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Hae-won (Ji Sung-won), a selfish banker, needs a time-out after being
made a witness in a rape case she wants to have nothing to do with. So she
takes a trip back to the island she grew up with to hook up with her best
friend from yesteryear, Bok-nam (Seo Yeong-hie). However, life on the
island has taken a turn for the worse, it headcount is down to nine, and
while all the women are cultivating the field like slaves, lorded over by
the (female) village head who also makes the law, the two men enjoy the
good life and are only asked to fix things from time to time. It seems
Bok-nam got the most rotten deal of them all: She was gangraped but forced
to have her kid, a daughter, Yeon-hee, whom she now loves more than life. But
she is suppressed by her husband Man-jong, who treats Bok-nam like dirt,
invites hookers over to the island to have sex with them before her eyes,
and he might have more than merely fatherly feelings for Yeon-hee. Bok-nam asks
Hae-won to take her and Yeon-hee with her to the mainland, to Seoul, but
Hae-won refuses using some rather lame excuses. In her desperation,
Bok-nam calls a hooker of her husband's who actually tried to make friends
with her despite everything, and the hooker actually comes to fetch her
and Yeon-hee to take them to Seoul - but while Bok-nam wanted to escape in
secret, someone must have alerted the whole village, and everybody wants
to prevent Bok-nam from going, and in the fight that erupts, Man-jong
kills Yeon-hee ... but when an official comes for an inquiry into the
situation later on, everybody clams the girl died in an accident, and they
even partly blame Bok-nam. And to put an end to her ambitions of
individuality, she is forced to work all day the very next day - which is
when Bok-nam erupts and kills everyone on the island in more and more
violent ways. Only Hae-won somehow manages to escape - Hae-won
who's at least as guilty as all the others, because she was a secret
witness to the murder of Yeon-hee and she could have testified against the
islanders - and her testimonial would have been more valid than all the
others since she is not part of the island community ... she simply
didn't help her friend out of selfishness. Back on the mainland, Hae-won is arrested
because she's found on a boat that is not hers and that shows traces of
blood - but later that night, Bok-nam breaks into the precinct Hae-won is
held at, kills everyone in sight and threatens Hae-won, who only
eventually manages to kill her in self defense. It's only now that
Hae-won starts to realize everything that has been wrong about
selfish ways, and finally she testifies in the rape case from the
beginning of the movie, even if she almost gets killed for doing so ... At
times, Bedevilled is quite a suspenseful, violent and atmospheric
film - but all of this polish and all of its shocking content can't really
iron out the story's narrative shortcomings: the whole island-situation
and especially Bok-nam's hardships are portrayed in a way too crude and blunt way to
really work, Hae-won, one of the film's main characters, remains a rather empty
shell throughout, character-wise, and especially her spiritual
vindication at the end of the film comes across as heavy-handed as can be,
and the whole story follows a gangrape case on Pitcairn Islands (you know,
the islands from Mutiny
on the Bounty) that was revealed back in 2004 a bit too closely and unimaginatively to really
qualify as an original story. Also, the finale seems rather pulpy when
compared to what has previously been built up, and the whole thing could
have done with half an hour less running time (it takes almost two hours
to tell not all that much of a story). All that said, Bedevilled
certainly has its moments, but it's by no means a perfect movie.
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