Movies Don't Create Psychos, Movies Make Psychos More Creative

An image from I Saw the Devil, to which I couldn't help but think of you know what!

I had heard a lot of buzz about Jee-woon Kim's I Saw the Devil [Akmareul boatda] so I thought I would give it a spin in the DVD player (it went direct-to-DVD here in Australia) despite my general ambivalence towards ultra violent East Asian cinema that isn't Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Despite an opening that is fantastically staged and scary, a great lead performance by Byung-hun Lee and some truly expert fight choreography, I found the movie to be nothing all too special. It's not as painfully ugly as Oldboy - yes, a contentious opinion to hold - although there's potentially an interesting discussion to be had about Choi Min-sik starring as the wronged man in Oldboy and now, in Devil, the man doing the wrongs and the way a past injustice can turn a man into a "devil". In fact, Choi's sadistic serial killer could have easily been the same character that he played in Oldboy if, you know, he still had a tongue.

Still, all of that would be reaching as I found I Saw the Devil to be like so many others. Nothing particularly new being said here as far as I could tell, but maybe those who like Oldboy can spot the social commentary.

My knowledge of this genre of film is admitted quite limited and I never did complete Chan-wook Park's revenge trilogy with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance; perhaps I figured it was a gender thing and just preferred the nihilism when there's a woman at the front? And before you start going all Freudian on me, I would say that that has more to do with my actressexual leanings than anything else. Anyway, I Saw the Devil? C. The Poster (to the right)? Still an A, even though I liked it more when I thought I Saw the Devil was a horror movie :/

Goode Casting

As I'm sure you're all aware of by now - these things travel around the internet like wild fire - the cast of Chan-wook Park's Stoker has had a bit of a shake around. No longer is Colin Firth going to play the "mysterious uncle" (who may or may not be a vampire, apparently) in Park's first English language feature. Firth has supposedly been replaced by Matthew Goode (although the way these things are prematurely reported who knows what will eventuate), an actor that is a considerable step down from the recently Oscar-minted Firth, but one that could perhaps really use a strong role such as this to break out from the edge of stardom that he seems to have been straddling for years now. From what we've heard of the story I can't help but think Michael Fassbender would be a better choice from the apparent list of contenders, but we'll take what we're given with a new Chan-wook Park movie.

Nevertheless, Firth or Goode - who cares? All I care about is that Nicole Kidman is still attached as the mother to Mia Wasikowska's daughter. Doesn't the combination of Park and Kidman just sound so alien and, thus, incredible. Kidman's association with such provocative baiting directors like Park, Lars von Trier, Baz Luhrmann, John Cameron Mitchell and Jonathan Glazer is just part of the reason why I listed her as the last decade's MVP!

And because I'm sure Kidman saw that I wrote so glowingly of her last decade (and since thereafter) here is a video, her first for her official website, of Kidman thanking me her fans for their support.


Video found via The Film Experience