I Saw the Devil (2010)
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. Soo-hyeon, a top-secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself.
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21 films that influenced I Saw the Devil
What critics say influenced I Saw the Devil
When a kid finds a severed human ear during one of the opening sequences of I Saw the Devil, you might mistake it for an homage to the comparatively placid world of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet or the dark pop poetry of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
There are references to other films (Blue Velvet, The Silence of the Lambs, Hostel) while never turning everything completely over into homage.
Korean director Park Chan-wook explored this theme thoroughly in a trilogy bookended by 2002’s Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and 2005’s Lady Vengeance, and epitomized by the 2003 cult smash Oldboy, a mega-revenge tale set to an operatic pitch.
Director Kim Jee-woon, whose credits include the chilling 2003 Tale of Two Sisters (blandly remade in 2009 as The Uninvited ) and a segment of 2002's 3 Extremes II, is clearly taking his cues from Park Chan-wook’s legendary (or notorious, depending on your point of view) vengeance trilogy, two of which— Oldboy and Lady Vengeance —also starred Choi Min-sik.
Choi Min-sik (a popular figure in this genre thanks to his role in 2003's similarly brutal Oldboy) is chilling as the Hannibal Lecter-esque villain, who relishes the cat-and-mouse game that develops between himself and his victim's fiancé.
Korean director Park Chan-wook explored this theme thoroughly in a trilogy bookended by 2002’s Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and 2005’s Lady Vengeance, and epitomized by the 2003 cult smash Oldboy, a mega-revenge tale set to an operatic pitch.
There wasn't much difference between the protagonist whom Korean actor Min-sik Choi played in "Oldboy" and a serial killer.
When special agent Kim Soo-hyeon’s (Byung-hun Lee, The Good, the Bad, the Weird) pregnant fiancee is brutally murdered by serial killer Kyung-Chul (Min-sik Choi, Oldboy), the police agent becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer and punishing him personally.
You can hardly call Kim’s central supercop a hero: Spinning with grief over the murder and dismemberment of his fiancée, the lawman frees the culprit (Oldboy’s Choi), only to repeatedly hunt and torture him.
Korean director Park Chan-wook explored this theme thoroughly in a trilogy bookended by 2002’s Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and 2005’s Lady Vengeance, and epitomized by the 2003 cult smash Oldboy, a mega-revenge tale set to an operatic pitch.
Principle titles include Chan-wook Park’s trilogy, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002), Cannes Grand Prize winner Oldboy (2003), and Lady Vengeance (2005), as well as Kim Jee-Woon’s A Bittersweet Life (2005).
Now he goes just as over the top with his take on films like "Manhunter," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven," but while his film works as cult horror, this stylishly uber-violent battering ram of a movie is thematically stale and sloppy in its details.
There are references to other films (Blue Velvet, The Silence of the Lambs, Hostel) while never turning everything completely over into homage.
It may be the most hypnotic serial killer story since The Silence of the Lambs, and it's certainly one of the best thrillers I've seen in a few years.
When a kid finds a severed human ear during one of the opening sequences of I Saw the Devil, you might mistake it for an homage to the comparatively placid world of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet or the dark pop poetry of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
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In fact, Jee-woon has a taste for the bizarre giving audiences an homage to classics such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
I mean, I don’t go see torture-porn like the “Saw” or “Hostel” films, or the movies that pass for horror coming out of Hollywood.
I do think, however, that it needs to be noted that this is not mindless torture porn of the Hostel (2005) stripe, though it uses a not wholly dissimilar approach in its depiction of violence, and I Saw the Devil can rightly be called a horror movie.
There are references to other films (Blue Velvet, The Silence of the Lambs, Hostel) while never turning everything completely over into homage.
It’s a little Death Wish and a lot Saw, though the term “torture porn” doesn’t exactly apply.
Little wonder, then, that "I Saw The Devil" is one of the year's best films, although I would warn that it is harrowing, visceral stuff. It plays like some fevered middle ground between "Se7en" and "The Game," but that's not to say it's just some Fincher knock-off. Far from it. I'm frustrated that I don't have the credits for the film to refer to, so I'm not sure if it's an original script or an adaptation, or who wrote it. It's a fiendishly clever construct, though. In the film's opening moments, a beautiful young woman is on the phone to her fiancee, who is indeed a South Korean secret agent played by Lee Byung-hun. She's got a flat tire, and she's called for a repair truck to come help her. Instead, someone else stops by, an unsettling figure played by Choi Min-sik . When she says the wrong thing, it's almost like it's the excuse he's been waiting for, and Choi Min-sik goes mad, murdering her with sudden, awful fury. Once Lee Byung-hun finds her body, though, and sees w…
Little wonder, then, that "I Saw The Devil" is one of the year's best films, although I would warn that it is harrowing, visceral stuff. It plays like some fevered middle ground between "Se7en" and "The Game," but that's not to say it's just some Fincher knock-off. Far from it. I'm frustrated that I don't have the credits for the film to refer to, so I'm not sure if it's an original script or an adaptation, or who wrote it. It's a fiendishly clever construct, though. In the film's opening moments, a beautiful young woman is on the phone to her fiancee, who is indeed a South Korean secret agent played by Lee Byung-hun. She's got a flat tire, and she's called for a repair truck to come help her. Instead, someone else stops by, an unsettling figure played by Choi Min-sik . When she says the wrong thing, it's almost like it's the excuse he's been waiting for, and Choi Min-sik goes mad, murdering her with sudden, awful fury. Once Lee Byung-hun finds her body, though, and sees w…
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Bessai has flirted with sci-fi tropes before but he's wading pretty deep into the genre pool with this indie riff on Groundhog Day, in which three rehab residents take the place of one weatherman.
Director Kim Ji-woon, responsible for 2004's skin-crawling supernatural mystery "A Tale of Two Sisters" (remade for the U.S. in 2009 as " The Uninvited "), is aggressive and resourceful enough to play with expectations.
Director Kim Jee-woon, whose credits include the chilling 2003 Tale of Two Sisters (blandly remade in 2009 as The Uninvited ) and a segment of 2002's 3 Extremes II, is clearly taking his cues from Park Chan-wook’s legendary (or notorious, depending on your point of view) vengeance trilogy, two of which— Oldboy and Lady Vengeance —also starred Choi Min-sik.