Do you enjoy revenge movies? Maybe this one will change your mind.

“I Saw the Devil” is a revenge movie that reminds me of the debate generated by an event that just happened in the state where I live (Yucatán): a group of neighbors burned alive a man who killed an elderly woman with a machete.

In a lynching, a group of people play the role of judge and executioner, sentencing to death an individual who is accused of having committed a crime. Most of the time, this happens because the judicial system takes a long time to prove the guilt of the criminal, who, in the meantime, can reoffend, putting the physical integrity of innocent people at risk.

 

I dare to point out that several of the lynchings occurred in a year are motivated by revenge, knowing that the law will not provide a sufficiently effective or satisfactory punishment for the affected party.

 

According to data from the Civil Association Causa en Común, between 2020 and March 2024, 968 lynchings and lynching attempts were registered in Mexico, with an annual average of 234 cases. In other words, in my country this type of social phenomenon is relatively common.

 

There are people who are in favor of lynching; they consider it a necessary good, a reality in a country with an inefficient judicial system. There are those who are against it, arguing that the perpetrators become the very thing they are trying to end: criminals. Not to mention the moralistic positions, which label it an “evil” act to take justice into one's own hands.

 

I believe that there are films that can make us reflect on our feelings about certain issues, and for this one about revenge, I remembered what I experienced when I saw this incredible piece of Korean cinema.

In “I Saw the Devil”, agent Kim Soo-hyun embarks on a mission of revenge against Jang Kyung-chul, the murderer of his pregnant wife and other women whom he kidnaps, tortures, and kills mercilessly.

 

But Kim Soo-hyun's revenge is not just any revenge; it is a complex, methodical, and torturous act to which the killer is subjected. After their first encounter, the agent does not kill Jang, but renders him unconscious and places a tracker on him. In this way, the psychopath wakes up and continues to commit his horrendous acts, or at least he tries to, because every time he is about to succeed, agent Kim Soo-hyun appears to give him tremendous beatings that deteriorate him more and more, physically and mentally.

 

Unlike other revenge films, in this one, the encounter between the protagonist and the antagonist does not happen at the end of a long road, as in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”. Instead, such an encounter not only occurs in the first act, but the director gives us the satisfaction of seeing the hero beat up the villain twice more.

 

We, as viewers, can't help but feel satisfaction every time Kim mercilessly beats Jang, for we know this bastard has it coming. Until the unpredictable happens: Jang learns that he has the tracker on, and not only takes it off, but recognizes his assailant and goes in search of his family, his late wife’s father and sister, to continue his wave of violence.

 

At this point, when we know that Kim’s sister-in-law and father-in-law are in danger, director Kim Jee-woon puts us in the agent's shoes, as together we wish the agent had finished off that wretched killer in the first instance instead of having worked out so much theatrics. We even wish he had dealt with his grief like anyone else would, using the legal tools he has as a police officer to track down the killer and bring him to justice. In other words, we regret Kim’s actions.

 

The satisfaction that revenge movies convey, in this case, is interrupted by the tension, fear, and despair that Kim goes through before he arrives at his family’s home, where he encounters a heartbreaking scene: the police cordon off the house where his sister-in-law lies dead and his father-in-law, seriously wounded.

 

Jang decides to give himself up to the police to avoid being caught by Kim, but Kim kidnaps him first, taking him to his house, where, after torturing him, he places him on a guillotine, giving him to bite a rope that, if he lets go, will make the guillotine fall and sever his head.

 

What makes Kim's impractical torture all the more torturous is that he alerts Jang's parents and son, whom he had abandoned years before, that Jang is at their home. So they desperately arrive at the house to meet him. But Kim also ties a rope to the door, so that if his relatives enter, the guillotine will also fall.

 

This puts the psychopath in a dilemma: either he drops the guillotine himself, or he lets his family execute him. Jang doesn’t have the courage to let go of the rope, so it is his family who beheads him.

 

Both Kim and we, the viewers, are left with a feeling of emptiness and sadness, for even though the agent managed to exact revenge, it cost him dearly, and he is left with nothing.

 

I feel that this film de-romanticizes revenge, attempting to place us in a position where we question our own feelings about it, subjecting us to the possible moral and emotional consequences if we were to experience it. Kim Jee-woon’s film is a realistic depiction of revenge and its effects on the human soul.

 

Linking the theme of the film to that of lynching, I wonder how dissatisfied those who participate in one of these acts of communal justice would be. How justifiable is it that someone would decide to go above the law, even if the law itself did not seem to work in favor of the innocent?

 

Why did I consider discussing this film for this “Red Flag” challenge? Because I think it is worth questioning how right it is to feel pleasure every time Kim tortures Jang in “I Saw the Devil”, and how much it would seem to us to be on the opposite side of the “avenger”.

 

I would like to close my participation by paraphrasing Jigoku Shōjo (Hell Girl), “From the time you seek revenge on someone, dig two graves.”