Q:
I really liked just the way you play the character as harder than even the way the villain is, because he’s actually a very likable and sympathetic person until he starts killing people. (laughs) I like that dynamic. There’s just something about Korean cinema and how they handle revenge; it’s just refreshing for American audiences. I don’t know what it is abut the culture or the filmmaking that’s coming out of Korea right now, but it never ceases to blow me away. Especially when it comes to revenge films, like Chan-wook Park’s stuff. Why you think that there’s such an amazing wellspring of talent coming out of Korea right now?
A: Ji-Woon Kim: (Laughs) I’m not exactly sure myself. I’m not exactly sure as why we would say that Korean revenge films are so successful, but I think geographically and historically Korea as a nation was surrounded by two very big forces on the borders and we have had invasions and colonization within the history. I think as a culture maybe there are definitely things that are kept down in our culture because of that. It might be the basis of one of the elements of explaining this, but I think revenge films as a medium kind of act as releasing these desires and wants in a person like a shaman would release the deep desires of someone in some sort of ritual.
Ultimately, I would say that this is not a film about revenge, rather this is a film about the emotions of revenge. We experience a very electric catharsis by seeing the revenge exacted in a way and we see that there is a Devil and that one man completely descends to become a Devil to defeat that Devil. Very boggy waters there. The question that I’m trying to pose is “Is there really any true revenge when that kind of revenge is exacted?”
If someone was killed, it’s not going to bring that person back and there’s always going to be these desires that don’t get fulfilled even though revenge has been exacted. So the film is addressing those false happy endings where the revenge is done and there’s a false happy ending, but that’s questionable because there’s always something left over behind that. In this film we kind of get to see that and that’s one of the things that interested me as well.
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Als je wat tips weet qua literatuur, graag! Ik heb wel al een lijst gemaakt met enkele boeken/artikels etc., maar wie weet mis ik wat. Ik ben nu bezig met de Zuid-Koreaanse filmgeschiedenis te doorploeteren. Wie het heden wil vatten moet het verleden eerst uitspitten. Ik wou er ook niet enkel een filmstudie maar ook een culturele studie van maken, waar ik de link probeer te leggen tussen de Koreaanse samenleving en die hoop wraakfilms van de laatste jaren. Dus Koreaanse geschiedenis moet ik ook nog zien door te nemen. 
). Ik denk dat ik als kind het origineel wel 10 keer gezien heb op TV.