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I'm aware he's under the category, but he's not been officially approved yet.
Hey. Cut the bullshit. You already lost. You think you got me? Huh? Fuck you. I don't know what pain is. Fear? Don't know that either. There's nothing you can get from me. So... You already lost. Got that?
What is the Work?[]
I Saw the Devil is a 2010 South Korean action revenge thriller film directed by Jee-woon Kim. The plot revolves around an NIS agent named Kim Soo-hyun who embarks on a path of vengeance after his fiancé is murdered by a serial killer.
Who is He?[]
Jang Kyung-chul is the serial killer who murdered Soo-hyun's fiancé and the main antagonist of the film. In his citizen disguise, he's a junior high school bus driver, but in actuality, he's a sadistic serial rapist that dismembers women.
What Has He Done?[]
At the beginning of the film, Jang finds a woman whose car has broken down. Initially appearing friendly, Jang checks her tires and tells her that the car is stuck. He offers to give her a ride, but she informs him that she's waiting for a tow truck. Jang goes back to his school bus, but doesn't drive away. Suspicious, the woman turns on her lights and Jang appears with a hammer, breaking her windshield. The woman attempts to climb out the other door, but the door is blocked by the guard rail. Jang grabs her and brutally beats her with the hammer, until she goes unconcious. He takes her back to his lair where he prepares to dismember her. However, the woman wakes up and begs for her life, saying she's pregnant. This, of course, means nothing for Jang, as he just coldly chops her head off.
The next day, a boy finds part of the woman's ear in a bag in a field somewhere near a river. With this discovery, the police show up to conduct a search for the rest of the body, eventually ending when they discover the woman's head. It turns out that the woman was the fiancé of NIS agent Kim Soo-hyun and the daughter of the police Chief Oh. Losing his love, Soo-hyun vows vengeance against her killer, and begins tracking down the four suspects. Meanwhile, Jang offers a woman a lift, beats her over the head with a pipe, and decapitates her with a makeshift gullotine.
After tracking down and brutally interrogating two suspects, Soo-hyun finds Jang after putting a tracker on his bus. He finds him in a greenhouse, in the middle of attempting to rape a junior high student that fell asleep on his bus. The two get into a fight where Jang tries to cut Soo-hyun with a sickle, but the better-trained agent manages to take him down and knock him unconscious. He considers bashing Jang's head in with a rock, but after picturing his wife's corpse, decides against it. Instead, he shoves a tracking device down Jang's throat and breaks his hand.
Upon waking up, Jang finds an envelope of money left for him. He hitches a ride with a cab driver, but correctly deduces that the driver and his passenger in the back are robbers. As the man in the back gets ready to pull a knife, Jang pulls his own and quickly stabs both men to death, which causes the cab to crash. After getting out, Jang raids the trunk and finds the body of the real driver.
After washing the blood off in a river, Jang dons the clothes he found in the trunk and goes to a hospital. The hospital treats him, but Jang shows no gratitude, and instead chooses to harass the old receptionist and sexually harass a female nurse. Deciding he wants the nurse, Jang follows her into a room and locks the door. He forces her to strip for him and give him fellatio. Thankfully, Soo-hyun hears this over the tracker (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the tracker also comes with a listening device) and interrupts the assault. They fight again, and Soo-hyun beats the ever-loving hell out of Jang, ending it by cutting the latter's achilles tendon. However, since he doesn't want the torment to end, Soo-hyun has the nurse treat Jang's injury.
Once again released, Jang wakes up in the middle of an empty lot with the cab he stole. After breaking down on a road, Jang hitches a ride with some soldiers to his friend's house. His friend, being a cannibalistic serial killer named Tae-joo. Over dinner, Tae-joo and Jang discus why Soo-hyun is targeting him. Tae-joo tells him that the guy is likely family of one of his victims. Jang later figures it out, when he remembers seeing Soo-hyun wearing the pregnant girl's ring.
While attempting to dismember a restrained woman, Soo-hyun sneaks into the house and incapacitates Tae-joo. As he's about to dismember the man, Jang fires a shotgun, which Soo-hyun avoids. After breaking through the front window, Soo-hyun climbs into the upstairs window. Arming himself with a cricket stump, he sneaks through the halls, but Tae-joo's girlfriend stabs him with scissors. He retaliates by striking her in the face, knocking her unconcious. When he goes to retrieve his cricket stump that he dropped, Tae-joo slashes him with a knife, but Soo-hyun manages to fend off the much larger man and beat him to near death. Seeing Jang's shadow coming up the stairs, Soo-hyun throws a box of fish hooks on the ground, which gets stuck in Jang's foot. The distraction allows Soo-hyun to close the gap and beat Jang to near death as well.
In the morning, the ambulance carts away Tae-joo and his girlfriend, while Soo-hyun and the unconscious Jang get treatment elsewhere. Unfortunately, Jang overhears about the tracking capsule, when an agent talks to Soo-hyun about it. After the treatment, Jang wakes up under a bridge and travels to a pharmacy to get some laxatives. He steals the laxatives and slashes the throat of the pharmacist after he attempts to stop him. At a rest stop, Jang retrieves the capsule and while washing up, sees a taxi driver heading to the toilet. He ambushes the driver in a stall and beats him to death, afterwards shoving the capsule down his throat.
With a car, the tracking device gone, and knowledge of who his enemy is, he goes to Chief Oh's house and beats him to near death with a dumbbell. When Soo-hyun's sister-in-law comes home, Jang rapes and murders her. After seeing the carnage Jang has caused, Soo-hyun finally decides to stop the madness. Jang tries to surrender himself to the police to avoid Soo-hyun's wrath, but the latter manages to kidnap him, using an impressive maneuver with a car.
Finally, having Jang in his grasp and having nothing left, Soo-hyun tortures the man by burning one of his wounds with a cigarette. Jang attempts to feign remorse, but then quickly changes his demeanor. He spites Soo-hyun by telling him his fiance's last words and taunts him by saying he doesn't feel pain or fear. In response, Soo-hyun sets up Jang to be decapitated with the makeshift guillotine that he used earlier. (The rope holding up the blade is attached to the door handle, so when someone opens it, the blade will fall.) As Soo-hyun walks away from the scene, Jang's family (mother, father, and son) are the ones who end up coming through the door and witnessing his death.
Freudian Excuse[]
None.
Mitigating Factors[]
Only thing you could argue is care for Tae-joo or his family.
However, it's likely he didn't care for his family, as he abandoned them.
As for Tae-joo, that one's a bit difficult. While he does save him from Soo-hyun and free him of his restraints, this could be chalked down to pragmatic reasons. Also, he raped Tae-joo's girlfriend. So... I don't know.
Heinous Standards[]
Okay, he does have quite a bit of competition. As described, the anti-hero of the film Soo-hyun is no saint himself, but considering that Jang's the one who started Soo-hyun's turn to darkness, it can be partially excused. Plus, unlike Jang, Soo-hyun does show concern for human life as he tries to bandage the pharmacist's neck wound and sheds tears for his fiancé.
Tae-joo is nearly as heinous, being a cannibal and serial killer himself, but he lacks the on-screen heinousness that Jang has, as he's only partly in the film. What does he do? Well; he attempts to dismember a woman, slashes Soo-hyun's shoulder with a knife, and taunts Soo-hyun about his fiance. He's a piece of shit, but nothing compared to Jang's seven on-screen murders, attempted rapes, and sadistic taunts.
The two taxi burglars killed one guy off-screen.
Note[]
When Soo-hyun goes to Jang's house and searches it, he finds a filing cabinet full of womens' possessions, implying that Jang has had a ton of victims.
Verdict[]
I'll let everyone else decide.