I Saw The Devil review
I don’t know what it is about Korean films, (abrupt changes of tone? complete lapses of logic? a general cultural divide?), but something keeps me from connecting with them. I’ve liked to varying degrees The Host, Oldboy, and Sympathy for Mr./Lady Vengeance among others but have never fulled loved one of these films, despite international acclaim. Korean revenge film I Saw The Devil, however, was a fairly stupid movie in any language.
Remember the end of Se7en? Brad Pitt’s detective has to decide what to do to the serial killer who cut his pregnant wifes head off. He agonizes with the moral repercussions of his decision for a minute before deciding to kill him. It is a perfect finale to the film and one that makes the audience wrestle with their impulse for revenge while also positioning its uselessness. Now imagine instead if he had just beat the shit out of him, gave him a wad of money and let him go to continue killing people, so he could show up every now and again to beat the shit out of him some more. This would go on for 2 and 1/2 hours. That would have probably been the worst movie ever made, right? This is the plot of I Saw The Devil.
The shocking thing that it played at TIFF and Sundance and received extremely positive reviews. I think people assume that because they’re reading subtitles the film is somehow smarter than it is because if this had been made in English it would have been laughed out of theatres. It’s competently shot and acted but the script is utterly ridiculous. If you’ve seen Se7en and Zodiac you’ll realize that Fincher’s films have already said anything this film hoped to say, and done so much better (with character development and motivation to boot.) Oh well, the poster is still awesome.
