This highly acclaimed film is compared to “Seven” and “Silence Of The Lambs” on the box. “I Saw The Devil” does not come close to either. Besides, it is a wholly different film. Where “Seven” and “Silence Of The Lambs” are about the doings of a ‘moralistic’ serial killer, but mostly the hunt for him, “I Saw The Devil” is mostly about the serial killer himself and a very amoral one too. Actually, this is just one of those Eastern revenge films. One day the brutal serial killer Kyung-chul choses the daughter of a police officer and wife of the secret agent Kim Soo-hyeon as victum. Kim promises his deceased wife that her killer will suffer as she did. A cat-and-mouse game develops with changing roles. As we get used to from these kind of Eastern films the killings and the revenge are detailed, gruesome and violent. The film never gets an atmosphere that comes anywhere near that of the other two titles. This is more a film for people who like “Saw” than those who like “Seven”.
