Oh Dae-hwan has attracted a huge fan base with his TV shows, in which he usually plays romantic leads. One especially popular historical drama presents him as a man masquerading convincingly as a woman. Given the protocols of Korean show biz, it’s difficult to say whose decision it was that he play a sadistic serial killer in this twisty police thriller, his or his agency’s, but if he doesn’t seem up to the task it may have more to do with the problems in the script than with his range as an actor. Jin-hyuk (Oh) leads a quartet of sickies who kidnap women and then record themselves torturing and killing their captives to post on the internet. Police detective Jae-hwan (Jang Dong-yoon) is desperately pursuing the case, as much out of revenge as out of justice, since his former partner and brother-in-law was savagely killed by Jin-hyuk. After an anonymous tip, Jae-hwan and his new partner, Min-sung (Jang Jae-ho), corner Jin-hyuk and engage in hot pursuit, with cop and criminal vanishing into a gorge on a forested mountain, leaving Min-sung alone. A concerted police search uncovers nothing, and then a month later a car crashes into police HG with Jae-hwan and Jin-hyuk inside.

When Jin-hyuk regains consciousness, he confides in Min-sung that he is really Jae-hwan in Jin-hyuk’s body, a farfetched claim that Min-sung partially confirms by observing Jae-hwan’s behavior, which is abnormal. The point from here on is: Who is who? In the larger scheme of things, the two men’s actions almost become interchangeable, since both resort to extreme violence to get what they want—Jin-hyuk the ineffable kicks of sadism, and Jae-hwan the justice that he believes can only be achieved through extralegal brutality, a trope that’s like mother’s milk to Korean crime-action films. Director Kim Jae-hoon fails to keep the wildness of the story within credible narrative bounds, and by the end motive and action have become more and more out of sync. Better acting might have helped here, since there is nothing distinctive in Oh’s performance as either Jin-hyuk or Jae-hwan that feels organic. And while the logic behind the body-swap plot point is clever, it isn’t sustainable once the two principals start revealing who they really are. The only consistency is the nastiness of the violence, with each torture scene becoming more and more outlandish. It goes without saying that the original victims, all young women, have no identity whatsoever and thus are impossible to get upset about. Devils is simply an exercise in visceral disgust at both gratuitous carnage and the kind of attitude that justifies it, and one that has absolutely no redeeming qualities. 

The disgust one feels toward the situation of protagonist Gye-na (Go Ah-sung) in the indie comedy Because I Hate Korea is of an entirely different strain. As the title suggests, Gye-na is getting out of Dodge because she’s tired of having to compromise her social and financial security for the sake of the general citizenry’s cultural stability. Already in her late 20s at the beginning of the film’s timeframe, Gye-na decides to leave Korea for New Zealand, where she hopes to reestablish herself as an expat, and from the get-go the viewer understands that she has no particular interest in New Zealand or its own culture (“Is that some kind of Maori thing?” she asks a native at one point regarding something she doesn’t get), but is simply reacting to her disappointment with life so far. The director, Jang Kun-jae, working from a novel by Chang Kang-myoung, clearly shows that much of Gye-na’s problem is personal, in that she’s bored with the full-time job she has in Korea, not to mention disillusioned with her boyfriend who, despite what looks like best intentions, isn’t what she considers life partner material. It’s a matter of temperament as well as temper, which she loses on a regular basis. 

The thing is, these emotional drawbacks cause similar problems in NZ, where she has to contend with the usual difficulties of expat life, such as securing decent housing, maintaining proper immigration status, and making sure you aren’t getting ripped off by racist employers. Inevitably, the only person she makes real friends with in the country is a fellow Korean who acts as if he’s embarrassed just knowing her. And when a native person betrays her big time the affront cuts especially deep, since it gets her into trouble with the law. Gye-na is not just cynical. She’s naive. 

All of this ironic melodrama is supposed to illustrate the current dilemma of aimlessness faced by young people in Korea, but the characters are so underdeveloped and the story so poorly constructed that you easily lose track of Gye-na’s trajectory of growth or lack thereof. The meandering quality of the movie, if anything, seems to mirror the protagonist’s own indecisiveness. Korean youth deserve better.

Devils, in Korean, opens March 7 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

Because I Hate Korea, in Korean and English, opens March 7 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670).

Devils home page in Japanese

Because I Hate Korea home page in Japanese

Devils photo (c) 2023 The Contents ON & Contents G

Because I Hate Korea photo (c) 2024 NK Contents and Mocushura Inc.