I saw the Devil review

 Number 462 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean action-thriller 'I saw the Devil.'

Kim Soo-Hyun  (Lee Byung-Hun) is an NIS agent whose fiancee Joo-yun is brutally murdered. Soo-hyun swears revenge on her murderer - the sadistic Jang Kyung-Chul (Choi Min-Sik.)

I've seen quite a few Korean films since starting this list and I think it's fair to say that Korea is the America of the Asian film world. Nothing is done by half-measure. Everything is over-the-top and ridiculous. There is no subtlety. Just larger-than-life plots and daft plot developments.

This was certainly true for I saw the Devil which was a textbook example of horrible people being horrible to each other in particularly horrible ways. There was a lot of violence and most of it was completely gratuitous. I Saw the Devil was a film that could have left a lot more up to the imagination. It was a difficult watch.

Perhaps that's because we didn't really have a main character to root for. Soo-Hyun is supposed to be the antihero type, but his dogged determination to sadistically torture Kyung-Chul blurred the line between anti-hero and villain, but more in favour of the villain. Sure Kyung-Chul was a despicable killer, but Soo-Hyun was supposed to be better than him. He isn't though, least of all, because of his silly decisions to catch him, torture him, set him free and then repeat this process over and over again. This is all well and good, but it allows Kyung-Chul to kill more innocent people - he almost rapes and murders a schoolgirl.

I know revenge is a dish best served cold, but this seemed beyond stupid. Not to mention dangerous to Soo-Hyun and his family. Surely he would know by repeatedly catching and setting Kyung-Chul free, he is putting their lives at risk?

Spoilers

Speaking of loved ones, the film concludes with Soo-Hyun manufacturing a reunion between Kyung-Chul and his estranged parents and son, only to have him killed right in front of them. Yes, Kyung-Chul was a vicious killer, but what did his family do to deserve seeing something so traumatic? It was stupid and unnecessarily cruel.

Lee Byung-Hun is best known to international audiences as the Front Man in the hit series Squid Game. And Choi Min-Sik has also starred in the famous Vengeance trilogy. Both of them are great actors in their own ways, but here their characters were little more than soulless, emotionless monsters. They didn't get the chance to really show their acting chops.

I really didn't care for I saw the Devil. It was complete nonsense and unbelievably over-the-top. Not even the considerable acting talents of Choi Min-Sik and Lee Byung-Hun could save it.

The Man from Nowhere review

 Number 417 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2010 Korean neo-noir action-thriller 'The Man from Nowhere.'

Cha Tae-Sik (Won Bin) is a pawn shop owner with a dark past. When his only friend - the ten year old So-Mi (Sae-Ron Kim) is kidnapped by gangsters, he will stop at nothing to get her back.

If there's one thing I've learned from my experience of watching Korean films is that they do not do anything by half-measures. They go in hard with their use of stylised violence and slick fight choreography. Sure, at times, it's over-the-top and even cheesy, but it's still entertaining enough to watch.

At the heart of our action story we have the psychologically-damaged, former black ops soldier Tae-Sik and his touching relationship with the young, innocent So-Mi. The old cinnamon swirl being undone by the cute kid certainly isn't a new idea, but if done, well, it's certainly entertaining to watch. And it was well done here.

Won Bin gave a measured performance taking Tae-Sik from the darkly mysterious loner to an all-out action here. Similarly, So Mi's relationship with her junkie mother is so damaged that it's understandable seeing her latch onto a father figure like Tae-Sik.

If anything I would say the villains weren't as well-developed as they could have been. Tae-Sik was fighting against a series of gangsters running a lethal organ-harvesting operation. There were quite a few of them and they all blended into one after a while.

Overall, the Man from Nowhere, was exactly what it said on-the-tin - an over-the-top, no holds barred K-Thriller.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring review

 Number 233 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean drama 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring.'

The film is set in a Korean Buddhist monastery exploring the relationship between the unnamed apprentice (Kim Young-Min) and his unnamed master (O Yeong-Su.) We see the apprentice grow from a little boy into a man with each stage of his life being reflected in one of the seasons mentioned in the title.

Christ, this was a tedious film. Maybe I'm just not spiritually enlightened, as this film heavily leant on Buddhist imagery. However, most of the allusions and symbology went straight over my head. Cats and roosters feature heavily, but I missed out on their significance.

This was because I was bored senseless. This film was so slow. Very little action happens on-screen. We could have seen the apprentice killing his wife's lover or a mysterious mother falling through the ice, but we don't. That would have only been too interesting.

Instead, we were treated to extensive sequences of men standing around, looking pensive, often in complete silence. We don't even get any music to interest us.  Sure the scenery was pretty, but not pretty enough to make up for such a monotonous film. Yes, you get slow-burners, but this wasn't even alight.

It would have helped if we had an interesting likeable main character to follow, but we didn't. From the start, it is obvious that our novice monk has a few screws loose. As a child, he takes delight by tying rocks to a frog, snake and a fish. When he discovers that he is responsible for the snake and frog later dying, he feels guilty and starts crying. Yet that doesn't excuse that psychotic behaviour. Considering he goes onto kill a man, I'm not being hyperbolic.

Yes, his master punishes him tying a rock around him, but that doesn't make him any more likeable. He doesn't get any more likeable when he grows up and falls in love with a woman who arrives at the monastery needing to be cured from a mysterious illness. In the process, he begins a physical relationship with her, breaking his vows in the process. After his master sends her away, our apprentice becomes the world's biggest whinger. He later attempts suicide, but even something as dramatic as this was so boring to watch. It was no more interesting watching his master go a similar route later on.

I'm honestly surprised that I had this much to say about this film. It was so boring that I was shocked that I didn't fall asleep in the first half hour. 

3-Iron review

 Number 229 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean/Japanese romantic drama '3-Iron.'

Tae-Suk (Jae-Hee) is a lonely drifter who spends his days breaking into people's homes when they're away, eating their food, washing their clothes, fixing their appliances and sleeping in their beds. One day he breaks into the home of Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-Yeon) - a house wife who is being abused by her husband Min-Gyu (Kwon Hyuk-ho.) After Tae-Suk witnesses this abuse in secret, he proceeds to buffet Min-Gyu with golf balls before leaving with his wife who soon joins him on his escapades.

In 3-Iron, I've seen one of the strangest, most intriguing yet subtly powerful films about human connection and communication. What makes the theme of communication even stranger is how there is so little verbal communication between Tae-Suk and Sun-hwa. Despite having minimal dialogue, the two soon start to fall in love. This use of silence was completely intentional by director Kim Ki-duk who wanted the audience to focus on the relationship of the characters without being distracted by dialogue. There is so much more in what we don't say rather than what we do. Ki-Duk captures this idea perfectly. 

It's a great concept. So much of human communication is more than the words we speak. There is our body language, our facial expressions - all those little sub-communications that nobody ever thinks about, but make up so much of how we convey meaning to one another.

However, I wonder if Ki-Duk could have pushed this idea even further. The film is only short at eighty-eight minutes. That's not even an hour-and-a-half. Its short runtime meant that some of the plot-points were rushed and contrived so they could fit in the big thematic ideas within ninety minutes. Let's take the first meeting of Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa. Tae-Suk breaks into Sun-Hwa's home not realising that she is there too. He starts washing her clothes and fixing her bathroom scale. Meanwhile, she has spotted him there and, rather than confronting him or running and screaming for help, she watches him curiously.

After Tae-Suk beats Min-Gyu, Sun-Hwa leaves with him, no questions asked. Obviously she has to go with him for the plot to work, but it all happened too easily. I am no expert, but in many abusive relationships there is an element of Stockholm Syndrome. Despite being horrifically abused, the abusee still deeply loves their abuser. I thought Sun-Hwa would express distress at her husband being attacked or maybe she would try to stop Tae-Suk. At the very least, I thought she would be hesitant about leaving him, but that wasn't the case at all.

There are other plot points that were completely skipped over. When playing golf on a street corner, Tae-Suk inadvertently hits the golf ball into the head of a random passer-by. We see one shot of him wracked with guilt and then it's quickly onto the next plot point. Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa are caught in the bed of one of the homeowners they've invaded. What happens next? Nothing negative, as we're rushing along. These could have been great moments of conflict and tension, but they weren't explored properly.

I did enjoy 3-Iron. It was intriguing and very creative, but it definitely needed longer than ninety minutes to explore its big thematic ideas.

Memories of Murder review

 Number 213 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Bong Jong-Hoo's 2003 South Korean neo-noir crime thriller 'Memories of Murder.'

Park Doo-man (Song Kang-ho) and Kim Roi-ha (Cho Yong-koo) are police detectives in 1986 Hwaseong who are investigating a string of grisly rapes and murders. They are soon joined by the Seoul hotshot Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung.)

This was a convincing thriller. It was tense, gripping with plenty of plot-twists along the way. Granted it was complicated and convoluted at times, but as such is the nature with these films. Bong makes great use of the weather and music to really up the tension. There were great sequences like when the detectives chase a suspect through the backstreets of Hwaseong.

As is common for thrillers, many of the key scenes took place at night and in the pouring rain, which certainly built the suspense. And one of the biggest clues that cracks the case is a radio song that is always requested to play while the murders take place.

However, there was something stopping me from really engaging with it and that was the interpersonal dynamics between Park, Kim and Seo. Their constant unprofessionalism and squabbling really got on my nerves after a while. I get it. Park and Kim are resentful of having an outsider come help them. They neither want or need their help, but for the greater good they must work together. It is quickly implied that Park and Kim are out of their depths. Their small police department doesn't have the resources or funds to successfully complete this investigation.

But their constant in-fighting made them seem incredibly amateurish. I had no confidence that they would find the true killer especially when they resort to beating confessions out of their suspects. I get that they're from the school of flawed, psychologically-damaged, rough-around-the-edges, willing to break the rules to get the job done, police detectives, but it was all too much. They weren't very likeable and I wasn't too bothered if they would successfully apprehend the killer. Rather than catching the killer, they just get even more people killed like their initial suspect.

And *spoilers*

they don't. Despite having three key suspects, including the most likely candidate Park Hyeon-gu, the case remains frustratingly unsolved. Having the killer escape was refreshing to see. In many thrillers, it's expected that after some ordeals and struggles, the cops would eventually catch the murderer and everything would wrap up nicely. Maybe not with a pretty pink bow, but nicely enough. However, that isn't the case here. And I quite liked this ending. It felt painfully realistic. Sadly, in real life, many murders do go unsolved, because the killers are never caught. They do escape.

Despite the rather unlikeable main characters, I still think Memories of Murder is worth a watch. It's a gripping thriller with a refreshing ending.

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War Review

 Number 185 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean war film, Tae Guk Gi: the Brotherhood of War.

Set during the Korean War, Tae Guk Gi focusses on brothers Lee Jin-Tae (Jan Dong-Gun) and Lee Jin-Soek (Won Bin.) The naive and innocent Jin-Doek is drafted into the army. To protect his younger brother, Jin-Tae also enrols. But the war soon changes both brothers beyond comprehension.

Since I started this challenge, I've watched a lot of war films and I've found the best films are the ones that refuse to shy away from the true horrors of war. Tae Guk Gi did exactly that. This was a relentless, non-stop, two and a half hour lesson in the brutality of man. As this is a South Korean film, you might expect them to be portrayed as the heroes and the North Koreans as the villains. But war is rarely that simple. We see both sides commit atrocities.

Jin-Tae discovers that if he earns the Tae Guk Cordon of the Order of Military Merit - the highest military model possible, he would have the power to send his brother home. He volunteers for progressively riskier missions and slowly transforms into a cold-blooded killer.

Upon running into a childhood friend who has been drafted for the North, Jin-Tae is prepared to slaughter him until his younger brother intervenes. Later on, Jin-Tae arranges for the POWs to fight for his own amusement. The North is just as bad. They massacre whole villages and booby-trap the dead bodies. War is never as simple as "he is good and he is bad." There is always a lot of morally grey. This is demonstrated in the supporting cast from the man whose whole family was massacred by the communists and now wants to kill them all to the young Song-Yong, who like Jin-Soek, doesn't want to kill anybody.

Granted the whole brothers/friends gong to war as comrades and slowly becoming enemies is not the most original of ideas, but Tae Guk Gi did it well. In the initial fifteen minutes, we have a clear idea of who the brothers are - Jin-Doek is young and naive with aspirations of college. Jin-Tae is street-smart and confident - he shines shoes to earn enough money to send his younger brother to college. But the brothers are very loyal to each other which is what makes their gradual separation even the more painful.

When Jin-Tae and Jin-Soek return to their home town, Jin-Tae's fiance, Young-Shin, is accused of being a communist and is taken to be shot. Despite the brother's best efforts to save her, she is still executed and the brothers are arrested for trying to save her with Jin-Soek supposedly dying when his prison is burnt down. He survives and later finds out that Jin-Tae has defected to the North Koreans and is now one of their elite commanders. Jin-Soek goes to rescue him, but it appears that Jin-Tae is too far gone. When a battle breaks out and it looks like all hope is lost, Jin-Tae recognises his brother and sacrifices himself so he can escape. And this was a nice way to round out their story arcs. They began as brothers, turned to enemies and finished as brothers again.

If I were to criticise the film for anything, I think it would be for its choppy editing. Some of the battle scenes went on for too long and some of the peace scenes were cut too short. At times it did make for a confusing watch. And I also wonder whether the film over did the action scenes. Yes, I know, war is confusing and chaotic, but the frenetic camerawork and constant explosions did become a little tiresome after a while.

Overall this was a great film and will join the likes of Saving Private Ryan, The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket as one of the best war films of all time.