HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2020: I Saw The Devil (2010)

Our sponsor today is my podcast brother from Canada, the man who has been bringing you all the horror news and views you can use for over a decade through Dread Media, Des Reddick!  Dread Media is essential listening for afficianados of the macabre...and if you really dig his work, sign up for his Patreon!

Des has chosen for me a film from Korea that is one of his favorites, I Saw The Devil.  As some of you may be aware, I’ve become quite enamored of Korean cinema and television lately.  I’ve even talked about some of the films on previous episodes of Dread Media.  Since I have not seen this, I was curious--especially after hearing Des’ praises.

Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-Hun Lee) is an agent of the NIA, Korea’s national intelligence agency.  When his pregnant fiance is killed by Jang Kyung-Chul (Min-Sik Choi), Kim takes some time off.  Using some leads provided by his fiance’s father, the local police chief, he proceeds to locate Jang (who we’ve seen kill another woman since, and is in the process of raping a schoolgirl he kidnapped from his job as a school bus driver) and beats the living hell out of him.  He’s about to finish the job, braining the psycho with a big-ass rock....

Now if this was an American film, made by an American filmmaker, that confrontation between the secret agent and the killer would be the climax.  We would see the agent reject the urge to kill, leading to a continuance of the fight that would end in the killer inadvertantly causing his own death, giving the audience and the agent closure in a way that does not implicate him in the death of his nemesis.  Good triumphs over evil.

In this film, it’s just the first act.

You see, instead of killing him, Kim breaks Jang’s wrist and leaves him with an envelope full of money.  He also forcefeeds a special tracking device to Jang, so that he can follow him and continue to torment him.  As Jang tries to flee, continuing to murder all the while, Kim pops up to assault him, injure him and taunt him.  Which is why this is, in my mind, not so much a serial killer thriller as much as it a Korean descendant of the work of Sam Peckinpah, particularly Straw Dogs.  It’s not that director and co-writer Jee-won Kim is interested in Good triumphing over Evil; he’s interested in how far Good can go before it becomes Evil.  Throughout this watch, I kept thinking that this film was not taking sides...it was watching impartially as our protagonist destroys his quarry’s life...and ends up utterly destroying his own.

This film would not have worked without our leads--Choi in particular, who has to be such a loathesome creature we don’t realize how far down the rabbit hole Kim has gone down.  And the script is paced in such a way that we keep finding new depth of this hellish reality Kim has to walk through.  By the time we get to the end of Act Two, where Jang has taken refuge with a fellow serial killer and his girlfriend who cannibalize their victims, we lose track that the guy who we’re following--who we’re supposed to be rooting for--is becoming as sadistic as his quarry.  Byung has a really good screen presence that reminds me quite a bit of Henry Silva, and his stoicism stands to distract us from the erosion of his morality.

This is one of these films that manages to keep pulling the carpet out from under you.  There’s actually a stretch of time reaching late into the third act where we’re convinced the victory claimed by the ‘winner’ is phyrric at best, until we realize that what seemed to be a throwaway scene in Act One was just the beginning of Kim’s revenge.  We are not relieved by this outcome...we’re horrified and more than a little saddened.

This is a pretty long watch, and it’s filled with lots of brutality and gore; I would not be surprised if some people would link this to the ‘torture porn’ aesthetic that dominated horror in the later parts of the ‘00s.  But it doesn’t feel long; Jee-Won Kim switches up gears so often we don’t have time to feel its length.  Yes, its subtitled and I know there are some of you griping about ‘reading the movie,’ but forget that.  This is an experience, a serial killer thriller that goes deeper than the average Hollywood thriller.  It is not about Good vs. Evil; it is about the grey, wider than you may think border between the two.  This is very recommended, and since it’s free on Tubi you have no excuse.

Our sponsor tomorrow is one of the stars of the upcoming audio drama adaptation of Terry Moore’s Strangers In Paradise (which you can learn more about here), Lauren A. Kennedy.  Lauren has chosen, admittedly at my suggestion, Hell House LLC,  a found footage film from 2015 that stars...Lauren A. Kennedy!

There are Nine Sponsorship Slots Left in the Halloween Horrorfest this year.  To claim one, do one of four things:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

As with last year, if I end up with more sponsors than there are days in October, I will go into Horrorfest Overtime, which means Halloween goes into November for me--and you!