incredibly suspenseful and awesomely done first 45 minutes or so...but then there was that scene, you know, when the movie had to explain its own subtext and then kind of wandered off beneath the point, just to get more and more off it and to start so suck. :(

Kim Ji-woon's response to Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy; a man's fiancee is murdered by a serial killer, so he decides to take revenge by visiting "a thousand... no, ten thousand times the pain" on the psycho in question. Turns out that has repercussions, both for himself and for others, expecially when the psycho realises what's going on and starts playing his own game. Beautifully done, but I find myself wishing he'd just given it one more turn of the screw.

How can Kim Ji-woon, Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun ever top this? Only beaten by Oldboy beeing the best revengefilm ever made.

the visuals were good, but the acting was a letdown in many parts. It's too long for an action film, and it's too inconsistent to be anything else.

Despite being influenced by other films, this had a freshness to it that kept it unpredictable and entertaining. Overly violent, but well directed and well acted.

"Another Korean revenge fantasy that negates its moralizing by wallowing in the ghastliness it nominally asserts is unfulfilling and destructive." - Nick Schager

I don't quite know what to make of it yet.

I Saw the Devil's early, Zodiac-like morbidity fosters hope that rapidly dissipates, with Jee-woon opting to go down a path of exploitation rather than exploration -- revelling in violence with only the most facile, blunted sense of context. It's a massive come-down from A Tale of Two Sisters, in which this Korean director seemed capable of portraying grimness in a visually, thematically rich way. In contrast to Tale, his latest film is rote stuff without flair or depth.

This movie is so f*cked up that i refuse rating it higher. I just cant enjoy the worst of gore. That being said, cut the gore and it might loose some edge, but I wouldnt have to turn my face away every 10 minute. Hollywood remake would definetly be interesting as the story itself is engaging indeed

An operatic ode to extreme violence. Dirty Harry meets Kill Bill.

This movie is frantically paced, with practically no breaks of dialogue between the tremendously violent displays of gore and torture. The combat scenes are well choreographed and rather realistic (the bodies act like bodies should - you'd be surprised at how long a head can last before caving under a fire extinguisher). The ending, a bittersweet finale, is a welcome catharsis. 4.5/5

Cracking Korean horror flick from Jee woon Kim. Not an easy watch by any stretch of the imagination, it's brutal in places and drags a little toward the end but its a beautiful film to look at and is directed with a huge amount of style. Catch it before the inevitable remake which I'm predicting will star Mark Wahlberg and Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Some definite holes but very good. Reminiscent of Oldboy.

Ji-woon Kim's "I Saw the Devil" effortlessly reaches the heights of previous South Korean revenge flicks like "Oldboy" and Kim's own "A Bittersweet Life". Min-sik Choi is the yin to Byuong-hun Lee's yang, although the strength of "I Saw the Devil" is precisely the overt blurring of these distinctions. How far can you go before you become the evil you started out combating? The theme is familiar, but the ingenuity of the cat-and-mouse plot and overall stylishness elevates it to another level.

Fuck awesome. I am now in serious dilemma that which one is better, A Tale of Two Sisters or this one. This is more of a visceral, gut-wrenching movie. The former one is more bigger on the atmospheric side which gets on your nerves. Here we get a character who is stubborn as hell to take the revenge of killing his pregnant fiancee and turns on to kill the psychopath with his own weapon of merciless brutally violent crime.

Adds absolutely nothing to the revenge-thriller subgenre, except perhaps the most ineffective, cumbersome mode of vengeance with the largest margin of error ever concieved in the history of cinema. A sloppy, overlong, high-gloss mess with a few very well made scenes scattered throughout.

It's like Oldboy with ten times the violence and none of the style.

Yet another astounding film from the best Korean director of recent times: Kim Ji-woon. "Akmareul Boattda" takes the cat and mouse formula and flips it on its head, with the "hero" doing the chasing/torturing. Very extreme for a mainstream flick, it's not exactly for everyone and the casual viewer might find some scenes a bit too stomach churning but it really is an essential watch, if for nothing else than the performances of Min-Sik Choi (which rivals his role in Oldboy) and Byung-hun Lee.

Fascinating concept, but the execution is intensely flawed and strained, as if the writer had one good idea but didn't know how to come up with a story for it. I'm not one to harp about plausibility, but it's hard to take anything seriously when the supposedly clever characters make mindbogglingly idiotic decisions left and right and the whole plot revolves around those decisions. Beautiful cinematography and flawless performances, but still one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

Your enjoyment level of this is largely going to depend on your threshold for grisly violence, and mine is waning in my old age, but either way, when the film is over, you feel like you've been through an ordeal.

Nice and all but something is missing. I got bored.

My favorite movie of 2010, gripping, intense, and so precise and perfectly metered in it's application of brutality that it is nearly impossible to recommend to anyone who has anything less than a wrought-iron constitution. Proved that the Korean Renaissance of the mid 2000s is not only still kicking, but stronger than ever.

THIS IS EASILY ONE OF THE BEST & MOST ENTERTAINING FILMS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE! AND EASILY THE BEST FILM OF 2010 FOR ME!

I saw I Saw The Devil. Fart

Some plot wholes here and there but overall a solid movie. Not or usual A4 horror/thriller movie. Would have expected a bit more gore since it is an asian movie tough!

I thought there would be a bigger twist like in Oldboy.. the movie was all about violence/gore and manipulation, which is not that different from most thrillers/horrors. Min-sik Choi's acting saved the movie from being average.

incredibly intense...what more can i say, best movie of 2011

It's impeccably done and the leads - as usual - own it, but it's inconsistent and doesn't really seem to be honest with itself.

Tense, horrifying, having twists-and-turns that make it different from those from the similar genre.

Gripping movie. Graphic violence. Conveys the message that revenge is good but better not let it go too far!