I Saw the Devil

The latest movie which I have reviewed comes from South Korea. And it is finally a great worthwhile one to see again. Asian movies such as Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong are vastly different in culture from the West, but can also show us some incredible movies, how few they may be.

From what I have reviewed so far, which are mainly horror, thriller, crime and action titles, things can get very subtle and intricate. But those can most of the time be executed well. There is plenty of diversity to be found, but what Asians are good at is their amount of insane materials and themes they sometimes can come up with. I will just drop one example and move on to the review itself. Promise you won't take in any drugs when you watch Tetsuo(1989), okay?

I tried to generalize, but Asian cinema is simply too big to compehrend. From Akira Kurosawa's epic and humoristic movies to Takashi Miike's horror movies to John Woo's action movies,  All I can say is, don't be afraid of foreign movies, you would not have a clue about several astonishing movies out there for sure.

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This spectacular title reminded me the most of Anthony Wong’s brutal CAT III movies, because the serial killer more or less had the same personality. As he murders a pregnant woman, the cop who was in love with her will stop at nothing to hunt down the killer, tear him apart and deliver to him 10.000 times the pain he did towards her. 

I’m not sure how that is all measured, but I can assure you that this is a very gory movie, which I very much praised. There is too many to talk about, but some of the highlights were the brutal taxi scene with 2 victims, the many head bashing scenes and the twisted ending, notable to be a very effective revenge tactic for the cop. 

As it developed, two monsters roamed and hunted on each other in this pretty long movie. Justice and righteousness were far away from this story, but that doesn't mean it cannot be a great story. Surely, most of the time, the movie felt unnerving, unpleasant and cruel, but that is just one of the many feelings one can have for a particular movie.

It was all about the revenge sequence. Character development wasn't as strong, but there are plenty of intimidating scenes to be found, resulting in phases of murders, then pursuit, more murders and then pursuit again. It's actually amazing how the serial killer managed to survive and escape several times.

I Saw the Devil is also not the most realistic directed, but boy, some scenes still stick in my mind. What you get to see here is just a glimpse of hell on Earth, or actually South Korea. To summarize, it was worth watching for sure. This is not a story where nothing makes sense, but the hunting kept going for so long, I wonder if anyone will be able to appreciate this movie despite it's length? You will only find that out if you decide to watch this thriller unfold.

Rating: 8.0