I Saw the Devil
Director: Kim
Ji-woonStarring: Choi Min-sik, Lee Byung-hun
Ever since I saw Old
Boy I have been a fan of Korean movies; The
Host and The Good, The Bad and the
Weird are some of my favorite movies, especially the latter. Thanks to the
advent of Netflix I finally got around to watching I Saw the Devil, from Director Kim Ji-woon, who also directed the
afore mentioned The Good, The Bad and the
Weird.
This is a classic revenge thriller, taking the serial killer
thrillers and giving it a twist of sorts. Without going into spoiler territory,
the story begins with the brutal murder of a stranded woman, who turns out to
be the daughter of the police chief and the fiancé of an ass-kicking special agent.
Once he learns of her demise, the special agent doesn’t quite show emotion,
instead he deals with this tragedy by becoming a one man army and hunting down
the killer by getting information from the police chief to fuel his hunt, and
man – when he finds this guy, the real fun begins.
The majority of the film our special agent spends his time
tormenting the killer, playing a sick game of cat and mouse, and he proves time
and again that this killer fucked with the wrong guy. But he soon finds out he
is playing with fire and the tables are turned. I might sound sick for saying
this but, I really wanted there to be more torture done to the killer in a ‘SAW’ kinda way. The bastard doesn’t
quite get what he deserves and I felt a little disappointed there wasn’t more added
to their little game. Now that isn’t to say there aren’t scenes wince inducing;
there are quite a few actually with some nice nods to films reminiscent of Tarantino.
There’s also a nice little sequence involving some cannibals our killer is
friends with that also feel the wrath of our hero.
Ultimately the conclusion is satisfying and worth the time
spent with these characters. I definitely recommend I Saw the Devil to any fan of revenge flicks, it’s on Netflix now.
4 out of 5 stars
