Beautifully scored, stylishly edited and unflinchingly violent, if this recent red-band trailer is anything to go by, I Saw the Devil looks to be the latest addition to the list of excellent Korean films making their way to the West. Directed by Kim Ji-woon (The Good, The Bad and The Weird, A Bittersweet Life), the film tells the story of a secret agent (Lee Byung-hun, The Good, The Bad and the Weird) who sets out on a quest of bloody vengeance against a brutal serial killer (Choi Min-sik, Oldboy) who murdered his fiancé.
The movie scored strong reviews coming out of TIFF and Sundance (including this largely positive one from our own Kurt Halfyard), and is set to go into limited release in the United States on March 4th. Click here to see if it’s playing near you.
was my film of 2010, it’s a great looking movie, brings something new to the revenge genre, you just roll with it for the duration. It’s been criticised for being shallow, but I never went into expecting anything deep. Is a total blast.
I caught this at TIFF, and was very glad I did so. It’s a pretty gruelling, unrelenting viewing experience, but a totally compelling one. Very good trailer.
Alas, in my review somewhere in the archives here, I cannot agree with the ‘muster’ of the film. Perhaps re-evaluating it as a complete satire of the revenge subgenre, or the logical end point. Considering the talent involved, I expected a bit more than ‘bon, cop, bad cop’ type shenanigans. The whole exercise felt empty and derivative to me…maybe that was the point; I am not sure.