REVIEW: "Bedevilled"

Subtlety is a foreign concept to Bedevilled, dealing more with
superlative than finesse. Not to say that's entirely a shame - in
fact, it's more strategic than anything else. The audience is
manipulated upon entering the cinema, expecting a revenge thriller or
typical horror and instead being emotionally thrashed by confronting
horror and cruelty that doesn't at all follow the entertaining hack
and slash disposable violence and cathartic resolution of the horror
genre.

Our main character, Hae Won, is a morally obtuse city slicker whose
pathos indirectly hurts those around her, whether it be refusing to
help a woman being beaten or putting clerical procedure over a
person's livelihood. That same lethargy deals its damage to her
childhood friend, Kim Bok-Nam, when she visits the island of her
upbringing.

Hae Won is a disenfranchised woman working in a man's world,
developing a callous layer that makes her an unlikeable main character
(not that that's a bad thing here). On a forced vacation from work,
she takes a nostalgic stroll down a less inviting memory lane away
from the hubbub of city life. What she finds is a caricature of
tragedy that is the island of Moo-do.

Bok-Nam takes the reigns in Bedevilled as the real main character as
she is physically and emotionally tormented by the incestuous village
that condones brutal misogyny on both sides of the fence. She is raped
by her husband's brother, cheated on by her abusive husband, subject
to constant manual labour and degradation, all condoned by a
ruthlessly backwards tribe of elderly women. Hae Won is thrust into
the middle, though observes, hapless, from the sideline.

The antithesis to the typical Lifetime women's flic, Bok-Nam snaps
under the unrelenting pressure of being abandoned in her shared hell
and the film turns to slasher fodder. The superlative violence that
ensues is shot with a brutality that will fulfil the pent up bloodlust
of an emotionally manipulated audience, though is shot by someone
seemingly unfamiliar with the thriller genre Bedevilled uncomfortably
sits in.

Director Jang Cheol-soo debuts with Bedevilled, after earlier earning
his chops on the side of Kim Ki-Duk on the set of Samaritan Girl. The
technical prowess he's picked up is evident, as is his ability to
evoke a real response from the viewer, except for how
one-dimensionally morose the characters all are. The exaggerated
violence forces a response, though lacks the subtlety to be credible.
What's left is a murder spree without the thrill of a thriller and
without the cathartic release of a revenge picture.

But then again, every filmmaker tailors their film to tell a certain
story or make a certain point, and Cheol-soo drives his home on the
back of unrelenting cruelty backed by expert cinematography to present
an aesthetically pleasing but morally unsettling tale. The violence
the audience yearns for comes at a heavy toll, so much so that you
question whether sitting through an hour of one-sided, unscrupulous
cruelty is worth the release.

Korean film as a reflection of Korean society tends to paint a fairly
patriarchal society with misogynistic undertones, and Bedevilled takes
it to the enth degree. Hae Won's Seoul life is populated by crass and
callous individuals while Moo-do island is absorbed by more of the
same.

Just as those in Bedevilled passively abstain from helping those
around them, so too do vicarious audiences of violent cinema who'll
gladly accept some token abuse for some more token reparation in
blood. The film makes it hard to be passive. If you go into this film
expecting another revenge film or a bit of filmic horror, prepared to
be mortified by how genuinely horrifying Bedevilled can be. It doesn't
follow the genre, but makes a bolder statement in its defiance.