I Saw the Devil Reviews
October 12, 2020
It's anchored by two fantastic performances. Seeing these two men go head-to-head psychologically and physically is enthralling.
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| Original Score: A+
April 28, 2011
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.
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| Original Score: 4/5
April 27, 2011
A remorseless catalogue of calculated violence, casual cannibalism and sexual sadism, this inflicts over two hours of suffering on the audience...
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| Original Score: 2/5
April 27, 2011
There is no denying that Kim Jee-woon is a phenomenal director, wrenching visceral thrills, dark humour and even occasionally an element of surprise, from all his stock set-pieces.
April 26, 2011
This gleefully black horror-thriller is a very classy follow-up to The Good, the Bad, the Weird for Kim Jee-Woon.
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| Original Score: 4/5
April 15, 2011
This is the stuff of nightmares, where even the good guy is bad, and as shock cinema goes, it packs a punch.
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| Original Score: B
April 13, 2011
We lucky westerners get to see it in all its hair-raising, stomach-churning glory, and that's a wonderful thing.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
March 25, 2011
Although the sequences grow somewhat repetitive in spite of their vicious escalation, and some of the details challenge believability, I Saw the Devil is a spectacle of substantial merit.
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| Original Score: 3/5
March 25, 2011
A terrific but uncompromising film that's definitely not for everyone. It's not just that the violence is graphic, but that much of it is so mean-spirited.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
March 18, 2011
After a while, the sheer length and repetitiousness of the film begins to feel pornographic in the dullest sense.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
March 18, 2011
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.
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| Original Score: 2/4
March 17, 2011
As revenge fantasy, "I Saw the Devil'' is clever. As comedy, it's sick. As moviegoing, it's tedious...
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| Original Score: 2/4
March 17, 2011
Though compelling as a kind of live-action Road Runner cartoon where the coyote really deserves his comeuppance, I Saw the Devil is finally and literally too bludgeoning for its own good.
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| Original Score: 3/5
March 4, 2011
Although largely programmed on the festival circuit as a horror movie, I Saw the Devil deviates from pure scare tactics with its integration of cops-and-robbers style espionage and thrilling hand-to-hand combat.
March 4, 2011
When it comes to bloody revenge movies, it's difficult to beat the South Koreans.
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| Original Score: 3/4
March 3, 2011
Even at its most chaotic, the film never loses sight of the human toll of the increasingly over-the-top events it portrays.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
March 3, 2011
A droll Nietzschean fable that's fully aware of its lapses into absurdity.
Original Score: 3/5
March 3, 2011
Kim goes to ever-nastier extremes with I Saw The Devil, but he also extends the revenge theme into a mesmerizing study of the nature of evil itself.
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| Original Score: B+
March 3, 2011
Jee-woon starts from a place we have seen before -- somewhere between Saw and Death Wish -- but the journey from there is uniquely his.
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| Original Score: 9/10
March 2, 2011
Somewhere in all the blood (sickening realism is a selling point), a question is posed: When does the one fighting a monster become a monster himself?
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| Original Score: B