Damn. This two-and-a-half-hour revenge epic by director Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters) is as well-crafted as it is incredibly unpleasant. I doubt it's one I'll revisit again and again, but the experience is a roller coaster ride of the highest order. From the first scene on, Kim expertly creates and maintains a macabre, oppressive tension. With every violent confrontation and ghastly reveal, the film's grip tightens, and it builds to a devastating, perfectly played ending. There are a few points throughout where you just want to say, "Christ, do I need this? How much more brutal and absurd can this carnival of ache and blood become?" Overall, though, it gets the job done, and grapples with a familiar revenge-movie question--how far is too far?--in an effective, disturbing way.

B+

A couple "logic gap" beefs:

1. The scene where he finds the engagement ring in the drain was too pat. I understand why it's there, it's certainly an efficient and easy way to set the main revenge plot in motion, but still. "Oh, I've just entered a huge, creepy torture room. I'll go directly to this one drain and put my hand in exactly this place...THE RING! THIS IS THE CULPRIT!" Eh.

2. The murderer moves around very easily for a bulky man with a sliced Achilles tendon.

3. Angry Cop Official Dude should've spent less time hitting people and yelling and more time, uh, getting his good friend (who has just been nearly bludgeoned to death) to a hospital.

I Saw the Devil is as impeccably well-made as it is relentlessly one-note in its depiction of diabolical violence. Thanks to the high level of craft put forth into making the audience squirm, there's plenty of tension and beautifully composed shots of impending nastiness. Like some other South Korean films I can think of, its wildly melodramatic. The scene where they find the dead wife is so hysterical and overdone that it becomes kinda glorious. So is the first fight between avenger and killer (a more fitting distinction might be bastard and psychopath) but sadly, the movie repeats the same beats so that when the killer finally goes after the avenger, we wonder why it took so damn long.

My biggest problem with the film isn't the absurd levels of ultra-violence so much as the half-baked structure of the cat-and-mouse game between the two rivals. Films like The Dark Knight or more recently Footnote work so well because of the way the two opponents one-up each other in ways that surprise the audience. I'm impressed by how much suspense the director is able to extract out of such a predictable screenplay, but it makes the film much more impressive while watching then in retrospect.

, I Saw the Devil is an effective slice of torture porn without