The Divine Fury (2019)

What I loved:
ACTING: Every single actor, either main, secondary or guest did an excellent job. I don't need to mention that the two main leads, Park Seo Joon, and Ahn Sung Ki were mindblowing. The emotions that they portrayed through their facial expressions, the feeling showing through the eyes, the warm budding relationship of these two characters and every single time they shared the screen, it was magic. I was completely floored by the child actor, Jung Ji Hoon, too.

What I didn't love:

PLOT: Park Seo Joon's character continues to rave and hate God throughout the movie, till the bit before the end where he rushes into the church to yell at God, and yet he is selected to become this harbringer of so-called divine fury because his dad said so? Really? He shows no particular religious feeling, no actual connection with God, and seems to have taken on the role of an exorcist's disciple simply because he somehow chanced upon an exorcism. I suppose the most that you can say about it is that he doesn't like ignoring people who are in pain or who need him, but honestly that wasn't well-developed and I wish the director had pursued that more.

THE HERO: Needed more character development! Everything is rushed; his relationship with his dad and with Father Ahn. He also seems to lack a clear motive, at least in my opinion. He's pretty much lost in his life during the pre-Father Ahn years, but afterwards, what motivates him to suddenly jump into exorcism? Is there a clear reconciliation between him and God? Would he have continued on this path had Father Ahn died? I think what the movie needed was a powerful moment where he witnesses people who lose loved ones and still continue to have faith in God, or who still smile. There was just something missing in this character that I can't seem to put exactly in words.

THE VILLAIN: My biggest disappointment is the fact that the villain is just this bland evil guy who is evil for the sake of it. There's no background, no motives, no depth at all. He just worships his Snake Lord for the sake of immortality but boy, what you gonna do with your eternal life? Party away in that club of yours? Heck, Doctor Faustus had a better motive than you, though he was pretty stupid too. There was just so much potential and room here and it was a big let-down.

THE ENDING: Everybody lives happily ever after. Ew.

Read More

The Exorcist meets MARVEL.

Rather than a horror movie, it felt much more like a superhero origin story with a religious twist, and I loved every second of it. It was extremely entertaining, the effects were nice, and so were the fighting scenes. The acting was believable. Except for a bit of a false advertisement (the trailers made it seem like more of a horror than action movie), I'd say this is a solid film.

The best part was definitely Park Yong Hoo's character and how amazingly unimpressed he was about all the crazy stuff happening around him. I chuckled a few times simply because of his reactions, or rather lack of it. He was a rather well written hero, who struggled with accepting his true calling. As I said, it sounds like a superhero origin.

Since I myself don't believe in any of the things presented in the movie (hi there all the atheists) I cannot rate how scary this movie was, coz for me it was not at all. That said, I've been watching horror movies since I was around 6 years old, so it's not easy to scare me anymore.

All the characters were nicely done, we got a believable main villain (in terms of his motivations), the side stories and characters fitted the overall tone of the movie. It was a consistent storytelling without any plot holes and unexplained storylines. The ending felt a bit like a final boss fight in a video game, but that was fitting with how "superhero versus the villain" the whole movie was.

It's obvious how high the production value was. The shots were extremely aesthetically pleasing, the background music was fitting, the set design was amazing (the last scenes in the club: loved them). I also want to thank the demon for not ruining Do Hwan's face close to the end of the movie. He knows the true beauty and how to appreciate that.

Overall, really enjoyable. I might rewatch some scenes with Park Yong Hoo from time to time, since as of today, he is my favorite "horror" movie character.

Read More