Bedevilled - 金福南殺人事件始末

Bedevilled (金福南殺人事件始末) is a 2010 film out of Korean. The movie stars Seo Young-hee and Ji Seong-won.

Ji plays Hae-won, a modern woman living in Sheol as a banks financial advisor. Hae-won witnessed a beating and decides not to get involved out of fear. After that, she gets into it with a bank customer and co-worker. After the wo-worker confrontation, Hae-won decides to visit her grandfathers island where she visited as a child. Seo plays Bok-nam, the youngest woman on the island. The two had played together when they were young. The two strike up their friendship again. Bok-name however is treated more like a slave than a human. Eventually, Bok-nam cracks.

Seems that many of the Korean movies I've been watching lately are so dark. Exploring the darkness within humans. Where do you think you're humanity starts and others end. In this case, over and over, the abuse of Bok-nam becomes so common, its part of everyday life.

Major props to Seo Young-hee. Seo puts on an amazing performance of transforming herself into this island person. If you've seen her elsewhere, you know how beautiful Seo normally is.

The movie moved really slow as it really focused on character development for more than half the film. Much like other Korean films of late, be prepared to be a little shocked at the darkness presented.

The Chaser - 追擊者

The Chaser (追擊者) is a 2008 film out of Korea. The movie stars Kim Yoon-seok, Seo Yeong-hee, and Ha Jeong-woo. This movie was the third highest grossing domestic film in Korea in 2008. The rights to this movie have been sold to an US production company and Leonardo DiCaprio have been linked to it.

Eom Joong-ho, played by Kim, is a former police officier that is now a pimp. 2 of his girls have disappeared recently and he's trying to fulfill orders for the night with less staff. Kim Mi-jin, played by Seo, calls in sick. Eom isn't convinced and goes to her house to force her into work. Sick and not in the best shape, Mi-jin takes an order. Eom's right hand man, Oh-jot delivers the goods. While driving around, Eom finds the car of one his missing girls. This starts him on a mouse chase that leads to Je Yeong-min, played by Ha. From there, you'll have to watch the movie as the twist and turns are many.

This was a very dark film as are many Korean films of this past decade. In this movie, we're presented with evil and with the ability to stop it, but you can't without breaking the law. With Eom, he 's no longer the law and will break it for the sake of cracking the case. Throw in good ol' politics and things get tricky. The story is pretty unique in that the bad guy is found, but the victim is still alive and could be saved. Can good triumph over evil? Are there casualties of evil?

I highly recommend this film as it was a unique story and presented good, evil, and a whole lot of darkness.