MovieFest

👹 I Saw The Devil 👹 Review 👹 9.2/10 👹 Directed by Kim Jee-Woon Starring: Choi Min-sik, Lee Byung-hun, In-seo Kim, San-ha Oh, Cheon Ho-Jin and Moo-Seong Choi Although the core story has been done before in other revenge movies, this one truly does take take the cake. The movie messes with your mind from scene to scene, without letting go and thats without the gore scenes, they are so brutally done, no shying away at all, rather the opposite actually they embrace it. The characters are so brilliantly brought to life, you literally watch them transform in front of your eyes, especially Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee), the lead character who you watch transform into a monster in order to stop thee monster. The movie focuses on what revenge can bring out in a good man, and it is raw, cruel and at times astonishingly realistic. The movie clocks almost 2 hours and a half, but despite the length being unusually long, you will not be looking at your watch and thinking "it sh...

🔫 Battle Royale 🗡 Review 🔫 9/10 🗡 Battle Royale was the final film by the Japanese exploitation master Kinji Fukasaku, who was bloody 70 at the time, and he clearly put everything he had into it. Despite the 122-minute running time, it's exquisitely paced and balanced, perfectly alternating periods of rest and hope with periods of shock and violence. The huge cast of teens is handled extremely well. Characters unexpectedly reveal new sides of their personalities, i.e. sudden courage, cowardice and rage. Fukasaku plays the movie for bloody thrills while keeping the sinister message in the background. Viewers will likely find themselves thinking about the movie long afterward, as it grows richer. The final masterstroke is the casting of filmmaker/performer Takeshi Kitano (who acts under a stage name, "Beat" Takeshi), as the former teacher and current ringmaster. He brings a very dark, deadpan humor to his role, as well a quiet thoughtfulness, turning him into one...

I took a stab at watching Blade of the Immortal and I have to say it was some "bloody" enthralling stuff. In what is director Takashi Miike's 100th film (13 Assassins, Ichi The Killer), Takuya Kimura takes the lead as the protagonist, Manji, the man who has been cursed with immortality, on a long quest for redemption. Manji is a highly skilled samurai in feudal Japan who promises to help a young woman avenge the death of her parents. Their mission leads them into bloody battle, after bloody battle with a ruthless warrior and his band of master swordsmen. The film's star Carry's some emotional heft throughout the film, struggling ever since he lost his little sister, all he wants to do is join her, but, his curse won't let him, not until he has re-written his wrongs 1000 times over. I have never seen, nor read the original manga series, but I knew that he has to kill 1000 evil men in order to regain his mortality... sold! The fight scenes are out o...

🌟 The Wailing 🌟 Review 🌟 9/10 🌟 Directed by Na Hong-jin Starring: Kwak Do-won as Jong-goo, Hwang Jung-min as Il-gwang, Chun Woo-hee as Moo-myung, Jun Kunimura as Japanese stranger, Kim Hwan-hee as Hyo-jin I have seen a lot of films, and reviewed a fair amount of films but this extraordinary two and a half hour technically-perfect humanistic horror film from Na Hong-jin (I SAW THE DEVIL) was something of a cipher. The closest analogy I can suggest is maybe David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, yet another technically perfect, humanistic, suspense opus which keeps you captivated for its full length, yet has you walking out of the cinema (or lounge) shaking your head and wondering what you just saw? Both film-makers understand the "big secret" of story telling which is, if you can present your story in such a way that the viewer feels he or she is sharing the experience with the protagonist, you can tell any story you like and the viewer will just keep goi...