Korean crime movies have a very particular tone and feel to them, I think as a country they've done a great job at establishing a unique voice and separating themselves from Hollywood. It's the type of movie I can't find somewhere else, one day I felt like watching one in that vein and remembered that I hadn't seen I Saw The Devil, one that made quite a bit of noise when it originally came out. This is also the first film I've seen from the director (Kim Jee-woon), one of the big three Korean directors who made his Hollywood debut with The Last Stand in 2013 alongside Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer and Park Chan-wook's Stoker.
A serial killer makes a mistake when he murders the pregnant wife of a cop who holds a grudge and has a very unique sense of vengeance. The movie sees the detective playing with his prey as he continuously catches, tortures and lets the serial killer go again until he re-offends.
It's a very unique concept, hard to sell but watching it you never know exactly where the story is going. At first I thought the finding of the killer would take longer and found it weird that they revealed him from the start, by the thirty minute mark the two are already fighting though and it becomes much more a rivalry than a manhunt.
I really enjoyed the film, although I do feel that a concept this fun could have been made, well, more fun. It's quite dark in tone and takes itself surprisingly seriously. Of course I didn't now what the concept exactly was going on, I was only aware that it was horror - or some form of it - and that it would have a theme of revenge. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, it's only in hindsight that I feel it could have had a lot more fun with it's concept.
Technically the movie is extremely well made, but more so in the quieter scenes. Unfortunately the fighting scenes, which should be the highlight, were less well done and felt a bit unorganized.
I very clearly recall signing out at one point and taking note of this, it happened when the father figure character was telling the protagonist to stop his vengeful rampage, touching upon the fact that he's gone too far and that he is turning into a monster himself. The scene served as commentary on the situation, as well as establishing motivation, but I felt it came too late and what it had to say was a bit too shallow. By this point in the film we're just along for the ride and want to see what happens next, this felt like the plot was quickly trying to play catch-up and simply put it wasn't progressing. Should have had this earlier and clearer.
My overall opinion of the film is that it's good, but that it's concept is way better than what it actually delivers. There's a lot here that I would like to see expanded upon or simply done a bit better. Things like the action scenes, the setups/payoffs and character motivations could all use improvement. I think my overly positive view on the film stems mainly from the fact that it is such a great idea and that it was so unpredictable to watch. I find that in film, especially nowadays, the unexpected is extremely valuable to me._________________________________________________________________________________
This film stuck with me, maybe because I watched it incrementally for so long that it felt weird when it was finished, but the idea of mortal combat waged with the technique of torture porn ate away at me and I formed a quick concept that I think would work for a film.
I needed a setup that would allow me to have to characters engage in a form of combat that involved torture porn techniques, so of course I thought of films like Saw and Seven. Here's the logline as it stands now:
Two serial killers with methods and motivations akin to those in Saw and Seven start a relationship when the police mistake their crimes to be the same case, they soon realize they have very different outlooks on life (and death) and engage in a torture porn based form of mortal combat.
I think structure wise I'll have to play it off like a subversion of a rom-com thing for the first half, and have the two turn against each other during the second half, with it going full action in the last third.
There's a dynamism missing from my concept that is present in I Saw the Devil, especially related to the character motivations and relationships, but it's just a very quick and rough idea. Obviously I formulated this as being a feature, but I do think it's possible to translate into a TV series or short film.
Especially a short, which could show off all the fun ways that torture porn can be used as a form of combat.
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