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78%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #1,275
...out of 20,725 movies
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Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiance Soo-hyun, a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this monstrous and inhumane killer.
--TMDb
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When I first read about I Saw The Devil, I thought it was just going to be a typical revenge movie that would just ruin itself by the end of the film like Law Abiding Citizen. However, I noticed the two lead actors and the director on imdb.com. That definitely raised my eyebrow and many reviewers were complaining about how gory it was, so I thought this would be a perfect film for me to downlo... buy and review.
Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) is your typical psychopath these days. The man picks up young attractive women by pretending to be their friends and takes them back so that he can have his way with them. One night he picks up Joo-yeon as his latest victim, but unknowingly to him she is a daughter of a retired cop and fiance to Soo-Hyun (Lee Byung-hun), who happens to be a top secret agent. Soo-Hyun finds the killer in no time at all and is about to kill him, but decides he would rather do something else. Now it looks like Soo-Hyun and Kyung-Chul may have more in common as time goes on.
The story is not what you would call original, but what revenge movies these days are truly original at all? As the film drew closer to the final scenes, I was enjoying it more and more. Usually these films just drop at the end for me, but this was getting more exciting as the story went on. I wanted to know if Soo-Hyun was turning into a monster himself, or if he was going to have a change of heart turning into the good guy we are forced down our throats thanks to Hollywood. I'm glad this movie was done by a Korean director because I know if any American touches this film that they will probably ruin it. I say probably because there might be that small chance that someone will actually do something with this, but I doubt it and I wouldn't want them to try anyway.
The gore scenes were perfect to me and I was really shocked to hear that the Korean Media Rating Board told Kim to cut certain parts out because it was too violent. Reviewers are still complaining about the scenes that are still in the theatrical version, saying that it's too violent for its own good. I can tell you that if you are a true fan of horror and an active member of this site that you probably won't find most of these scenes too graphic. The only one I can see being a problem was in the hospital.
The only problem I had was the pacing in the middle of the film. There are a few parts that could have been cut and we wouldn't have missed them at all, but other than that, I was satisfied.
Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun did an amazing job on this. Their chemistry is something I miss in these types of films and you really don't see it that much anymore, or maybe I'm just missing something. Choi Min as a serial killer is just perfect and it's no wonder why, when you have movies like Old Boy or Lady Vengence in your belt. He was made for this role playing this humorous fiend. My favorite part with him was during a nice cab ride our serial killer takes and I may be sick in the head because I had a good laugh at it. You can't help but hate him and love him at the same time. Lee Byung as our anti-hero did much better than I thought he would. I enjoyed him in The Good, The Bad, The Weird, but I didn't know how I was going to enjoy him here. His character is far more important than Choi's because he is slowly evolving into something else and we are watching him grow. Lee Byung plays off these emotional and destructive feelings so well.
Overall: Well, I'm clapping for Kim Ji-woon because he made a movie that took me out of that rut of watching crap for so long. For the last couple of weeks I was lucky to find a movie that I was really interested in, so it goes without saying that I loved this film. I could go on about the fantastic directing, acting, lighting, or the score, but that would mean you would have to read more of my terrible review when you should be finding a way to watch this film, right now. 9.5/10.
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