7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
When her pleas for help are ignored and cause her daughter's death, a woman seeks revenge on the person she blames.
Starring: Seo Yeong-hie, Ji Seong-won, Hwang Min-ho, Seong-eun Tak, Son Yeong-soonForeign | 100% |
Horror | 39% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Korean: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Korean: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
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.
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 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 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.
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