Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie Review

She is woman, hear her roar.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 5, 2012

Have you ever dreamed of getting away from it all so some remote island paradise that is sparsely inhabited and where the cares of the world could melt away in the tropical sun? Whatever you do, don’t go to Moo-do the island at the center of the disturbing 2010 South Korean film Bedevilled. Ostensibly a more or less straight ahead revenge film, Bedevilled has a lot going on within that framework, including some of the most nonstop and rampant misogyny caught on film in any country, Asian or Western. The film might be seen as an incipient call to arms against abuse and even a certain kind of codependence (or at least tacit complicity), but it’s also a desperate cry of a soul who has been tormented for too long to do anything other than ultimately strike back as viciously and hyperbolically as she can. Bedevilled cheats a little by starting out with what one assumes will be the central story (which in a way it is—more about that later), as we meet Hae-won (Seong-won Ji), a pretty and efficient loan officer at a Seoul bank. Hae-won is having a bad day at work, to say the least. She’s seen arguing with an hysterical older woman whose loan has been denied and who is insisting Hae-won has told her would be approved. It’s hard to tell who’s telling the truth here, something that instantly sets the viewer on edge: is Hae-won simply the victim of an addle-pated elder’s misunderstanding or has she indeed misled the old woman? When even Hae-won realizes the interchange is getting out of hand, she bolts from the office, where it soon becomes apparent that she previously witnessed an assault against a young woman (something that is seen in the film’s opening credits sequence) and has been called to the police station to identify the attackers. She’s reticent to actually come out and name them in the line up, which again raises questions about her character. She has a reason (she remembers one of them having worn a ring), but she’s mostly certain anyway, so why is she not stepping up to the plate to help the girl who’s been assaulted? Hae-won tries to get out of the police station but is actually accosted by the young toughs who have been accused of the assault. She manages to make it back to the office, where she is inadvertently locked in a bathroom stall by someone wearing flip flops. When she manages to get herself out of that predicament, she sees a co- worker who had ended up approving the loan to the old woman, and of course she’s wearing flip flops, so Hae-won snaps, and slaps the shocked young woman. At that exact moment a custodial staff woman walks by wearing the exact same flip flops—it’s obvious she’s the culprit. Needless to say, Hae-won’s superior “suggests” she needs a little break and orders her to take a vacation.

And that’s when the “island paradise” of Moo-do comes in. Hae-won had grown up on this remote piece of sand, rock and trees sticking up in the apparent middle of an oceanic nowhere, and she is eager to reunite with her childhood friend Bok-nam (Yeong-hie Seo). It turns out there are very few residents left on Moo-do, all of them in various families that are related in some way to Bok-nam herself, at least through marriage. (It should be noted that the “cast list” was in Korean and IMDb is virtually no help, so I am unable to properly identify all of the actors playing various parts.) Both Bok- nam’s husband (Park Jeong-hak) and his brother (Bae Seong-woo) are incredibly abusive toward Bok-nam, and indeed one harrowing scene portrays Bok- nam’s rape at the hands of her brother-in-law, a situation one gets the feeling is more or less normal. The two obsessively chew the island’s plant based narcotic which has been nicknamed “Bozo leaves” due to how it makes people who ingest it act. Bok-nam’s mother-in-law (Baek Soo-Ryeon) is another piece of work, a dismissive woman who actually takes Hae-won to task for being “stupid” enough to come back to Moo-do to vacation, of all things. There are several other elderly women who seem to be sisters (perhaps in spirit) to the mother-in-law, and there’s also Bak-nam’s adorable little girl.

Bedevilled will probably frustrate a lot of Western viewers who want their slicing and dicing to start early and continue often. The first half or so of this two hour-plus outing is a very slow exercise in developing mood and character. While some of the violence against Bok-nam is explicit, it pales in comparison to what comes in the second half of the film once a horrible chain of events lead to the unraveling of Bok-nam’s rather tenuous grip on emotional stability. The rest of the film plays more like a standard revenge fantasy, with lots of over the top slashing, some of which is incredibly gruesome but which still will probably be greeted mostly by “hurrahs” (if an occasional gasp of horror) by an audience already primed to see Bok-nam exact some measure of justice on everyone who has abused her for so long.

While the film may well succeed in ultimately satisfying horror fans’ desires to see lots of blood splatter and even the occasional decapitation, it’s obvious that Bedevilled has more on its mind than mere mayhem. This becomes clear in the closing moments of the film, when Hae-won and Bok-nam are caught in a cat and mouse game and Bok-nam is taking Hae-won to task for not having been more supportive. And then there’s a brief coda where we see the changes the whole trauma has had on Hae-won, once again returning her to the focal point of the film, after the central section’s obvious concentration on Bok-nam. Director Chul-soo Jang is obviously attempting to make some salient points about female empowerment, but also some cogent commentary about Korean culture and its treatment of women. There’s a dour, depressing quality to Bedevilled, but then again watching the subjugation of any class, ethnicity or gender shouldn’t be an easy thing to watch.

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bedevilled is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is an overall stellar looking high definition presentation that benefits from the beautifully sunlit ambience that informs the bulk of the film (despite its sometimes tawdry subject matter). While it does appear this has been color graded in post (notice that weird green sheen in some of the skies), overall colors are very nicely saturated and extremely robust. Director Chul-soo Jang really exploits extreme close-ups as the film veers into its Grand Guignol final act, and those pop extremely well with abundant fine object detail. There are a couple of very minor (and kind of weird anomalies): keep you eye out, for example, as the last shot of island fades and you'll notice something that almost looks like moire wafting across the skies for just an instant. But other than these very minor qualms, this is an outstanding looking Blu-ray.

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bedevilled features a nicely immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in the original Korean language. (For the record, a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 mix in Korean is also available on the disc.) Most of the surround activity is limited to ambient environmental noises, at least for the first half of the film. The gentle lapping of water on the beach, or the buzz of bees (the island make what little money it has by harvesting honey) flit through the surrounds quite appealingly. Once things get into the violent section of the film, the ante is upped considerably, with some pretty gruesome sounding effects as Bok-nam goes on her rampage. Fidelity is very strong and there's some surprising dynamic range as well.

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (1080i; 12:45) shows several exterior segments being shot.


• Trailer (HD; 1:36)

Bedevilled Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bedevilled is an extremely unsettling film, but it's also not exactly what some may think it is: a traditional slasher movie, or even a tradition revenge fantasy. This is instead something a good deal deeper, a film that delves into the torment of two wounded women's souls as they each find a different kind of catharsis. The two lead performances are riveting, for completely different reasons, and the film is notable in that so much carnage takes place in such an apparently idyllic location. Western audiences should be prepared for some slow going in the first hour or so, but once the characters and mood have been established, the rest of the film is a terrifying excursion through one woman's (quite justifiable) madness. Some may find fault with the film's rather cartoonish portrayal of men, all of whom are boors (to say the very least), but that also helps to establish the oppressive ambience that works so well throughout the experience. This isn't a film for everyone, to say the least, but it does boast superior video and audio, and it comes Recommended.