The Divine Fury (3/5) – Fantasia 2019 Review

THE DIVINE FURY is a new action-horror sci-fi movie from South Korea that just screened at Fantasia 2019. It’s full of demons and has some very impressive fight scenes. Read more about this genre hybrid in our The Divine Fury review here.

The Divine Fury is a new movie from South Korea. It’s a real genre hybrid with elements of action, horror, thriller, and sci-fi while still focusing on its characters. In the usual awesome way, South Korean movies tend to.

The movie is visually gorgeous and has some great effects (especially in terms of shadows). It does however run too long and has a rather weak ending compared to the beginning.

Find out why it’s still definitely worth watching in our full The Divine Fury review below.

Such a strong cast

For many people, the draw of The Divine Fury could easily be the cast that has several actors you should know from other South Korean movies.

We have Sung-Ki Ahn portraying the priest, Father Ahn, and he really is the heart and soul of the movie. Whatever your feelings about demons and exorcism might be, he makes it all seem somehow very believable. You might actually recognize Sung-Ki Ahn from the Hollywood action movie Last Knights starring Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen.

Finally, we have Woo-sik Choi in a smaller role as the younger priest Father Choi. You should recognize Woo-sik Choi from movies like Train to Busan or the Netflix movie Okja.

You should also like: Our review of Okja which can be watched on Netflix >

Also, he’s in Parasite which is the latest award-winning movie by the brilliant director Joon-ho Bong.

You might not know the two actors in key roles unless you watch TV series from South Korea, but they are damn good. Do-Hwan Woo plays the bad guy and does it so damn well that you nearly root for him. Especially working across from Seo-Joon Park who portrays the main protagonist Yong-hoo.

The Divine Fury will have a sequel

The movie just screened at Fantasia 2019 and it does seem like it would be a crowd-pleaser. To me, the first part of the movie is definitely stronger than the last quarter or so. To put it plainly, the final part of the movie was its weak spot. Mostly because the focus was more on action than on the characters.

However, a sequel is already being teased at the end and I’m definitely ready to watch it. The Divine Fury sequel will feature one of the priests that doesn’t have too much screen time in this movie.

Something that makes sense both because he’s a very popular actor and because he’s really good in this one.

An impressive feat by Kim Joo-hwan

The Divine Fury was both written and directed by Kim Joo-hwan. This is only his third directing credit and his second writing credit. But with a result like this, it will be far from his last.

The theme is one that we’re very familiar with from various US movies. Good versus evil in the classic sense of the Christian faith. I’m not always the biggest fan of those stories. Or to be more specific, I do love movies like The Exorcist but I do not care for any story that tells me “Believe in God or you will pay the price”.

Fortunately, The Divine Fury has a brilliant ability to focus on faith as a more open concept. One where God is good and you should believe in love and your fellow man. And, most importantly, yourself. This made the very core concept of this movie work like a charm for me.

The Divine Fury screened at Fantasia 2019 where it had the honor of being the closing film. It will be out in US theaters on August 16, 2019.

Details

Director: Kim Joo-hwan
Cast: Seo-Joon Park, Sung-Ki Ahn, Do-Hwan Woo

Plot

After losing his father at a young age in a terrible accident, Yong-hu abandons his Christian faith and chooses to only believe in himself. Now as an adult, Yong-hu is a champion fighter and has everything he has ever wanted, that is until mysterious wounds appear in the palms of his hands. He solicits help from a local priest, Father Ahn. Hoping the priest can help relieve him of the painful markings, he instead finds himself in the middle of a dangerous fight against otherworldly evil forces.