I Saw the Devil

When his pregnant fiancee becomes the latest victim of a serial killer, a secret agent blurs the line between good and evil in his pursuit of revenge.
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The playlist Best Films of 2011 so far - Runners Up (in June):

“I Saw the Devil”—At what point does justice turn to revenge? And when does that revenge mutate into something even more sinister? These are the questions asked by director Kim Jee-woon in his epic, violent, ugly and bleakly funny “I Saw the Devil,” yet another astounding entry from a South Korean cinematic scene that is producing some of the most breathtaking genre films these days. When a police officer’s (Kim Soo-heyon) pregnant fiance becomes the latest victim of a vicious serial killer (Choi Min-sik from “Oldboy” in a memorably deranged performance), his pursuit to bring him in turns into a battle of wills that leaves a trail of bodies and blood in its wake. Running nearly two-and-a-half hours long, director Kim Jee-woon (“The Good the Bad and the Weird”) not only allows his film to simmer into a searing boil, he unfolds a story that with each moment unveils a new unexpected twist or surprise turn that feels utterly organic in the universe for his characters, whose notions of good and bad are not just tested, but tossed out the window completely. “I Saw the Devil” doesn’t just present evil, it makes the disturbing case that, one can easily slip into madness themselves when a confronted the darkest, most horrific depths of depraved humanity. Graphic but not gratuitous, Kim makes every drop of blood count and while those moments will make your stomach churn and skin crawl, it’s the ramifications of violence and vengeance that offers up the biggest scares of them al