then?

 

Is an uncut DVD version even available, or are all of them cut in some way since the original cinema screenings before the Korean Classification Board ordered that cuts had to be made or it couldn't be released to cinemas there?

That's a really good reading of Hyun's 'winning' strategy.  I didn't think about it like that though, because I actually read Choi Min Sik as someone who cared about his family JUST ENOUGH to distance them from his sociopathic 'lifestyle.'  So in my immediate reading of the ending, Hyun's final vengeance 'worked' because he was finally able to expose that little bit of humanity in his nemesis.  

 

I only saw the film once, but I recall Choi Min Sik coming across like he didn't care if Hyun killed him or not.  It could've been a bluff, sure... but at that point, it felt like CMS didn't give a shit.  Entering his family into the equation rattled him and I thought that it wasn't out of fear for his life, but that his family would see something so horrible.

 

 

 

I really liked/loved this. Not exactly greater than the sum of its parts but there are so many moments of flat-out great filmmaking that I kinda rolled with it, despite some nagging flaws.

This is going on Netflix Instant View on 6/9 if anyone hasn't seen it yet and doesn't mind a short wait.

Very nice discussion, But I never seen this kinda movie....

After finding out that Min-sik Choi was in this I decided to check it out. Well, let's just say I was impressed for the most part. Choi is as expected awesome in his role but it's Byung-hun Lee who steals the show at the end. The final scene is acted out so well that it's something that definitely sticks with you after you finish watching the movie, I believe it is easily the best part of the movie.The brutality is also pretty intense, the stabbing scene in the car stands out. I liked that this movie kind of made up it's own rules, though I can bet some people will dislike it for the same reason. What I disliked were some of the side characters, specifically the cannibal guy and the girl he was with(was it his wife or what), he seems only put in this movie to shock you but I kept wondering - do we really need this guy and the girl?(who we never really know her purpose). I also didn't understand Choi's reasoning to turn himself into police. He was a free man could do what he liked, so why not dissapear? The scene where Lee picks up Choi from the police station is pretty over the top but I guess that was intended. But overall I did enjoy this one even though it was flawed in some ways that Oldboy wasn't.

 

Yeah, I had this takeaway as well. Hyun has absolutely no weapons against Choi until he involves the latter's family; it's a small weakness, sure, but it's also Choi's only weakness, and it clearly does the trick. Dying is the problem for Choi, it's dying right in front of the people he's labored to shelter from his barbaric indulgences and sadistic behavior. It's proof that he has failed utterly in his efforts to distance them from the world he inhabits.

 

Chip, re: the cannibal. The cannibal is just another member of the psychopath parade Choi encounters along his journey. I think these characters are really all meant to build up Choi as something akin to serial killer royalty, or at least the baddest son of a bitch in the bunch; I can't imagine anyone else dissing the cannibal as Choi does and getting away with it. I don't know if he's there to do much more than that, but I think that's an important facet of the story, enough that it justifies his existence.

 

I also loved the shit out of Lee here, and I think he matches Choi on every level they're operating on together. They can team up again any time in the future they want to.