Movie Review: 'Deliver Us From Evil' (2020)
This film is included in the list of nominees for the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards
Korean Title: 다만 악에서 구하소서
English Title: Deliver Us From Evil
Running Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes
Release Date: August 5, 2020
Genre: Action, Thriller
Language(s): Korean, Thai, English, Japanese
Cast: Hwang Jung Min (The Battleship Island), Lee Jung Jae (Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days), Park Jung Min (Mr. Sunshine), Choi Hee Seo (Okja)
Directed by: Hong Won Chan (Confession of Murder)
Written by: Hong Won Chan (Confession of Murder)
Deliver Us From Evil is an action-thriller film about a spy-turned-hitman, Kim In Nam (Hwang Jung Min) who planned to retire after his last assassination job but end up finding himself enduring great lengths to find a young girl, Yumin (Park So Yi) who was kidnapped on her way back from school by child traffickers in Thailand.
Deliver Us From Evil is an official entry to the Busan International Film Festival and was filmed in multiple locations including, Korea, Thailand and Japan. Further, the film is also among the works with most nominations for the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards taking place on May 13, 2021. The film was nominated in six (6) categories, including:
Best Film
Best Director - Hong Won Chan
Best Actor - Lee Jung Jae as Ray
Best Supporting Actor - Park Jung Min as Yui
Best New Actress - Park So Yi as Yumin
Technical Award - Hong Kyung Pyo for Cinematography
Story
Kim In Nam (Hwang Jung Min) is a Korean National Intelligence Service Agent turned assassin who plans to retire to Panama after his last hit-man job - a Japanese mobster named, Koraeda.
Parallel to the events in Japan, Seo Young Joo (Choi Hee Seo) is in Thailand and sends her daughter, Yumin (Park So Yi) to school ahead of meeting with a real estate agent for an investment and lets her know that a babysitter will be picking her up at the end of the day. After school, the babysitter picks Yumin up but instead of taking her home - the babysitter takes Yumin to her husband’s car to kidnap the little girl.
Young Joo is in a panic upon realizing Yumin has been kidnapped, and so she reports it to the police. There is a shot of the ‘Missing Persons’ board at the police station showing the sheer volume of missing persons cases in progress and on top of that, the police doesn’t seem to have a lot of urgency in terms of finding Yumin. Young Joo decides to reach out to In Nam to help find Yumin. Through a flashback later on, we find out that In Nam and Young Joo used to be lovers. However, In Nam rejects Young Joo’s request to search for Yumin.
Days later, In Nam finds out that Young Joo has died in pursuit of her search for Yumin. He flies back to Incheon to see her body and finds out that Yumin is actually his daughter - which triggers him to begin his search for Yumin so he could bring her with him to Panama as he retires.
As he takes on the challenge of looking for his daughter, In Nam finds himself also being targeted by Ray (Lee Jung Jae), the sibling of Koraeda who follows him all the way to Thailand.
In Thailand, we learn that Yumin was actually sold off to a child trafficking ring headed by a notorious criminal named Chaopo that specializes in selling children’s organs for transplant surgeries around the world. Yumin is considered a rare child given her Korean heritage. She is eventually sold off to a client in need of a heart donor and in order to complete the surgery, Yumin is sent to Ratchaburi Province.
In Nam is introduced to Yui (Park Jung Min), a transgender woman who helps him by translating and navigating the area to find the Chaopo headquarters where all the children are kept in exchange of some money.
In Nam and Ray meet in Ratchburi Province where they fight for the first time but In Nam is able to escape. In addition, he was also able to eventually take Yumin back from the child traffickers and Chaopo’s operations is also busted by the police.
Afterwards, both he and Yumin check in to a hotel as In Nam plans their escape to Panama. At the hotel, he is ambushed by Chaopo’s people as well as Ray himself as he is determined to get revenge against In Nam for his brother’s murder.
The Verdict
Overall Rating: 5/10
I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting from this film, to be honest…
I found it interesting that the film was set in so many different locations - with scenes set in Korea, Thailand and Japan and with events happening all at the same time. I must admit, that because of the execution of the film, I was little bit confused of the plot progression in the beginning because of the amount of events happening at once.
Ultimately, Deliver Us From Evil borrows a lot of its elements from the critically-acclaimed 2010 film, The Man from Nowhere starring Won Bin. It ticks all the boxes, from ruthless man trying to protect young girl, to bloody and gruesome action scenes, to illegal child-organ-trafficking. On top of that, we see a lot of stereotypical elements in its portrayal of Japan and Thailand (Yakuza & Thai Red Light District), which I wasn’t so much a fan of to be quite honest. I feel like if you were going to spend all that money to set the film in multiple locations, it would’ve been better to do some additional homework to portray these places outside of their regular stereotypes.
Now all my complaints aside, an important thing to note is that among it’s many 57th Baeksang Awards nominations, Deliver Us From Evil is nominated for a Technical Award for Cinematography - and it’s oh-so-well-deserved! I posted a round-up of my favorite beautiful scenes on Instagram. Hong Kyung Pyo did an incredible job with the framing and composition of this film that I found myself rewinding some scenes multiple times just to see it again and say, “I never would’ve thought to shoot it that way!”.
Of course the clips above don’t really mean much without context - but believe me when I tell you that the cinematography helped in adding value and entertainment (for me, at least) to an otherwise typical Korean action film without it.
