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Bedevilled is a 2010 Korean drama/horror film starring Seo Young-hee and Ji Sung-won.

After banker Hae-won is forced into taking a vacation after receiving multiple complaints from her coworkers, she decides to travel to Mudo island, where her childhood friend Kim Bok-nam resides. Once on the island, the two friends reconnect with one another and try to repair their estranged relationship. It isn't long before Hae-won discovers that Bok-nam has been trapped in an overworked, abusive relationship with her family and that both she and her daughter, Yeon-Hee, may be in danger. After Bok-nam is pushed past her limit, she soon realizes that if she wants to be free, she'll have to take matters into her own hands.

Not to be confused with the techno-horror film Bedeviled.


Bedevilled provides examples of:

  • Ambiguously Bi: Bok-nam might be sleeping with men (though most of them are nonconsensual), she shows... great interest towards Hae-won, as shown by her general kindness and lengths to help her acclimate to the island. Not to mention during their childhood and later at the springs scene, which she can't seem to keep her hands off of her.
  • Asshole Victim: Predictably, the detestable and loathsome inhabitants of the Mudo Island sans the senile old man were killed brutally by a vengeful Bok-nam.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: This is the reason why Kim Bok-nam spares the senile old man: he didn't abuse her and was too mentally impaired to help her when the others tormented her.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Dong-ho's grandmother chooses to jump into the sea and risk swimming to safety or dying on her own terms as opposed to giving Bok-nam the satisfaction of letting her kill her. Unfortunately, she didn't land in the water. She landed on several jagged rocks.
  • Big Bad: Kim Bok-nam, who devolves into a vengeful murderer in the third act, massacring just about everyone on the island who wronged her and attempting to kill Hae-won.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Yeon-hee is accidentally killed by Man-jong. Adding fuel to the fire is Hae-won lying to the law enforcement about the circumstances regarding to Yeon-hee's death causes Bok-nam to snap and conduct a massacre when no one comes to her defense. Everyone on Mudo island is killed during Bok-nam's rampage except for the senile old man, who later dies from an abrupt heart attack. Hae-won is forced to kill Bok-nam in self-defense after she tracks her down in Seoul and tries to kill her. The final shot of the movie is Hae-won lying on the floor, regretting that she didn't help Bok-nam and her daughter until it was far too late. The only consolation the ending has to offer is that Hae-won survives all of this mostly unscathed (at least physically), she exposes the vandals who beat the civilian to death early on in the film, and it is implied she will stop being apathetic to the atrocities around her.
  • Bystander Syndrome: The film opens with three vandals harassing a woman in an alleyway. She runs out the alley and into a very busy street screaming for help, even going as far as banging on a driver's window to let her inside the car. The driver rolls up their window, and none of the civilians on the street assist her. We find out later on that she was Killed Offscreen.
  • Central Theme: Apathy. Throughout the story, it can also deliver the same harm equal to outright violence depicted in the film. In the first half of the film, every major character does nothing to help those in need, which results in innocent people being tortured or even killed. The second half of the film shows the consequences of all this apathy, where the main victim of this negligence decides to murder everyone who abused her or did nothing to help her while she was being abused. Hae-won, the main instigator of all this, is the only major character who learns from the error of her ways and improves by the end.
  • Death of a Child: Yeon-Hee is accidentally killed by Man-jong halfway into the movie.
  • Defiant to the End: Unlike the other elderly women, Dong-ho's grandmother tries to defend herself from Bok-nam during her rampage. Even when she's cornered on a cliff, she spitefully chooses to jump off into the water and swim for her life instead of letting Bok-nam kill her. Too bad she didn't look before she leaped.
  • Due to the Dead: Turns out that even before Bok-nam went to Seoul, she pays respects to the inhabitants (her tormentors and eventually victims, by the way) of the island.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: What effectively snaps Bok-nam's sanity and her descent to villainy is not only the death of her daughter, but Hae-won's apathy in a form of lying about witnessing what did really happen that lead to her daughter's death.
  • "Everybody Dies" Ending: With the exception of Hae-won, every major character in the movie dies by the end.
  • Fingore: After being tied up and beaten by Man-jong, Bok-nam decides to "pleasure" him by lecherously licking his fingers. He stupidly puts one in her mouth, giving Bok-nam the chance to bite all the way down through the bone.
  • Graceful Loser: Hae-won manages to kill Bok-nam in self-defense by stabbing her neck with a flute. Instead of retaliating, Bok-nam uses her last breath to lay down on Hae-won's lap and comfort her when she breaks down, accepting her fate.
  • Grew a Spine:
    • It might have caused her to become the Big Bad of the film, but after Bok-nam have enough being ignored and abused for so long that it caused her the death of her daughter and losing her friendship with Hae-won lead her to take the matters on her own hands to strike back against her tormentors.
    • Hae-won eventually has this at the epilogue of the film, finally telling her the suspects of the crime that happened at the start of the film, enough that when the suspect threatens to kill her, she brandishes a pen and glared defiantly at him, as if telling him to Bring It.
  • Improvised Weapon: Hae-won ends Bok-nam's rampage by stabbing her neck with the sharp end of the recorder.
  • Just Toying with Them: When Bok-nam chases her Mother-in-Law, she notably had an opportunity to kill her easily after knocking Haw-won out. And during the chase, the Mother-in-Law runs at such a slow pace that Bok-nam could have easily caught up to her but instead goes after her through an Ominous Walk. Both times are likely because she wanted the prolong the latter's terror before killing her.
  • Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: It's heavily implied Yeon-Hee isn't Man-jong's biological daughter. Bok-nam has been sexually abused by so many men on the island that even she doesn't believe he's the father.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: It can be inferred that Hae-won feels this upon reading the unread letters Bok-nam sent to her but she deliberately threw in the trash can, learning a little too late that the latter sought help to her, most probably to get her away from the island and from the abusive inhabitants.
  • Off with His Head!: Kim Bok-nam murders Cheol-jong by cutting off his head with a sickle.
  • Shower of Angst: Hae-won does this at the epilogue, not even bothering to take off her clothes, signifying how the events of the film changed her irreversibly for better or for worse.
  • Spoiler Cover: The original Korean poster displays Hae-won playing a recorder while a bloody, dying Bok-nam lies in her lap. This occurs during the climax of the film, shortly after Hae-won fatally stabbed her.
  • Tragic Villain: Kim Bok-nam is a spree killer who is nothing short of a product of the abusive, apathetic environment around her. After being raped, abused, or betrayed by all of her relatives and close ones—including Hae-won, her childhood friend—she ultimately snaps and starts murdering everyone who wronged her.
  • Villain Protagonist: However justified she is in this regard, Kim Bok-nam turns into this by the second half of the movie.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Hae-won and Bok-nam were close as children, but it was downplayed due to Hae-won's constant disregard towards Bok-nam's well-being while the latter would do anything for her such as defending her from the men who harassed her and heavily implied to be raped along the way and later ignoring Bok-nam's letters when she was making a life at Seoul. Played straight when Bok-nam has enough of Hae-won's cowardice and callousness when she lied about not being present when Yeon-hee was killed, basically calling Bok-nam a liar and siding with the cruel islanders. At that unforgivable act, their friendship is basically put into dumpster fire.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Kim Bok-nam, who ultimately is just a kind, tortured soul who was pushed to a breaking point and decided to strike out against her tormentors, even if it meant killing a police officer and attempting to kill her childhood friend.


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