I Saw the Devil

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.

The biggest problem with revenge movies is that the vigilante "hero" never tracks the villain down, maims him, drugs him, lets him think he's escaped, tracks him down again, maims him again, drugs him again...This movie solves that problem. It's like if Travis Bickle was a dick, or maybe I missed the message of that movie.

Well made film that shows the ultimate futility of revenge. It doesn't exactly break new ground, and is too gory for my tastes, but it is pretty effective.

As far as revenge films go, this one was probably the meanest and darkest I've ever seen. The violence will make you feel deeply uncomfortable, the gore effects are impressive and twisted. Contains the best car-related stabbing scene since Herbie Goes Totally Apeshit.

This one doesn't mess around in its unflinching depiction of violence, and as a whole it is generally grim, bleak and unpleasant. Any humour in here is so jet-black it would be easy to miss. It is utterly absorbing, however, and the acting from the two leads is top notch. The ambitious ideas succeed in no small part due to the capable direction; this keeps it apart from what may be termed "torture porn". I was pretty exhausted by the end of this one. Brutal, gripping, and fascinating.