# Part of the Korean Cinema Blogathon
What’s the main difference between Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw The Devil and Man from Nowhere? These are both South Korean hardcore thrillers using a radically different way to entertain us.
Kim Jee-woon made a cynical violent roller coaster, pushing the violence as far as he can go without really taking advantage of genre possibilities. The main point of the film is to play with the idea of “who’s who”, ie, who is “I”, who is the “Devil”. And it doesn’t go further. It doesn’t use it to explore and question the human nature, the idea of vengeance, and the genre it belongs to (the only thing KJW does is to make fun of genre codes).
Man from Nowhere is a more down-to-earth/traditionnal thriller, it’s all about the emotional involvement of the audience. Feeling almost corny/naive at some point. An efficient yet basic emotion-driven story about redemption, where you are deeply connected to the lead character’s actions. It’s less about the audience trying to define what’s his role, and more about what is he going to do. No distance between the story and the audience here.
Just some thoughts…
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