I Saw the Devil Reviews

Top Critic
Phelim O'Neill
Guardian
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5
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Nigel Floyd
Time Out
April 27, 2011
A remorseless catalogue of calculated violence, casual cannibalism and sexual sadism, this inflicts over two hours of suffering on the audience...
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
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Anton Bitel
Little White Lies
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.
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Tom Long
Detroit News
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.
Full Review | Original Score: B
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Rene Rodriguez
Miami Herald
April 13, 2011
We lucky westerners get to see it in all its hair-raising, stomach-churning glory, and that's a wonderful thing.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4
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Calvin Wilson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4
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Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
March 18, 2011
After a while, the sheer length and repetitiousness of the film begins to feel pornographic in the dullest sense.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4
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Mark Jenkins
Washington Post
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Wesley Morris
Boston Globe
March 17, 2011
As revenge fantasy, "I Saw the Devil'' is clever. As comedy, it's sick. As moviegoing, it's tedious...
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Eric Kohn
indieWire
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.
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V.A. Musetto
New York Post
March 4, 2011
When it comes to bloody revenge movies, it's difficult to beat the South Koreans.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4
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Mark Olsen
Los Angeles Times
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5
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Jeannette Catsoulis
New York Times
March 3, 2011
A droll Nietzschean fable that's fully aware of its lapses into absurdity.
Original Score: 3/5
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Scott Tobias
AV Club
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.
Full Review | Original Score: B+
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Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
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?
Full Review | Original Score: B
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Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out
March 2, 2011
The savagery is honest, raw and hardly entertainment.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5
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Michael Atkinson
Village Voice
March 1, 2011
Never good with nuance, Kim is a beast with disarming imagery (like the severed head that turns face-up in a river current) but has few resonating ideas, leaving the domino-tumble of brutality to become its own tiresome spectacle.
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Elizabeth Kerr
Hollywood Reporter
October 12, 2010
On any number of levels, Devil is troublesome at best, offensive at worst.
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