I saw the devil
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | I saw the devil |
| Original title | Angma-reul Boatda 악마 를 보았다 |
| Country of production | South Korea |
| original language | Korean |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | uncut: 136 minutes, cut: 125 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 18 (cut), legally checked (uncut) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Kim Jee-woon |
| script | Park Hoon-young |
| production |
Kim Hyung-woo , Jo Sung-won , Kim Jae-young , Kim Jung-hwa |
| music | Mowg |
| camera | Lee Mo-gae |
| cut | Nam Na-young |
| occupation | |
| |
I Saw the Devil ( korean. 악마 를 보았다 , Angmareul Boatda ) is a Korean film directed by Kim Jee-woon , starring Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun .
action
Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who ambushes young women for pleasure, abducts, abuses, and then kills them. During the day he goes to work as a bus driver with his van school bus, but in the evening he drives around in the area, lying in wait for his victims in the desert and at the lonely bus stops; but basically everyone who stands in his way belongs to it. One day he assaulted the daughter of the former police chief Jang, Joo-yeon, dismembered her and threw her remains into a river until a boy found them. During the grotesque act, she loses a ring at Kyung-chul's house, but he does not notice it. Her fiancé Soo-hyeon, a secret agent, tries to find her killer on her own. He swears revenge and ensures that the killer has to go through the same suffering as his victims.
Since Kyung-chul is known to the police, Soo-hyeon, in consultation with Jang, limits his search to four people. Soo-hyeon, blinded by anger, is extremely violent with the first two suspects he visits. He strangles one and beats his genitals to a pulp with a hammer, runs the other over first, then beats him up. At the address of the third suspect (the viewer recognizes Kyung-chul on the mug shots), Soo-hyeon meets his parents and son. While the parents do not know where their son has gone, Kyung-chul's troubled son knows where his father can be found.
Arriving at Kyung-chul's ailing hut, Soo-hyeon looks in vain for clues. When breaking open some locked drawers, he finds a pile of women's handbags and many women's shoes, which makes it clear to him that he has finally found the murderer of his fiancée. In the stone cellar, where Kyung-chul performs his bloody deeds, Soo-hyeon then finds the bloody ring of his fiancée in a drain, which only increases his feelings of revenge in him.
While Kyung-chul is doing his work day and a group of schoolgirls is driving home, he receives a call on the cell phone from the school that the group comes from. Since this is unusual, he begins to suspect that the police are after him. In the evening he kidnaps the last schoolgirl who is still on his bus and takes her to a greenhouse near his house to rape her there because he "wants to have fun again" as he expects a safe arrest. But when only Soo-hyeon shows up and prevents the rape, a fight ensues, during which Soo-hyeon Kyang-chul breaks his left hand and wrecks him. At the moment when he wants to smash Kyung-chul's head with a stone, he pauses and gives Kyung-chul a tracking capsule to swallow, which he had previously received from a colleague at work and which can be located via GPS . A little later, Kyung-chul wakes up with an envelope on his chest that contains a lot of money.
Kyung-chul, ironically, now thinks Soo-hyeon is the psychopath. While Joo-yeon's sister, Se-yeon, and Jang cannot persuade him to put an end to the campaign of revenge, Kyung-chul runs away and lets himself be taken by a taxi in the middle of a forest on a street. Soo-hyeon follows them in his car. Kyung-chul notes that the taxi driver is not the one shown in the passport photo in the front of the car. The other passenger stares at him too. Kyung-chul then murdered both inmates with a knife while driving and found out when getting out that they had killed the actual taxi driver and stowed it in the trunk, and referred to the two as "damn assholes".
Kyung-chul went to a small doctor's office the next morning and had his arm plastered. When he molested the young nurse and wanted to rape her too because he had “had a bad day”, Soo-hyeon came back at the last minute and another fight broke out. This time it will be definitely more brutal and painful for Kyung-chul, who only has one "functional" hand. Soo-hyeon later cuts the Achilles tendon of the almost unconscious Kyung-chul and then asks the frightened nurse to take care of Kyung-chul as much as necessary so that he can survive.
Kyung-chul now suspects that Soo-hyeon must have bugged him, but initially suspects his clothes or his car. He finds refuge with his childhood friend Tae-joo and his girlfriend Soo-hyung deep in the woods. The two are themselves cannibals and ambush hikers and travelers. In their country house, Kyung-chul comes to rest a little. Tae-joo notes that Kyung-chul's tormentor must have had a connection with one of Kyung-chul's victims. Soo-hyeon, disgusted by the abysmal malice of the couple and Kyung-chuls, first takes care of Tae-joo in the kitchen of the house, but is then chased through the house by Kyung-chul himself with a shotgun. Tae-joo and his wife almost perish while Soo-hyeon can outsmart Kyung-chul by throwing fishhooks on the ground and Kyung-chul, still walking barefoot, is brought down. Soo-Hyeon takes the unconscious Kyung-chul with him to a hospital, where he meets his colleague from work again. Believing that Kyung-chul is still soundly asleep, they talk about the tracking capsule that he had swallowed, which Kyung-chul finds out about.
Soo-hyeon exposes Kyung-chul under a bridge until he wakes up the next morning, visibly battered. He gets laxatives from a pharmacy and can get rid of the capsule in a public toilet. Knowing that Soo-hyeon can hear him, Kyung-chul tells him that Joo-yeon begged for her life before she died because she was pregnant. Soo-hyeon, who lost control in this way, no longer knows where Kyung-chul is. In a race against time and in conversation with the still almost unconscious Tae-joo in the hospital, he learns that Kyung-chul is sure to break into Jang and Joo-yeon's sister. Soo-hyeon then kills Tae-joo and makes his way to Jang. When he gets there, the father is almost dead and the sister of his fiancée has disappeared. Now Kyung-chul states that he wants to surrender and chooses a large, public traffic junction as the location for his task, so that Soo-hyeon can no longer attack and stop him. So he thinks he can win against Soo-hyeon. The police later find the body of Joo-yeon's sister.
In a daring maneuver, Soo-Hyeon manages to kidnap Kyung-chul in front of the police and drives away with him. In the house of Kyung-chul, he ties his head under his guillotine and asks him if he is afraid. Kyung-chul denies this and also when asked whether he has any feelings of remorse. Soo-hyeon lets him suffer a little longer until he too begs for mercy, but also shows him how often he himself has already denied the request for mercy. He later leaves the house and has Kyung-chul hold the guillotine attached to the door itself by a rope in his mouth so that if he opens his mouth or someone opens the door, he will behead himself. Meanwhile, his parents and son enter, open the door, and Kyung-chul's head rolls towards them. In the last shot of the film, Soo-hyeon can be seen walking down the street, crying and tormented.
background
South Korea's film evaluation agency KMRB actually forced Kim to cut the film: He had to make a total of seven cuts (resulting in a running time reduction of 80 to 90 seconds) in order to convince the authorities to refrain from classifying it as Restricted , which is equivalent to being unusable.
indexing
The uncut Black Edition of the film was even denied the highest approval ( unobjectionable under criminal law ) by the SPIO legal commission . The rights holder Splendid therefore turned to an independent legal commission, which finally certified that it was not objectionable under criminal law. This version, which was published in Germany in the summer of 2011, was indexed by the BPjM in September 2011 and placed on list B of media harmful to minors. List B of media harmful to minors includes media which, in the opinion of the BPjM, are to be classified as questionable under criminal law and, if necessary, should be confiscated. At the end of 2018 the film was submitted to a court again, which decided against confiscation . The film was moved to List A of the media harmful to minors.
Reviews
"An unflinching gaze into the heart of pure evil and a perverse genre entertainment par excellence, Kim Jee-woon's I Saw the Devil takes the serial-killer thriller as far into the realm of pulse-pounding mayhem as it has ever gone."
“On any number of levels, Devil is troublesome at best, offensive at worst. Yet again women have no role to play other than being brutalized and the film loses sight of its point in order to wallow in its lurid violence. The idea that exacting revenge does nothing to bring closure and only results in more misery falling by the wayside early on. The world as drawn by Kim and co. comprises sociopaths and psychopaths - including the "hero" and nothing in between. "
“Visually striking and artfully staged, the film boasts impressive set pieces and black-hearted physical humor. More than once, for example, a severed head rolls or spins into place with the grace and timing of a ballerina. And for those people who don't think a severed head is ever funny? They should not see The Devil . "
"Despite an abundance of sanguinary glee (and a noticeable contempt for women), I Saw the Devil is a droll Nietzschean fable that's fully aware of its lapses into absurdity."
“As revenge fantasy, I Saw the Devil is clever. As comedy, it's sick. As moviegoing, it's tedious [...]. "
"Never good with nuance, Kim is a beast with disarming imagery [...] but has few resonating ideas, leaving the domino-tumble of brutality to become its own tiresome spectacle."
“After a while, the sheer length and repetitiousness of the film begins to feel pornographic in the dullest sense. Each episode of catch-and-release allows for new kinds of bodily harm to come to the cop and killer who are engaged in what begins to feel like a purgatorial reality game show, South Korea's Biggest Psycho. "
“With I Saw the Devil , Ji-woon Kim delivers a true masterpiece in his genre. A brutal, exciting, emotional roller coaster ride that shouldn't be missed and a duel between two giants that has not been seen for a long time. "
“[…] A film whose events are captivating, while the characters leave you cold. There will be people who love this movie and there will be people who hate it. Above all, there will be people who claim that you have to love or hate him. And there will be a great many people who will parrot it without thinking. Nevertheless, there will also be some who see it differentiated, as partly successful, partly optimizable. But they will all have one thing in common: they will not forget this film anytime soon. For that it is too unusual, too surprising and too uncompromising. This is how great cinema should be. Not always, but every now and then. "
Web links
- Official website (English)
- I Saw the Devil in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- I Saw the Devil at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Comparison of the cut versions Not approved for minors - Legally checked , Korean theatrical version - International version of I Saw the Devil at Schnittberichte.com
Individual evidence
- ^ Todd Brown, I SAW THE DEVIL Trimmed By Seven Cuts, Not By Seven Minutes . Twitch. August 13, 2010. Archived from the original on April 12, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 18, 2011. (English)
- ↑ Han Sunhee: Korea restricts 'Devil' . Variety. August 9, 2010. Accessed May 18, 2011. (English)
- ↑ Gerald Wurm: I Saw the Devil moved from List B to A & for the first time in the Korean Cut in German (Schnittberichte.com). Retrieved December 18, 2018 .
- ↑ "As an unyielding look into the heart of evil in its purest form and perverse genre entertainment par excellence, Kim Jee-woons I Saw the Devil moves the serial killer thriller as far into the realm of pulse-pounding orgies of destruction as nothing before.", Original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
- ↑ “Whichever way you turn it, Devil is disturbing at best , but offensive and repulsive at worst. And once again the women only play the role of the brutally abused victims, all while the film abandons its themes in order to wallow in lurid violence. The idea that the exercise of vengeance does nothing to cope with terrible experiences and only leads to more suffering falls by the wayside early on. The world that Kim and co-workers create consists only of sociopaths and psychopaths - including our 'hero'; there is nothing in between. ”, original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
- ↑ "Visually remarkable and artistically designed, the film trumps with impressive scenic highlights and deep black comedy. For example, a severed head rolls and turns several times into the picture with the grace and timing of a ballerina. And what about those who can't understand how someone can find a severed head funny? They should n't watch The Devil . ”, Original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
- ↑ "Despite an abundance of bloodthirsty exultation (and a palpable contempt for women), I Saw the Devil is a fun Nietzschean fable that is fully aware of its leaps into the absurd." Original article here , accessed March 27, 2011
- ↑ " I Saw the Devil is smart as a revenge fantasy, sick as a comedy and dull as a trip to the cinema [...].", Original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
- ↑ "Nuances have never been his strength, but in terms of disarming imagery, Kim is a wild beast [...], even if he has only a few echoing ideas and thus allows the falling of the dominoes of brutality to become a purely self-serving and tiring spectacle degenerate. ”, original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
- ↑ “After a while, the sheer length and monotony of the film begins to feel pornographic in the dullest sense. Each episode of catch-and-releasing makes it possible to let the police and the killer ever new types of assault to come, with an increasingly get the feeling the two opponents would be in a fegefeuerhaften reality show beharken which is South Korea's largest Psycho call could. ”, original article here , accessed March 27, 2011
- ↑ Original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
- ↑ Original article here , accessed on March 27, 2011
