While I Saw the Devil is far too blunt, over-the-top, excessive and even downright sadistic in places, with less to say than the director’s previous work (the theme of "does becoming a monster to defeat the monster making you just as bad as him?" is laid on a bit thickly), it is still a film well worth seeking out for its guts, determination and powerful emotionality that oozes from all pores.
Special Features:
The DVD release of I Saw the Devil offers some very respectable extras, both in quality and quantity. Along with the usual trailers and TV spots, there are two 18-20 minute long featurettes.
The first featurette is of interviews with director Jee-woon Kim and stars Byung-hun Lee and Min-sik Choi. The interview with Kim is done better, consisting of him just sitting in one room talking about the themes of the film, the process of shooting it and what it was like working with the two leads. The interviews with Lee and Choi aren’t as well done as they are chopped together segments from various locations with no real structure to them.
The second featurette is your standard behind-the-scenes making of, giving us a cool look at the shooting of key scenes in the film. It’s always interesting to see the process behind the film and how what you see looks nothing like the scenes in the actual film in terms of the look and feel and so forth. The making of does feel a bit chopped off and erratic but fascinating to watch post-film.
FILM
SPECIAL FEATURES
I Saw the Devil was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK by Optimum Releasing on May 9th, 2011.
Article comments