I Saw the Devil - Movie Review

I Saw the Devil
Original Title: Ang-ma-reul bo-at-da
2010
Dir. Jee-woon Kim

Spoiler Free!

Imagine a world in which Craven's Last House on the Left was subtly-made, compelling, beautiful, and ends up actually meaning something... Well, guess what: minus the famous 'biting' scene, you're in luck!  I Saw the Devil is your ticket.

This Korean horror-drama by Jee-woon Kim takes the cliche secret-agent revenge flick to a new level.  After only 53 minutes, this movie had the main characters in 'the final showdown', and I was baffled at what it was going to do with itself for the remaining hour and a half.  Well, it does plenty, weaving a plot so satisfying it had me clapping with sick glee.

A psychotic killer by the name of Kyung-chul (played by Min-sik Choi), kidnaps, rapes, and murders women.  One of those women was the fiancee of secret agent Soo-hyeon (played by the handsome Byung-hun Lee).  Taking two weeks off work, Soo-hyeon begins to track down her killer in the most badass way possible.  He doesn't faff around with investigating his suspects, he just sneaks up, assaults them, and gets them to confess about whether they're the killer.  Just so you know how serious he is, he smashes one rapist's junk with a hammer - just for good measure.  After two dead ends, he tracks down Kyung-chul and the real story begins.

There's a magnificent fight scene in a greenhouse that establishes Kyung-chul as physically intimidating and ruthless, but also establishes that Soo-hyeon is an unmitigated bad-ass.  Soo-hyeon WRECKS Kyung-chul.  But then, Kyung-chul wakes up with bruises, a broken wrist, and an envelope full of cash on his chest.  And this is where the movie takes off.

See, just killing Kyung-chul would be too easy, to simple for Soo-hyeon.  He wants that monster to suffer in pain and fear, just like Soo-hyeon's fiancee did in her final moments.  Thus I Saw the Devil takes us on a twisting ride that I can genuinely call cat-and-mouse without hating myself.  Kyung-chul goes about his serial-killing psychopathic business, stalked and repeatedly beaten by Soo-hyeon.  Along the way we meet all manner of strange low-lifes, cannibals, innocents, and diligent cops trying to tag along in Soo-hyeon's wake.

But do not mistake I Saw the Devil as a mere action-thriller.  There is no emotional triumph at the end for Soo-hyeon.  Justice is not served.  When all is said and done there is only blood and cold and despair.  And despite the fact that I Saw the Devil wallows heartily in all the great things about the horror movie psychopath (placing it squarely in the horror genre, I think), it maintains a steady, fundamental undercurrent of existential darkness.  It's the same theme that plenty of artsy movies try to get at, just without the wham-bang fight scenes and outstandingly rendered gore.  Sort of like if The Bicycle Thief were re-written by a Nebraskan teenager in a Cannibal Corpse t-shirt.  But then somebody with taste took it away and made sure it was good.

One of the best things about this movie is that, as it progresses, one isn't sure exactly who the Devil in it is.  At the mid-point, the perspective of the movie tilts toward Kyung-chul, the killer's, almost making him the protagonist as he bullies doctors and rapes a nurse.  This part, in particular, was where I felt the Last House on the Left resonance the most.  I was always put off by how LHotL seemed more concerned, even sympathetic, with the raping, murdering hooligans than the totally dorky, lame-o parents.  Perhaps it's the cynical part of me that knows there's countless douche-bags out there that agree.  Likewise, Kyung-chul runs around like an MRA's comic-book hero, not taking shit from old people, telling it like it is, complaining about how "the bitches are always out to get him", and generally being a huge prick.  But, a prick than has no compunctions about slitting your throat with a broken piece of glass.  This said, when Soo-hyeon begins to haunt him like a relentless spectre, I Saw the Devil almost seems to say that Soo-hyeon is the devil, and that's AWESOME.

But of course, nothing is so clear cut.  Later, as we see Soo-hyeon's broken condition, it is clearly Kyung-chul that was the devil.  Kyung-chul destroyed everything about Soo-hyeon's life, including his ability to be himself.

However, I don't mean to oversell the complexity of this movie.  What I'm trying to explain is that this movie deftly examines the most rudimentary blocks of morality and how our actions influence our identity.  It doesn't go very deep, so don't expect it to.  However, it goes deeper than I ever expected a movie like this to go.  Gory revenge flicks almost seem hard-coded to be mindless, pointless, and pornographic in the most boring of ways.  I Saw the Devil is not.  It's fun, exciting, scary, gruesome, but also puts the effort in to be good at all.

The reason why I react with such enthusiasm to this movie is that it's a bit of a rare bird.  It's an example of a horror movie that is splashy and satisfying enough to please the most plebeian audience, but is well-made enough to make stern critics shrug and admit it's not ALL BAD.  And this isn't just in the plotting or the excellence of the acting.  The editing (and subsequently, the pacing) is magnificent.  I Saw the Devil takes its time to show character development, while seamlessly advancing through the engrossing plot.  It's shot beautifully, in stern, wintry greys that are exploded apart by bright blood sprays.  Further the manner in which the camera conveys its action (even outside its color palate), is masterfully conducted.  If this convinces you: it's the first time I've ever seen the Michael-Bay-360 happen in a movie and actually BE GOOD.  Mindblowingly good.  Good because it makes the onscreen action claustrophobic, yet entirely visible in necessary ways.

In conclusion, I would recommend I Saw the Devil to anybody who likes a horror movie.  Because even if you don't go in for the splatter of serial killers, you can at least enjoy it for being a well-made film.  You can enjoy it for how it (might) make you cry, and (might) make you cheer or laugh.  You can enjoy it for how it doesn't turn away from its moral implications and inevitable personal repercussions.  But really, when you get down to it, it's just one of the hands-down best showings in the revenge-flick category you're likely to see.

-Joanna

White - Movie Review

White
Released 2011
Directed by Gok Kim, Sun Kim

FULL DISCLOSURE:  I love Asian Horror.  I love it so hard.  I prefer how these movies actually spend time characterizing their characters.  I like the plot structures.  I love the aesthetic and how they use horror to explore other, deeper topics.  As a result, I may be more charitable to this movie than I usually would be, simply because it suits my tastes.

White tells the story of a rising K-Pop girl group, "The Pink Dolls", and the vengeful ghost that undoes them all.  A pretty standard "Angry Ghost" plot.  At the beginning, The Pink Dolls are sucking.  They get booted off talent shows and are about to hit rock bottom.  Their manager (using the magic money of their magical super-rich sponsor) moves them into a posh new studio complex, where they rehearse, record, co-habitate, and snipe at one another.  First warning shot is fired:  manager got the studio on the cheap because there was a devastating fire in the building 15 years earlier.  People died.  *spooooooopy*

The main character Eun Joo (played subtly and endearingly by Eun-Jeong Ham) is the eldest of the group, and is therefore their dubious leader.  The other three girls (all much younger and more ambitious) disrespect her frequently, and are downright bitchy to her in one particularly revealing scene.  Eun Joo is lovable, though.  She's hard-working and somewhat humble, but not a wimp.  She competently leads the girls, despite all their toxicity.

As Eun-Joo is cleaning the mirrors in the new dance studio (she wants to help out with the move-in), she finds a secret panel containing a stash of VHS tapes.

Now, I think most of us have seen enough horror movies to know that if a hole in a wall opens up and you find a stack of grimy VHS tapes, YOU LEAVE THAT SHIT ALONE.  Don't play the tape.  Don't even look at them for too long.  Just poke them back into the hole with a stick and call the cops.  But, of course, none of us would actually do that because we're too damn curious.

One of the tapes is labelled 'White', and when Eun-Joo pops it into her VCR, it plays a distorted, warped music video by the girl group who previously owned the studio.  Lacking a hit single, she shows the song/tape to her boss, they remix it, and off they go!  One costume revamp, choreography, and sexy attitude-adjustment later, and The Pink Dolls are taking off in the K-Pop charts!

Of course, no success goes unpunished in a horror movie, and soon the girls start falling prey to sinister influences.  Their manager insists that one of them needs to be the 'lead' of the song, singing most of the lyrics and taking center stage.  You know, the Beyonce of the group.  This is where everything goes downhill for The Pink Dolls.  One by one, the other girls go slowly mad and are grievously injured when they are promoted to be 'lead'.  Eventually Eun-Joo, with the help of her bff, Soon Ye, and an awesome audio engineer, begin to unravel the mystery of the killer ghost.

Now, without talking too much about the second half of the movie, I feel the need to sell you on why you should watch White.

Reason #1:  Outstanding use of creep.

This movie does one of my favorite things:  It has entire creepy scenes that are soundless.  No forbodeing music, no puckish background violins plucking out the X-Files pizzicato, nothing but an actress looking confused or terrified.  It's so lovely.  It sometimes includes small, shrill, nerve-grating sounds to build the tension, but even then, those noises exist for a practical reason in this movie.  The waves of dread that some of the scenes in White produce are just delicious.

Reason #2:  Jump-scares out the wazoo (if you're into that sort of thing).

Now, I really don't care for jump-scares.  I just don't find them compelling.  This being said, my opinion of  White suffered due to the frequency of these jump-scares.  I LOVED the creep, but then when the movie got around to making good on all that pent-up dread, it just blew it.  The gore was basic and uninspired, and somewhat of a letdown after the masterful execution of the build-up.  Sometimes the "injuries" of the girls was out and out ridiculous; almost Final Destination-esque.  Mind you, they don't completely ruin the movie, they just knock it down a peg from being the best.

This is just my opinion, though.  So why is this reason #2 for why you should watch this movie?  Because I know lots of other people LOVE LOVE LOVE jump-scares.  And let me tell you, this movie is full of them.  It will make you jerk so hard, you'll break furniture and scare your cats.  If the Bongcheong Dong Ghost scared you, get ready for that crap again, but with bells on.  Korea is nuts.

Reason #3:  It's full of amazing female characters.

Are you sick of every woman in a horror movie being a useless chunk of eye-candy?  Are you sick of watching women helplessly flail at an easily-solved situation?  Are you sick of bad acting?  Do you also secretly love American Idol?

Well, if you watched The Descent and disliked how muddy and brutal it was, but still long for a horror movie that satisfies, then White is the movie for you! It's packed with intriguing female characters, from the manager to the ghost, everyone is different and interesting.  Even when the characters are being horrible and shallow, it's extremely well-acted.  There are horrible, shallow women in the world, and I feel that White portrays them elegantly.  When somebody goes insane, it feels legitimately overwhelming, because you aren't just watching a Barbie-doll thrash around on the floor.

Further, I feel like the heart of White isn't so much about scary ghosts, but rather the complex relationships that tie women together.  Body-image, pride, the expectation to be kind, the expectation to be bitchy, the requirement to work together in an industry that is cruel and shallow, and the desire for actual friendship are just a few of the pressures clawing at these women.  Then, they have to perform sexual favors to get funding and are criticized and managed and used as if they are, truly, dolls.  The fact that there's also a vengeful ghost driving them to their deaths begins to seem like the least of their problems.  Or rather, it's an entertaining tool for getting at these harsh interpersonal subtexts. 

Reason #4: Compelling use of media.

White skips between scratchy VHS, low-res reality tv, glossy music video, thrashing live-concert footage, and conventional horror aesthetics as easily as a bird flying through clouds.  The transition between these styles is always seamless, because it's always called for by the story.  And the overall blending of these formats makes it ever more convincing that the evil imprint of a vengeful ghost could slip out into the real world.  Combine this with the eerieness of reversed audio recordings and mysterious internet activity, and you've got a multimedia cornucopia of spookiness.

In conclusion, I recommend White.  It's your comfy old Asian-ghost-with-a-grudge story, but with a slick Korean Idol update.  It's filled with the dramatic lives of pop-stars, and jumpscares galore to thrill teenagers.  In the end, I wasn't as sad for the ghost as I usually am, but I was thoroughly entertained!

-Joanna

The Host - Movie Review

The Host
Released 2006
Directed by Bong Joon-ho

In the very first scene of The Host, we watch an American mortician order his reluctant Korean assistant to pour 200 bottles of formaldehyde down the drain, into the river.  This scene makes me sad, not because of what it actually is, but for what it seems to have done to people's perceptions about The Host.  This is another brilliant film I put off watching for far too long, mostly because I listened to what other people were saying about it.  Almost everything that mentions The Host name-drops it for its environmental message.  Which is a HUGE DISSERVICE!  Environmentalism probably fifth or sixth down on the list of 'Things This Movie is About'.  Let us list the others:

The Host is about:
Family
American-Korean relations
The Futility of the Individual when struggling against The System
Contagion
Loss
and then we get to Environmentalism...

Environmentalism and monsters go hand in hand. I get it; I understand. I mean, look at Godzilla.  Not just Godzilla the franchise, but Godzilla the institution.  For much of the 20th century filmmakers have used giant monsters to investigate the public's fears about nuclear weapons, pollution, and even genetic manipulation.  Bearing this in mind, it makes sense that The Host is usually name-dropped due to its heavy-handed environmentalist message.  But, to do this is to really miss so much of what makes The Host, truly, one of the best monster movies of all time.

The story is that a mutant monstrosity lopes up the banks of the Han river that runs through Seoul, causing chaos, death, and destruction.  In the midst of popcorn-munching Godzilla-brand crowd-panic, the monster kidnaps Hyun-seo, the daughter of Park Gang-Doo.  Thinking Hyun-seo is dead, the Park family gathers to grieve when they get whisked away to a decontamination hospital.  While going through the boring and confusing bureaucratic process of decon, Gang-doo gets a phone call from Hyun-seo.  She's still alive!  The monster has deposited her in its lair somewhere in the sewers.  So, what is the family going to do?  BREAK OUT AND RESCUE HER, THAT'S WHAT.

Hyun-seo and Gang-Doo, two of our heroes.

From here, The Host is part rollicking adventure, part hilarious satire, and part heartbreaking tragedy.  And I mean heartbreaking.  It has honestly been years since I've seen something that made me cry so hard and genuinely, only to turn around and make me laugh and cheer.  I did not go into this expecting an emotional roller coaster.  But, that's what I got.  This may explain why The Host is the highest grossing South Korean film of all time.  Just sayin'.  And mind you, this is not how I normally interact with movies.  I'm not swayed by emotional pandering- usually because the characters aren't developed enough for me to care.  But not here... not with The Host.

I wish I could tell you how much I love each and every one of the characters in this movie.  Even bit parts are fascinating.  The Host is one of those movies that I hope has a tiny fandom somewhere because I want to join it and look at fan-art cartoons and nerd-out because I ended up loving these people SO. MUCH.  I hope you will too.  Instead of rambling on and on about them, I suggest you just watch the movie- it'll be more elegant and concise anyways.

Need to go back and count the bullets in this movie.

Aside from how emotionally engaging The Host is, it's also a smart movie.  It refuses to satisfy tropes that make no sense.  Like tropes relating to bullets (*sob*).  Or tropes about how pretty, young girls interact with animals (*double-sob*).  Further, The Host knows how to balance on a knife's edge to make its satire very clearly understood without feeling didactic, or distracting from all the other things it's doing with tone and story.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget there are parts of The Host where you remember you're watching a horror movie.  Notably, the section of the film where American military scientists capture Gang-Doo and attempt to lobotomize him.  He calmly tries to bargain with the doctors in a scene so quietly dreadful it makes the ending of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest look justified in comparison.  Or maybe that's just because I like Gang-Doo at lot more than I do McMurphy.

"No guys, really, this is all a misunderstanding.  I gotta find my daughter."

This is usually the part of the review where I try to warn you so your expectations will not betray you, but to me this is difficult.  There's nothing I dislike about this movie.  The CG holds up beautifully, the pacing is spot on, the themes are up my alley.  Even that opening scene that caused so many to file The Host under "Enviromentalist Propaganda" and forget about it.  In context, the opening is actually very funny.  It's more about how laughably ridiculous and dumb American arrogance is than how formaldehyde makes a monster.

To stretch, I'm sure there are things others wouldn't like about this movie, but they're really a matter of taste.  Perhaps you won't like the characters like I do.  They reminded me a lot of the Bluths from Arrested Development, and I know that plenty of people find the Bluths "unlikeable".  The Park family is kind of like that.  Dysfunctional, but still loyal to one another.  Deeply flawed, but trying to be noble.  But also mean, or stupid, or cold, or drunk at times.

You might also dislike how The Host plays three games at once: Action-Thriller, Comedy, Tragedy.  It swirls between them quickly in a way I find delectable.  But this also means that the movie inserts humor in its darkest moments, and insecurity into scenes where you want the heroes to be invincible.  I love this so much, but I know others may think it scatterbrained or inappropriate (but I snub those opinions, anyway- snub, snub).

But if you like your monster movies to be great films too, I highly recommend The Host.  Or if you like your action movies to be wish-fulfilling and epic, I highly recommend The Host.  Or if you like your family dramas full of broken, realistic people, I highly recommend The Host.  You get the point...

-Joanna