Posts Tagged ‘I Saw The Devil’

Critics Roundup — March 3

Friday, March 4th, 2011

The Adjustment Bureau|Yellow||||
Rango|Green||Green||Green
Beastly|||||
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives|||Green||Green
I Saw the Devil||||Green|
Heartbeats|||Green||
Take Me Home Tonight|||||Red

I Didn’t See the Devil at AFI Fest

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

I’ve been a bit buried the past couple days, so just getting around to noticing that one of my favorite films at Torono, Kim Jee-Woon’s I Saw the Devil, has been pulled from the upcoming AFI Fest. This is a real bummer for LA folks who didn’t catch the film at TIFF.

Film Threat followed up on the official, rather ambiguous statement about the film being pulled, and got back basically “Sorry, no comment,” other than a clarification that the film was pulled by the film’s reps and not the fest.

I Saw the Devil is excellently directed — one of the best-directed films I caught in a very solid year at TIFF — and I’m sorry to hear it won’t be playing for LA audiences at AFI Fest. Here’s my review of the film from TIFF.

Magnet Drawn To I Saw The Devil

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Magnet Attracted To I Saw The Devil

TIFF Dispatch Day Six: Catching Up

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Time to lighten things up a bit, after that last dispatch, eh?

As we near the homestretch, this has been a really good fest for me. In a lot of ways I feel like this fest represents a bit of a coming full circle for me from last year’s devastating fest-spent-in-a-hospital bed, which was all kinds of double-plus-unfun.

Over the past 12 months my life has pretty much completely changed in many ways — a bit of a rebirth, you might say, and like any birth you have to go through the pain to get to the new life waiting on the other side. But I am very glad and very grateful to be back at TIFF and back on my fest coverage game, working productively and filling my soul up with so many good films.

The slate at this year’s TIFF — and I don’t think I’m alone in saying this — has been exceptionally strong. I’ve seen 25 films in seven days, and of those there are only a couple that I’d say I actively did not like. That is an incredible run of good luck for a critic, because so often it’s a total crapshoot at a fest this; I couldn’t begin to tally up how many times I’ve gone to a fest and sat through mediocre-to-bad films far more often than films that blew me away, or even just made me happy I’d worked them into my schedule. But this fest? Has been mostly great.

Yesterday at a screening some press folks behind me were bemoaning the “terrible” slate at this year’s fest, and I had to wonder if we were attending the same festival. Or perhaps I’ve just gotten really lucky with the screenings I’ve chosen, and they were particularly unlucky with theirs. Or, who knows, perhaps they were just tired and having a bad day. Certainly by this point in the fest, everyone’s walking around looking a little shell-shocked.

Before TIFF, after a slate of mostly boring summer movies, the excellent Scott Pilgrim not doing well at the box office, and another Oscar season looming, I was dealing with a seriously annoying case of “I don’t give a shit about awards season.” After TIFF? I’m feeling rejuvenated, excited even. There are some excellent films at this festival with an eye toward the upcoming awards rush — some very much expected soft pitches and others that were unexpectedly good, or smaller films with outstanding performances.

And while many of us like to say we really don’t care about awards season, what we do care about is that the frenzied buzz around the Oscars, in particular, can give some smaller films a boost that can make a real difference to their bottom line. So while I don’t care much about a naked golden man statue, I do care very much about film, particularly good films, and the people who put their hearts and souls into making them, and there are a couple of films out of TIFF I will be championing over the coming months.

Since my last dispatch, there are a few films I’ve particularly enjoyed. I was surprised by how much I loved I Saw the Devil, which just may end up being the first serial-killer thriller to end up on my year-end list. It also may be the best-directed film at the fest; certainly it’s among the best.

It was less surprising that I enjoyed the new Mike Leigh film, Another Year, but what was surprising for me is that this film has surpassed Secrets and Lies as my favorite Mike Leigh film. And if you are also a Mike Leigh fan, you know this is high praise. Lesley Manville gives a stunning performance in the film; it’s worthy of an Oscar nom, but in a crowded field this year, it’s going to take a serious push to get it there, but she could (and should, if we’re judging on actual merit) be a dark horse contender.

I saw Another Year at a public screening, where it was very enthusiastically received. I always enjoying watching Mike Leigh at Q&As, because I think he tends to be much more open to audiences at screenings than he can sometimes be with journalists. Very quickly into the Q&A, Leigh turned it around on the audience and turned it into group discussion on the film, and it was a lot of fun to watch the enthusiasm and passion with which the crowd discussed the film. Anytime a film inspires that level of discussion, I think it’s achieved something special.

The other part about TIFF, of course, is that it’s end-of-summer camp for film geeks. It’s always great to come to Toronto and reconnect with friends. In a normal year I would have seen most of these folks at Sundance, but this year a nasty post-surgical infection pre-empted my Sundance plans, so I haven’t seen most of my friends in a year. It’s a relatively small world in which we all work, and most of us use Facebook and Twitter prolifically to stay in touch. However did people stay in touch before the Internet age? It’s hard to imagine my world without the daily IMs and texts and Facebook messages that allow me to stay connected to friends who have, over the years, because my extended family.

But this fest is so busy for most of us that much of our social interaction is actually not so much social as it is sitting next to each other in screenings, and perhaps rushing over for a quick coffee fix before the next one. I don’t attend most of the parties at TIFF, my schedule really precludes doing much beyond the occasional small dinner party for this or that film.

But the one party I do attend every year is the SXSW karaoke party, which took place last night at a new location downtown. This is the one place where I can always count on seeing most of my good friends in one place, at a time in the fest when we’re all tired and desperately in need of a night of letting our hair down, so to speak. I banged out three reviews before the party so I could take a break with a clear conscience, then stayed way later than I intended to once I got there, but it was a much-needed break from the fest grind.

In spite of being up way too late I did manage to get up and drag my butt to the 9AM screening of Black Swan. I’d heard very divisive buzz on the film around and about the fest, but for me, it was throroughly engaging and emotionally devastating. Aronofsky is just a remarkable director, and with Black Swan he weaves together a tightly controlled, nightmarish story about self-destructive perfectionism within the world of ballet. I’d heard that Black Swan was more The Wrestler than The Fountain, but I’d have to disagree with that. It’s not really like either film, and yet it bears a distinctive Aronofsky feel. I’m not quite sure I’d call him an auteur yet, but with this film he’s getting there. More on that one later.

Another full day ahead of me, so onward.

TIFF Review: I Saw the Devil

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

I was on my way to the Susanne Bier film today when a couple of friends talked me into going to see I Saw the Devil instead. I asked one of them to quickly pitch me on why I would want to see it, and he pitched it thusly: Did you like The Good, The Bad, The Weird? This is a serial killer thriller flick by the same director, Ji-woon Kim, and it stars “The Bad” (Byung-hun Lee), and Min-sik Choi, the guy from Oldboy!
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How Graphic Is Kim Ji-Woon’s Devil?

Monday, September 13th, 2010

How Graphic Is Kim Ji-Woon’s I Saw The Devil?