I Saw the Devil is a 2010 South Korean action-thriller film directed by Kim Jee-woon and written by Park Hoon-jung. Starring Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-sik, the film follows NIS agent Kim Soo-hyun (Lee), who embarks on a quest for revenge when his fiancée is brutally murdered by the psychopathic serial killer Jang Kyung-chul (Choi). I Saw the Devil premiered in the United States at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and had a limited U.S. theatrical release. The film received generally favourable reviews from the critics. I Saw the Devil was Choi Min-sik's first major role since the changes to the Korean screen quota system.

Plot

A school-bus driver named Jang Kyung-chul encounters a woman named Jang Joo-yun and offers to fix her flat tire. After beating her unconscious and bringing her to his home, Kyung-chul methodically dismembers her, unaware of her ring dropping and getting stuck in the floor drain. Kyung-chul scatters the body parts into a local stream, where it is discovered, prompting the police to conduct a search led by Squad Chief Jang, Joo-yun's father. Her fiancé, Kim Soo-hyun, an NIS agent, vows to take revenge against the murderer. After learning of the four suspects from Jang, Soo-hyun privately interrogates two of them. Upon searching the home of Kyung-chul, the third suspect, Soo-hyun finds Joo-yun's ring. A short time later, Kyung-chul brings a schoolgirl home and begins to rape her. Soo-hyun interrupts and beats him unconscious. Instead of killing Kyung-chul, Soo-hyun forces him to swallow a transmitter, allowing him to track Kyung-chul's movements and listen to his conversations. Waking up, Kyung-chul is offered a ride by a taxi already carrying one passenger. Kyung-chul attacks and murders them, leaves their bodies on the side of the road and cleans up in a nearby river. He then drives to a clinic to have his wounds looked at. After being treated, he proceeds to sexually harass and assault a nurse. Soo-hyun arrives, subdues him and slashes his Achilles tendon before leaving. At this point, Soo-hyun's intention becomes clear: he wants to torture Kyung-chul for as long as possible. Kyung-chul visits the home of his friend Tae-joo, a murderer and cannibal. After learning of the situation, Tae-joo remarks that his tormentor must be related to one of his victims. Kyung-chul deduces Soo-hyun's identity. Soo-hyun arrives and incapacitates both murderers along with Tae-joo's girlfriend, Se-jung. The next day, Tae-joo and Se-jung, still unconscious, are arrested by the police and sent to the hospital. Soo-hyun and Kyung-chul receive treatment for their wounds, aided by Soo-hyun's trusted subordinate, who helps them to evade the police. Kyung-chul wakes up and overhears Soo-hyun and the subordinate talking about the transmitter. After being released, Kyung-chul steals and uses laxatives to excrete the transmitter, then plants it on a driver at a truck stop. Soo-hyun enters Tae-joo's hospital room to question him and learns that Kyung-chul is going after Jang and his other daughter, Jang Se-yun. Enraged by Tae-joo telling him the details of Joo-yun's murder, Soo-hyun breaks his jaw. Kyung-chul arrives at Jang's house, brutally assaults him, then kills Jang Se-yun. He then attempts to avoid Soo-hyun's revenge by surrendering himself to the police. However, Soo-hyun abducts Kyung-chul in a speeding car just as the police are about to apprehend him. He drives to Kyung-chul's house, where he tortures him, places him under a makeshift guillotine and leaves him holding a rope between his teeth to keep the blade from falling. Though he mocks Soo-hyun, Kyung-chul begins to panic when he learns that his son and elderly parents, whom he had abandoned some time ago, have arrived and are trying to visit him. As his family opens the door, it triggers another mechanism that drops the blade and beheads Kyung-chul in front of them. Listening through the transmitter which he placed next to Kyung-chul's head, Soo-hyun breaks down in tears as he walks away.

Cast

Alternate versions

The Korea Media Rating Board forced Kim to recut the film for its theatrical release, objecting to its violent content. The film received a "Restricted" rating twice, preventing any sort of release in theatres or on home video and promotions as well. Seven cuts were made with the total runtime of removed material between eighty and ninety seconds.

Release

I Saw the Devil was released in South Korea on August 12, 2010. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2011. It also received screenings at several other international film festivals, including the Fantasporto Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival and the London Korean Film Festival. North American distribution rights were acquired by Magnet Releasing who released it on a limited basis on March 4, 2011. Optimum Releasing distributed the film in the United Kingdom.

Critical reception

The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 81%, with an average of 7.2/10, based on 86 reviews from critics. The website's consensus says: "Never flinching during its descent into depravity, I Saw The Devil is a pulverizing thriller that will give bloody satisfaction to audiences who like their revenge served with fiery rage." On Metacritic, the film received "generally favorable reviews," with a weighted average of 67 out of 100, based on 19 reviews. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times wrote, "From an unexpectedly moving first act to a hilariously disgusting sojourn with Kyung-chul’s cannibal pal, Mr. Kim and his cinematographer, Lee Mo-gae, retain complete control of the film’s fluctuating tones and impressive set pieces." Mark Olson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "There is all the violent mayhem, for certain, but the thing that sets I Saw the Devil apart is its undercurrent of real emotion and how unrelentingly sad it can be." Rob Nelson from Variety magazine stated, "Repugnant content, grislier than the ugliest torture porn, ought to have made the film unwatchable, but it doesn't, simply because Kim's picture is so beautifully filmed, carefully structured and viscerally engaging." Bloody Disgusting's Brad Miska gave it a rating of four-and-a-half out of five, writing: "I could talk for hours about I Saw the Devil, but nothing I can say will ever do it justice. The film is an experience; it's something that will have you emotionally invested in the characters, while also covering your eyes at the extreme violence," whereas Empire rated the film four out of five, stating, "This gleefully black horror-thriller is a very classy follow-up to The Good, the Bad, the Weird for Kim Jee-Woon." Phelim O'Neil from The Guardian wrote, "There's no shortage of Korean revenge-thrillers, but this, along with the recent The Man from Nowhere, proves there is plenty of life left in the genre" and gave it a four star rating out five. Not all critics were favorable towards the film's brutality; Mark Jenkins of The Washington Post wrote, "Director Kim Jee-woon is a born filmmaker, even if this script (written by Park Hoon-jung and adapted by Kim) is unworthy of his efforts" and rated it two out of five stars. Elizabeth Kerr of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that, "On any number of levels, Devil is troublesome at best, offensive at worst." In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine put I Saw the Devil in the top 20 of "the scariest movies you've never seen." In 2019, Jim Vorel of Paste named it the best horror film of 2010, writing of its ultimate conclusion: "It's one of the great, empty victories of horror cinema in the 2010s, and should be seen by a larger audience."

Awards and nominations

Home media

The film was released on DVD as a three-disc set, which contains both the Korean theatrical version and international version, in South Korea on March 29, 2011. The DVD and Blu-ray for the US and Canadian markets were released on May 10, 2011.