Bedevilled (Review)

Bedevilled

Bedevilled aka Kim Bok-nam salinsageonui jeonmal (2010)

Directed by Chul-soo Jang

[part of the NYAFF 2011]

According to the dictionary, the word bedevil means:

bedevil
vb -ils, -illing, -illed US, -ils -iling, -iled (tr)
1. to harass or torment
2. to throw into confusion
3. to possess, as with a devil

If a word ever fit a movie perfectly, it'd be this one.

The masters of revenge are at it again. Korea is clearly the king of revenge cinema and after seeing Bedevilled, one can only conclude this will continue. From Chul-soo Jang, a former assistant director of Kim-Ki Duk who made his debut as director with Bedevilled, one can see his talent and style through and through.

Bedevilled is revenge cinema that will drive you nuts, pull at your emotions and above all make you think that all could have turned out differently if one only helped in a time of need. Sometimes lost in a tale of revenge is the fact that the victim hopes to solve their problems with help from the outside be it friends, family or the police. But when no help comes, they take it upon themselves to solve their problems. Bedevilled's Bok-nam our victim turned revenger illustrates this to a tee. In a world where bystanders do nothing to help her, are they worse than the man who abuses her?

It's these themes that make Bedevilled not just a good film but a great film. I haven't yelled out "Kill those motherfuckers!" at a film in a very long time. My emotions were rollercoasting all over the place and when you see it, yours will to.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Ice-cold bank clerk, Hae-Won, knows she must be pitiless to live in a pitiless world. Let the punks muggers slide, it’s not your problem; let an old woman lose her new house because of a clerical error, you’re not on overtime. She’s stunning, she’s brilliant, and she’s finally figured out how a woman can get ahead in business: by being colder than the men. Now she’s going on vacation.

A hellish “women’s picture” from the wrong side of the mirror, BEDEVILLED is a harrowing tale of women, culture, society, humanity, and what we can become. When Hae-Won ventures back to her grandfather’s home on remote Moo-do Island, she finds it much like she remembers it from her childhood: an untamed hellhole populated by a handful of ruddy-faced men and old women bleached orange by the sun. Her childhood friend, Bok-Nam (Seo Young-Hee), eagerly awaits her arrival, desperate for human contact.

All is not well on Moo-do Island, a misogynistic anti-Eden where the women work in the fields from dawn to dusk and prey on each other in competition for the savage, square-faced brutes they call their men. When her vicious husband begins eyeing their young daughter, Bok-Nam turns desperate, begging the cold-hearted Hae-Won for help escaping to civilization, but when tragedy strikes, their sick little island paradise will never be the same.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Well let's break this down by the definition shall we?

1.) to harass or torment

In any revenge story, there has to be a level of abuse. However, in Bedevilled the abuse is not just done by one, but by many. A collective of rural farmers and islanders inhabit Moo-do Island and they are pure, uncaring evil.

But as the story starts out, we follow Hae Won who gives us a taste of what living in Seoul, South Korea is like. As a woman, one must beware of the evils of men be it on the streets (where she witnesses a crime or the office). As she vacations on her grandfather's house in Moo-do Island, it suddenly becomes clear the same problems she was trying to escape from are here as well.

Her friend, Bok-Nam who has relentlessly plea-ed with Hae Won to visit is more than glad when she does. But soon we and her see the level of torment she must go through everyday. Her husband physically abuses her and sleeps with whores, the "aunties" believe men are far superior and they do all the farm work. She's raped by her husband's brother and her daughter is clearly being pedophiled as well. When she's stung by bees antagonized by her husband he retorts "put been paste on it".

It's a hellish life and we see it in all its distasteful glory. It's hard to watch and we the audience become angry. I felt intense flames from the side of my face and I wanted Bok-nam to "kill those motherfuckers". Like I said I've never felt this angry in a while. Bedevilled effectively makes you feel for Bok-nam and her plight. We also question why she just doesn't leave the island. But like an inner city youth stuck in his/her neighborhood or a person who lives in rural America, it's not that easy to leave the only life you've known.

2.) to throw into confusion

After more abuse Bok-nam and her daughter try to escape which leads to a tragedy. A conspiracy is employed by all the islanders with the husband, his brother, the boat driver and the aunties to cover up the crime. Hae Won now tries to escape as well seeing her vacation paradise become hell.

The performance of Yeong-hie Seo as Bok-Nam is utterly brilliant. She displays a level of talent going from hopeless victim to despair to psychopathic assassin. It's no wonder why she's won tons of best actress awards from various film festivals. She acts as one would act when under the thumb of an abuser, displays a few moments of levity and weeps as a mother would weep.

It's no surprise that when she snaps, we see her working in the potato fields and looking up at the sun. As she has a moment of clarity she says to her aunties: “I stared into the sun for long, and it spoke to me.”

Cue the death metal music.

3.) to possess, as with a devil

As Bok-nam goes all killer incarnate armed with a scythe, there is no way any sane person didn't want her to go all Terminator. It's pure revenge envy and probably the most enjoyable murderous spree you will see onscreen. I really can't believe I wrote that last sentence. Bok-nam is possessed to kill all who's done her wrong and as her victims beg for mercy and curse her with their last breath, we want her to taunt them right before they're executed.

Revenge cinema is the only time we side with one person throughout the entire film. We are Bok-nam's guardian angel hinting her to kill em all. That's the objective of revenge cinema, to have the audience throw out logic and order (like the law and the moral objections) and to root for the victim turned victor as she slaughters the torturers.

It's all about emotion and the one thing that Bedevilled does well is play with ours in the most rawest of ways. Bad people do bad things (MAKES US ANGRY). Good people do bad things (MAKES US HAPPY).

If your looking for Bedevilled to have a look and feel of Chan Wook Park, you're not to far off. But Korean cinema never makes a mockery or satire out of the revenge-sploitation. It treats its material with respect with and with a level of humanity. In some parts, it becomes a Lifetime Movie of the Week and the ending is a double whammy of sorts. I think I counted 3 or 4 potential scenes where I thought it would end but it kept going.

My only other gripes is figuring that the evil people who abuse Bok-nam are one dimensional characters designed to trigger Bok-nam's metamorphosis into a methodical killer.

Bedevilled is a magnificent piece of Korean revenge cinema that poses a question of whether or not doing nothing when witnessing evil is equal to or worse than the evil doer themselves. It's a question sociologists have tried to figure out for years, and one where nobody really has the answer. But you won't be shaking your head after you've seen Bedevilled. You'll be wanting bloodlust and revenge and you'll get it.

Nude-ipedia

Some light nudity via a perky prostitute

Gore-ipedia

Savage brutality via a scythe.

WTF moment

The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

NYAFF 2011 film festival opens on 7/1. I've created a list of films to check out at this year's festival.

Head over to the official site for more info.

Bedevilled is no longer screening at the NYAFF. But if you have a chance to see it, it's your obligation to do so. Also, Hollywood is planning on remaking Oldboy. Fuck that.

The Vitals

• The official site via NYAFF 2011

Rating:
1/2

Check out the trailer.



(shhhhh the whole movie is on YouTube. Check it out here)

Thirst (Review)

Thirst (Bakjwi)

Thirst (2009)

Directed by Chan-wook Park

Where do I start? When a movie plays out so magnificently as Chan-Wook Park's Thirst, you applaud and you feel like a million bucks afterwards. It's simply genius that Park can take the vampire and create a story interwoven with identity, betrayal, moralilty and love.

I absolutely loved the film in all its awesomness even with a disjointed 3 part act. The critics will squeal it goes from a priest inflicted with vampirism and the conflict of his morals being compromised to a Buffy-Angel like forbidden love story to a Mickey and Mallory Natural Born Killers slant towards the end.

But each act works and any section of this movie could have been evolved into its own movie. Oh the comparisons to Let The Right One In are inevitable but Thirst delves into a world where the demon inside a vampire manipulates the personality of its host and it's this aspect I totally loved.

What I want to talk about that possibly other critics and reviews haven't gone over is that unique perspective on Thirst. When you can take the lore and utilize it to create conflict and raise questions others have not, the film begs to be talked about. So grab a bottle of True Blood and let's get started.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A failed medical experiment turns a man of faith into a vampire.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Act I:

"Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me."

Do I need to rehash plot here? Well maybe just so we can get it out of the way. Father Sang-hyeon (Kang-ho Song) is a Roman Catholic priest in Korea who gives Last Rites to the dying. With his faith wavering he decides to participate in a medical experiment to cure the deadly EV virus but a last minute transfusion of blood turns him into a night demon: a vampire.

Now hailed as a saint having survived, his transformation starts. The film approaches this in a stellar way. Blending black humor with a sense of wonder, Sang-hyeon tries not to kill at first but to get his fix in other ways. Realizing he has all the symptoms of vampirism (allergic to sunlight, superhuman strength and discovering he can heal from wounds after taking his first taste of blood from a car crash victim) he starts to think of inventive ways to quench his thirst. In one fantastic scene he drinks blood through a IV from a comatose "fat cake sponge guy".

The photography again is simply beautiful here as each scene is like a painting set in motion. The simple camera movements, the seemless CGI to see "wounds heal" is flawless. Sang-hyeon's life however is now a conflict filled with contradictions. Struggling to keep his morals he's been compromised and is now pretty much a walking oxymoron.

How does a man of faith live with the blood thirsty demon living inside him?

Kang-ho Song is simply fantastic as Sang. At times, he doesn't speak but his face emotes clear emotion. In a scene where his head priest wants some of his blood to live, you can see a spectrum of emotions engulf him. Love, duty, repulsion, hatred and fear. Solid stuff.

Act II:

"Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses; as we forgive those who trespass, against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Sang meets up with an old childhood friend Kang-woo, his beautiful wife and Kang-woo's mother. He joins his friend's mahjong game but becomes infatuated with Tae-ju (Ok-bin Kim) who has led a troubled life as well (she being a indentured servant to her "mom" and wife to Kang-woo, a complete gross idiot). In one surreal scene she air stabs her husband's open mouth as he sleeps.
Later, Sang is overwhelmed by his new sexual needs and Tae-ju disgusted by her family they have an affair and a very arduous grunt-a-thon.


Happy Happy Fun Time!

Sang shares his secret with Tae-ju and we get a "hey I'm a vampire, look at the cool shit I can do" standard montage. Busting a lampost, jumping from a building and bending coins to impress the girl.

End Happy Happy Fun Time!

Sang's sense of justice comes in when Tae-ju tells him Kang-woo has been beating her. On a fishing trip, he drowns Kang-woo with his new GF's help. But his first kill goes badly for both of them as they then start to have waking nightmares.

Park's visuals here are unbelievably dreamlike. They are true waking nightmares as Kang-woo's drenched corpse invades them in their sleep. At times, it plays off goofy but I didn't mind the lightheartedness of it all. In a film like this, you really have to take the prepostrous and inject some humor. Think Buffy-ized moments.

Later, mommy in law gets stroked and becomes a helpless handicapper and both Sang and Tae-ju confront and reveal their trespasses.

Here is where I believe the film transcends into uber-awesome. I theorize that when one becomes a vampire, the demon aspect slowly blends into the personality of the infected. As a man of faith, Sang struggles with the urges of the evilness of being a vampire and his humanity. Whereas a human who becomes a vampire with evilness already ingrained, the demon qualities manifest themselves rather quickly (as we find out later with Tae-ju).

It's the morality of this mad love couple that's so interesting see evolve. Sang is almost virgin like, keeping with the high ground. Tae-ju, a victim of a crappy life does what we would all do. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Park takes the time to make us feel for Tae-ju then rips it away from us when she "reveals" her true self. Sang is a representation of who we SHOULD be but Tae-ju is a representation of who we REALLY are. Beautiful storytelling, the viewer isn't prepared for any of it.

Act III:

"May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory, of his name, for our good, and the good of all his Church."

With Tae-ju now a newly transformed vampire, they both resort to killing new victims to keep the EV sickness at bay and quenching their never ending thirst. Tae-ju is consumed by her new powers and in a very Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon like scene, Sang chases after her from building to building.

After a massacre to feed their hungers, a new transformation occurs within Sang-hyun. Accepting who he is and what he's made Tae-ju, we get a glorious ending that doesn't miss a beat.

Wow I sure wrote a lot didn't I?

Let me just say, I LOVED THIS MOVIE. Thirst is a tour de force masterpiece of storytelling, bloodsucking and faith. There is a checklist of what I think makes a good movie.

• An interesting concept/plot
• Engrossing characters
• Memorable scenes
• Humor and WTF moments
• A satisfying ending

Thirst accomplishes all of this and is 110% going to be on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2009. Chan-wook Park established himself with his Vengeance Trilogy. Those movies revolutionized the action genre With Thirst he's done it again. The horror genre will never be the same.

Gore-ipedia

Blood sucking
Severed necks
Punctured lungs
Variety of blood in different forms

Nude-ipedia

Ok-bin Kim as Tae-ju boobies (very yummy boobies I might add)

WTF moment

Tae-ju's kills (all of em)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Trust me, you will never have seen a movie like this. This is a movie that will NEVER be remade by Hollywood. Well if it did, they'd turn Sang-hyun from a priest to a sanitation worker or some crap. Can you imagine if they did remake this? Conservative, church going Republicans would go ape shit. I'm surprised the Vatican didn't make seeing this film a mortal sin.

It's pretty long, 2 hours and 10 min or so and at times it tends to drag but taken as whole it doesn't disappoint. Thirst will definitely quench the rabid horror fan or even the most jaded viewer. Actually, it did!

Rating:
Check out the trailer below.