Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Cinemanila Film Festival Reviews # 3


I Saw The Devil (Kim Jee-woon) ***1/2 - When a sadistic serial killer murders the fiance of a trained secret agent, the latter goes on a violent revenge plot. It's part-horror film, part-revenge action thriller and it works very, very well together. The film takes you for a largely unpredictable ride and shifts genres and tones with ease and without being jarring. The violence is shocking and cringe-inducing but mostly quite effective and justified. The actor from Old Boy plays the serial killer and quite effective too. I think I like this better than the other film.


Red State (Kevin Smith) **1/2 - There are lots of things to like about Smith's thinly veiled assault on Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. But there are also a lot of flaws. It's clear that Kevin Smith has a lot to say about the subject but none of it really deep and penetrating. One thing I do love about this film is Michael Parks' performance as the fire-and-brimstone preacher Abin Cooper. It's worth seeing the film just for his 15-minute sermon right in the middle of it.

9 comments:

A said...

Definitely want to check out both of these.

The Angry Lurker said...

I saw the devil stands out for me.

Mark said...

The guy from Oldboy? I'd probably check it out for that.

Sub Radar (Mike) said...

Whoa, that cover is right about it being unexpectedly Kevin Smith... that's a bit of a far cry from Clerks haha

jerzey72 said...

Can't wait to see them.

anonblog said...

awesome movies, +follow (:

Anonymous said...

Red State sound good.

Anonymous said...

Good films.

Bersercules said...

Both sound like movies I'll have to check out! I like Kevin Smith movies!