I Saw the Devil

The latest from South Korean director Jee-woon Kim—maker of the great A Tale of Two Sisters and the not-so-great The Good, The Bad, the Weird—is a rather unpleasant yet undeniably entertaining revenge film. Byung-hun Lee plays a secret agent whose fianceé dies at the hands of a disgusting serial killer (Oldboy’s Min-sik Choi, in a truly disturbing performance). When the agent locates the killer, he lets him go, hunting him and torturing him along the way—but a few twists show that, surprise, the road to revenge isn’t a wise path to travel down. Yes, the film is predictable (and long), but it’s worth watching, if only for Choi’s chilling work. I will put Choi’s killer along some of the great cinema bastards like Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates. He’s that good at being bad.