Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 21, 2011

Screened in the La Semaine de la Critique section of last year's Cannes Film Festival, Korean director Yang Chul-soo's "Bedevilled" (2010) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Optimum Home Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include the film's original theatrical trailer, TV spot, and a standard making of featurette. In Korean, with imposed English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

The sun spoke to her

Bedevilled is about two women whose lives are slowly spinning out of control. The first, Hae-won (Ji Seong-won, Harmony), is a bank officer somewhere in Seoul. She is so stressed that she could barely even talk. Much to the dismay of one of her coworkers, she insults a customer inquiring about a loan and then simply walks away. Shortly after, her supervisor suggests that she takes a couple of days off to recollect herself.

The second woman, Bok-nam (Seo Young-hee, Shadows in the Palace, The Chaser), lives a on a small island not too far away from Seoul. She is married to a wild and irresponsible man, Man-jong (Park Jeong-hak, The Warrior), who constantly beats her. His dimwitted brother, Cheol-jong (Bae Seong-woo, Twilight Gangsters), routinely rapes her.

Hae-won decides to leave Seoul and spend a couple of days with her childhood friend Bok-nam, whom she has not seen in years. Because the two used to spend many hours fantasizing about their future husbands and the children they would raise, Hae-won cannot wait to see Bok-ham and her family.

When they finally meet, Hae-won quickly realizes that Bok-nam is in a lot of pain. She witnesses some of the abuse her friend is forced to endure and attempts to confront Bok-ham’s husband, but his mother warns her to mind her own business. A few days later, after a tragic incident occurs, Bok-ham snaps and all hell breaks loose.

Yang Chul-soo's Bedevilled tiptoes between being a stylish folktale and a serious contemporary horror film. It is formally divided into two halves, each focusing on the emotional disintegration of two women living under drastically different conditions.

Both women witness injustice but react to it in a different manner. One of the key points the film makes is that these reactions appear to be at least partially influenced by specific, also unjust, expectations - all of which center around approval and disapproval of male dominance and female passivity - Koreans have imposed on each other.

This being said, Bedevilled is by no means a preachy film. It does not point any fingers at the Korean society and it certainly does not attempt to argue that the unjust expectations mentioned earlier are a product of a deeply flawed social system. If anything, it targets specific cultural perceptions on gender inequality.

The film’s violent sequences are terrific. Young-hee’s character transformation is incredibly believable and arguably the key reason why one would want to see Bedevilled. The scene where she announces that the sun has spoken to her and then descends into madness is beyond eerie.

Director Chul-soo, who worked as an assistant director on Kim Ki-duk’s Samaritan Girl, controls well the tempo of the film, though the graphic violence occasionally overwhelms. Cinematographer Kim Gi-tae’s (A Movie is a Movie, Kim Ki-duk’s Dream) use of natural light and color is fantastic.

Note: Last year, Bedevilled was screened at the Cannes Film Festival at La Semaine de la Critique (the International Critics’ Week).

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Yang Chul-soo's Bedevilled arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Optimum Home Entertainment.

This rather recent Korean film looks spectacular on Blu-ray. The large panoramic vistas from Geumodo Island, for instance, look incredibly vibrant and crisp; even the nighttime footage conveys terrific depth and clarity (see screencaptures #2 and 5). The numerous close-ups from the second half of the film are also wonderfully detailed. Furthermore, color reproduction is excellent - the variety of yellows, greens, blues, browns, and blacks are remarkably vivid and well saturated. There are a couple of scenes where the camera zooms over the island and captures the sunset that look absolutely stunning. Edge-enhancement and macroblocking are never a serious issue of concern. I also did not see any traces of heavy aliasing and banding. Blown through a digital projector, the transfer also conveys outstanding fluidity and tightness. All in all, this is a very strong presentation of an extreme but nevertheless beautiful film. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: Korean DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Korean LPCM 2.0. For the record, Optimum Home Entertainment have provided imposed English subtitles (the subtitles cannot be turned off) for the main feature. The subtitles appear inside the image frame.

The audio is exceptionally well mixed. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track isn't going to test the muscles of your audio system, but there are specific scenes where it truly shines - a couple of the more gruesome scenes have that eerie silence that is suddenly broken by the sound of a heavy object hitting a hard surface that is simply outstanding. There are other random sounds (wind, waves, etc.) that are also very effective. The dialog is crisp, clean, stable, and exceptionally easy to follow. I also did not detect any disturbing pops, cracks, hissings, or audio dropouts to report in this review. The English translation is excellent.

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes - a standard featurette with raw footage from the shooting of the film. In Korean, with imposed English subtitles. (13 min, PAL).

• Trailer - the original Korean theatrical trailer for Bedevilled. In Korean, with imposed English subtitles. (2 min, PAL).

• TV spot - in Korean, with imposed English subtitles. (1 min, PAL).

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bedevilled is a very promising debut from director Yang Chul-soo, who has previously worked with director Kim Ki-duk. It is very dark, atmospheric and brutal film, but at the same strikingly beautiful. I liked it a lot. The Blu-ray disc herein reviewed, courtesy of British distributors Optimum Home Entertainment, looks and sounds fantastic. It is, however, Region-B "locked". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.