Welcome to the first edition of UKP’s Thriller Thursdays! Now, I know that thrillers and horrors aren’t always genres that people enjoy, but I love talking about films and sharing recommendations about any genre and thriller films are some of my personal favourites, so I hope that some of you out there enjoy these Thriller Thursdays too!
With that out of the way, let’s get into it! I’m going to kick this thing off with a film I watched pretty recently, and it’s a horror film released in 2010 called I Saw The Devil. Despite what the title might suggest, this film actually has no supernatural aspect to it, but I assume that the title actually refers to seeing the evil in fellow human beings.
I Saw The Devil is set around the actions of Kyung Chul (Choi Min Sik), a wildly violent and dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. His cruelty is senseless and horrifying; his lack of humanity is quickly apparent and he seems to embody pure, unadultered evil. This film starts out as it means to go on, with the brutal murder of a young woman named Joo Yun at the side of a road. She had been waiting for a tow truck after her car had broken down when Kyung Chul stops to offer help, but very quickly the violence begins and he kills her and scatters the pieces of her body. This film follows special agent Soo Hyun, (Lee Byung Hun) who was Joo Yun’s fiancé, as his obsession with finding the person who killed Joo Yun and getting revenge begins to bring out the monster in him too.
When Soo Hyun figures out that Kyung Chul is the one responsible for the death of his fiancé, an ever-escalating, violent game of cat and mouse begins between the two, and as more people get caught in the crossfire, the lines between what is right and wrong fall away as revenge becomes the only thing that matters.
This film was shockingly violent from the get-go and I would definitely not recommend this film to anyone who wants to venture into darker genres for the first time as it is extremely full-on and brutally uncompromising. Throughout the film there is murder, incredibly strong violence, sexual sadism and violence and just generally a whole bunch of unpleasant things. But this does not mean that this film was not enjoyable! It can be hard to explain the enjoyment derived from such films, but I Saw The Devil has an amazing cast, fantastic acting and great directing which lead to a visually stunning film to watch. The storyline will catch you and keep you hooked as you want to find out how everything will end, and the downward spiral of a good, law enforcing man into hatred and brutality is a fascinating thing to watch, and if you’re like me, you’ll probably find yourself rooting for him in some way.
Have you ever seen I Saw The Devil? Planning on watching it? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
