I Saw the Devil
There has to be something in the water in South Korea. How else do you explain the unsettling revenge thrillers the country continues to release? In the mid-aughts, there was Chan-Wook Park’s riveting revenge trilogy of “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Oldboy,” and “Lady Vengeance.” Now, we get “I Saw the Devil” from Jee-woon Kim. This is my first film of his (although he’s known for “A Tale of Two Sisters” and “The Good, the Bad, the Weird”), but I’m not sure if I’m ready for anymore of his anytime soon. Make no mistake: “I Saw the Devil” is a superb thriller, but at 140 minutes, it’s really tough to take.
The film begins as Joo-yeon (San-ha Oh), the young fiancee of a special agent in the South Korean government, is trapped with a flat tire in the dead of night. A man in a school bus (Min-sik Choi from “Oldboy”) offers a hand. She refuses, wanting to wait for the tow truck already en route. But the man, whose name will be revealed to be Kyung-Chul, doesn’t take no for an answer, and he brutally attacks and kills her, chopping her up and spreading her pieces around one area by an overpass. (Keep in mind: This is all within the first few minutes of the film.) It turns out that Joo-yeon was not only the fiancee of agent Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee), but also the daughter of Squad Chief Jang (Gook-hwan Jeon). Taking time off from his job, Soo-hyeon is determined to find the man and take revenge, thus beginning our tale.
From the beginning onward, this is not a pleasant viewing experience. The violence is difficult to stomach (especially since so much of it centers around Kyung-Chul’s vicious treatment of his female victims), although the morality in Hoon-jung Park’s screenplay is even more unnerving. It isn’t so much that Soo-hyeon is tracking Kyung-Chul but it’s the way he’s doing it: He abuses his authority (albeit not tremendously); he toys with his prey (part of the film’s surprise comes from the fact that Soo-hyeon is known to Kyung-Chul early on); and he inadvertently puts Joo-yeon’s remaining family (including her sister) in harm’s way. His actions take him to the same moral level as Kyung-Chul. Yes, what Kyung-Chul has done is horrible, but the depths to which Soo-hyeon goes in order to exact vengeance is equally gruesome, leading us to a climax that leaves our hero as lost as the protagonist in “Oldboy,” which followed an equally disturbing path of revenge.
After leaving the theatre, what stand out most about “I Saw the Devil” are the moral abyss at the center of the screenplay, director Kim’s skillful handling of the film’s several violent encounters, and the performances by Lee and Choi that turn our blood cold (Choi in particular is unforgettable as one of the most memorable villains in recent memory). There’s a gratuitous and thematically unnecessary subplot that arises when Kyung-Chul visits a friend who indulges in cannibalism (as if Kyung-Chul’s brutality of his victims wasn’t enough), and as should be obvious by now, this film isn’t for the faint of heart, but “I Saw the Devil” is nonetheless a startling and gripping look into a heart of darkness many of us should be thankful never to have experienced for ourselves.
