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How is a movie that’s as conceptually bizarre as “The Divine Fury”—a Korean action/horror hybrid about a possessed mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter— not as thrilling as its wilder ideas? This is a movie where Yong-hu (Seo-joon Park), an agnostic pro-athlete, works on his daddy issues by joining good-natured Father Ahn (Sung-ki Ahn) in speaking Latin and exorcising demons. I agree, hypothetical reader, “The Divine Fury” does sound like fun, especially given that, in the film, demons tend to catch fire as they’re exorcised. There’s also a climactic fight scene involving a scaly demon-man. And a ton of dead air, boring asides, tedious backstory, and other unnecessary narrative padding.

Yong-hu’s story is almost never as cuckoo bananas on screen as it is on paper. Writer/director Joo-hwan Kim frequently announces his intention of taking Yong-hu and his crisis of faith seriously, but Kim often fails to provide enough credible details to warrant the excessive concentration that he brings to this mostly generic post-“ The Exorcist ” horror movie. Yong-hu is consequently just another good guy struggling to rid himself of a heavy personal albatross: his dad, Officer Park (Seung-Joon Lee), was killed by the “Dark Bishop,” the same demon that Park chases throughout “The Divine Fury” and that, in the film’s present day, possesses stick figure antagonist Ji-sin (Do-hwan Woo). But what Yong-hu sees as a weakness (doubt) is actually a strength in the eyes of Father Ahn, a priest who gives voice to the film’s most regrettable expository dialogue, though at least he doesn’t have to say “I possessed the guy who killed your father,” an actual line that one unfortunate actress, playing a possessed Catholic, gets stuck with.

With that said: Yong-hu and Ahn’s bond is easily the weakest link in “The Divine Fury,” even more so than the slick neon-and-mirrors sensibility that makes the film look like a “ John Wick ”-themed perfume commercial. Yong-hu sometimes asks about Ahn’s background as a priest, since he lost faith after his father’s death. But, while Ahn frequently answers his would-be apprentice’s question, his replies are mostly trivial, stuff like “Sure, [priests] can drink and smoke” and "A glass of wine after fighting demons makes me sleep like a baby.” I don’t know why I now know this, but I’m guessing you don’t either.

Ahn also has an annoying habit of describing Yong-hu’s character in ways that aren’t really confirmed or denied by Yong-hu’s forgettable, plot-pushing actions. Yong-hu is told that “You hate [God] very much, but people can't hate without truly loving,” but Yong-hu never meaningfully questions his faith or his anger. What does hatred for God even mean to Yong-hu, a character who initially talks to Ahn and a Korean shaman with equal skepticism? We’re told, in an early scene, that Christianity means a lot to Yong-hu because it meant a lot to his dad…but so what? More care was seemingly put into the lighting than the scripting of scenes.

Kim’s negligible investment in Ahn and Yong-hu’s core beliefs wouldn’t be so frustrating if most of the set pieces in “The Divine Fury” (pretty much any scene involving possessed women and children) didn’t look like one more box to check off of a long shot list. “The Divine Fury” is 129-minutes long and feels it. Some on-screen action is goosed by Ja-wan Koo’s Hans Zimmer-esque score, complete with periodic “ braaahms .” But the sheer spectacle of victims levitating, vomiting blood, and screaming obscenities at feisty Yong-hu and patient Father Ahn just isn’t spectacular enough.

Sometimes, Kim throws in some fun incidental details, like the black chalk that Father Ahn uses to draw the sign of the cross on one demonically possessed victim’s bedroom door. But these familiar symbols don’t add to viewers’ understanding of the characters’ surroundings so much as they remind us of Kim and his collaborators’ creative limits. Yes, I am curious about why Father Ahn carries around an exorcism kit with a charcoal pencil forged from a “sacred olive tree.” Just as I’m interested in finding out what Ahn means when he mysteriously observes that Yong-hu’s father “must have been kind and righteous” since “apples don’t fall far from the tree.” Unfortunately, there isn’t a thought in Ahn’s head that his creators didn’t either dumb down or flat-out misconceive for him.

I hate leaving a higher-than-God-concept like “The Divine Fury” wondering why I don’t better understand its characters, or why Kim chose to dwell so much on his protagonists’ motives when he could have just treated them like sturdy clotheslines to hang a few good scare/action scenes onto. Kim’s movie didn’t provide satisfactory answers to that question, but it did leave me with several new burning ones, like what kind of wine does Father Ahn drink, and how far did his apple drop from his father’s tree? The truth, like religion and several other bad horror movies, is out there.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

The Divine Fury (2019)

129 minutes

Park Seo-joon as Yong-hu

Ahn Sung-ki as Father Ahn

Woo Do-Hwan as Ji-shin

Choi Woo-shik as Priest Choi

Park Ji-hyun as Su-jin

Jung Ji-hoon as Ho-seok

Sim Hee-seop as Priest Kim

• Kim Joo-hwan

Director of Photography

• Cho Sang-yun
• Kim Sun-min

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Film Review: ‘The Divine Fury’

An MMA fighter and lapsed Catholic reluctantly aids an exorcist in this uneven, overlong Korean horror-action concoction.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

Film Critic

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Both “The Exorcist” and “Enter the Dragon” came out in 1973, igniting their respective genres at the box-office as never before. So you’d think more than a few enterprising souls would have tried to combine demonic-possession chills and fighting-action thrills. But apart from 1984’s flabbergasting camp classic “Ninja III: The Domination” — with Lucinda Dickey as an aerobics instructor who’s suddenly from hell — it’s hard to think of much in that vein before new arrival “The Divine Fury.”

This Korean import, releasing on about a dozen U.S. screens, features an MMA fighter battling his own demons while helping a priest free the afflicted of supernatural parasites. Jason (aka Joo-hwan) Kim’s film is a slick concoction that affords moderate guilty-pleasure fun for a while, though it goes on too long to diminishing effect. Nonetheless, a sequel is duly promised at the close.

His mother having died in childbirth, little Yong-hoo has only his father (Seung-joon Lee), a man so upstanding and kind you know he won’t survive the first reel. Indeed, he is soon dead after the routine traffic stop of a vehicle that turns out to bear a glowing-eyed, presumably demon-possessed couple. Raised Catholic, our wee hero angrily renounces his faith after prayer has failed to leave him with even one living parent. And he renounces it with a vengeance, actually braining a priest with a thrown cross at dad’s funeral.

Twenty years later, as an adult now played by Park San-jun, Yong-hoo channels that rage as an undefeated pro mixed-martial arts competitor. Spurning God, it seems, has laid him open to worse influences, because upon spying his opponent’s Christ tattoo, he hears a voice saying, “God killed Dad! Get revenge! Revenge!! ” and nearly beats the guy to death. On the plane home, he dreams of being burnt with a crucifix, then awakens with an actual stigmata-like hand wound. Back home in Seoul, a spider-like spirit attacks him in his sleep.

These things are worrying, so our hero consults a blind child medium who takes one “look” at him and says “You’re screwed. You’re covered with demons.” That’s a rare moment of humor in a movie that otherwise takes itself verrry seriously, particularly once Yong-hoo reluctantly starts assisting aged, frail, Max von Sydow-like Vatican envoy Father Ahn (Sung-Ki Ahn) in expelling demons from other unfortunates in the city.

Though compelling enough at first (if never very scary), “The Divine Fury” soon settles into a certain narrative monotony as the protagonists simply move from one possession case to another. Among them are a young woman subjected to some very Linda Blair-like torments, then a bullied boy at a Catholic orphanage. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to Ji-sin (Do-Hwan Woo), the impresario of a sleek local discotheque and a kinda-sorta Satanist who maintains eternal youth by sacrificing souls to a “sacred serpent” demon. It is he whom our hero will eventually have to defeat in rather disappointingly ordinary mano-a-mano battle, despite such CG fillips as a literal fist of flame.

At over two hours, all this takes far too long, frittering away the frights and fun in too much somberly nonsensical dialogue and incongruous maudlin moments (underlined by Koo Ja-wan’s score). There is certainly some entertainment value in the usual hash made of Christian beliefs in such an Eastern genre exercise, with arbitrary superpowers granted to such talismanic objects as crucifixes and holy water. You might also wonder why the heck the atheistic hero’s kickbox-y mojo would have any effect on evil spirits unfazed by such officially blessed totems. But this is not the kind of movie where it is useful to ask such questions. Better to pass the time counting salutes to other horror films, among which “The Birds,” “Suspiria” and “The Omen” each receive a passing nod.

Despite its longueurs, “The Divine Fury” is sufficiently atmospheric and polished in the packaging departments, with Lee Bong-Hwan’s production design a notable plus. The leads are reasonably charismatic within one-dimensional roles, so it’s a bit surprising when a closing-credits tag sequence announces, “Father Choi will return in ‘The Green Exorcist’” — passing the torch to a fraidy-cat younger priest (played by Woo-sik Choi) who had only played a minor role here. If there’s going to be a franchise here, it’s going to need more lurid disco lighting and serpent-demon-fu, not more dully earnest spokespersons for cross-culturally watered-down quasi-Catholicism.

Reviewed online, San Francisco, Aug. 5, 2019. Running time: 129 MIN. (Original title: “Saja.”)

• Production: (S. Korea) A Well Go USA Entertainment release (in U.S./Canada) of a Lotte Entertainment presentation of a KeyEast, 706 production. Producers: Park Sung-hye, Shin Pil-soon. Executive producer: Cha Won-chun. Co-producers: Kim Jae-yong, Park A-hyoung.
• Crew: Director, writer: Jason Kim. Camera (color, widescreen, HD): Cho Sang-yun. Editor: Kim Sun-min. Music: Koo Ja-wan.
• With: Park Seo-jun, Ahn Sung-ki, Woo Do-hwan, Seung-joon Lee, Woo-sik Choi, Si-eun Kim, Ji-hoon Jung, Eun-hyung Jo.

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Review: “the divine fury” blends christianity, horror, and action.

Park Seo-joon uses MMA skills to exorcise demons in his latest collaboration with Jason Kim Joo-hwan.

By Richard Yu , 13 Aug 19 00:01 GMT

South Korea stands out among East Asian countries for being heavily Christian— almost a third of its population identifies as such. Thus, we’re not surprised that, despite a broader East Asian cinematic landscape more known for ghosts and traditional folk religion , Korean horror flick The Divine Fury takes on a heavy Christian theme. 

The film begins with Yong-hoo (Park Seo-joon) and his policeman father discussing their Christian faith. Yong-hoo’s mother died in childbirth, which makes him question his father’s strong belief in the power of prayer. This doubt only intensifies when a drunk motorist kills Yong-hoo’s father. Some years later, the adult Yong-hoo is now a famous (atheist) mixed martial arts fighter. After one fight, Yong-hoo starts bleeding from his palms—a phenomenon that doctors struggle to explain. He finally decides to visit a priest named An, who notices the resemblance with Jesus’ crucifixion. An tells Yong-hoo that his wound is in fact a Stigmata , with the ability to exorcise demons by lighting their faces on fire.

Buddy Cops Versus Demons

As it happens, priest An (Ahn Sung-ki) works as a full-time exorcist, using a holy cross and the power of Latin chants to remove demons from the human bodies that they take over. Although Yong-hoo is initially reluctant, he starts to help An out with the exorcisms, and Divine Fury almost takes on a buddy cop vibe. The duo spend considerable screen time discussing theology and the role of religion, but An also becomes a father figure for Yong-hoo as they battle possessed souls. 

While Priest An prefers to use the words of God to fight demons, Yong-hoo has a much more kinetic approach to exorcism—beat the crap out of the demon and light their face on fire with his Stigmata (he’s an MMA fighter, after all). Divine Fury is as much a horror movie as it is an action movie packed with more than enough pure ass-kicking on the part of Yong-hoo.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

However, we’re not convinced that Divine Fury straddles the two genres well. For one, people love horror movies because of how they create a sense of drama and suspense—something that this film eschews in favor of fight scenes. At the same time, action fans might find the screeching demons, bloodshot eyes, and occult themes off-putting if they were just looking for some pure ass-kicking. In trying to execute both horror and action, Divine Fury succeeds at neither.

A bigger weakness is the lack of character development over the course of Divine Fury . Yong-hoo’s struggle with his faith is resolved quite easily—after all, it’s pretty hard to deny the existence of heaven and hell when you’re literally trying to light demons’ faces on fire. Priest An’s character is even more flat, hardly changing over the two-plus hours of screentime. 

With all these flaws, it’s no wonder that Yoona’s movie Exit beat it in theatres on opening day . Still, the movie does have one redeeming quality—at least Park Seo-joon fans can see him without a shirt on .

The Divine Fury is in theatres across Korea. It will be released in the US and Canada on August 16th, and across various Asian countries throughout the month of August. 

The Divine Fury (Korean: 사자) — South Korea. Dialog in Korean. Directed by Jason Kim Joo-hwan. First released Running time 2hr 9min. Starring Park Seo-joon, Woo Do-hwan, and Ahn Sung-ki. 

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Divine Fury, The (2019) Review

“The Divine Fury” Theatrical Poster

Director: Kim Joo-Hwan Cast: Park Seo-Joon, Ahn Sung-Ki, Woo Do-Hwan, Park Ji-Hyun, Choi Woo-Sik, Jung Ji-Hoon, Lee Seung-Hee, Sim Hee-Seop, Kim Si-Eun, Kim Seon-Min, Kim Bum-Soo Running Time: 129 min.

By Paul Bramhall

It’s been over 20 years since legendary Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki played a priest battling with possession hungry demons, in 1998’s Soul Guardians . Now a poorly aged showcase for Korea’s burgeoning CGI effects, in 2019 director Kim Joo-hwan clearly thought it’s time to update the concept. So it is The Divine Fury finds Sung-ki once again dusting off his old dog collar to take on, you guessed it, possession hungry demons. Times have changed a lot in 20 years though, and whereas Soul Guardians riffed heavily on Hollywood flicks like The Craft for its aesthetics, thankfully the Korean film industry has long since founds its own voice.

Having a voice isn’t a whole lot of use though, if what you have to say doesn’t make any sense. Or you’ve been possessed, for that matter. Which brings us to the hook The Divine Fury , which essentially rests on that of an MMA fighter battling against satanic forces. At least nobody can accuse it of not being original. Said fighter is played by Park Seo-joon, who worked with Joo-hwan before on the directors previous feature, the entertaining Midnight Runners . Seo-joon himself is no stranger to playing an MMA fighter, having played a similar role in the 2017 drama series Fight My Way , albeit one who wasn’t so angry at God. The issue is his policeman father died when he was still a kid, due to some suspiciously red eyed joyriders he encounters during a routine traffic stop, making the young lad a firm believer that his father’s encouragement to “pray hard” was all a sham.

Said anger has made him grow up to be an undefeated MMA fighter, who in the opening scene is taking part in a match in L.A., overseen by UFC refereeing legend (let’s assume that’s a thing) Herb Dean. File that one under the unexpected cameos in a supernatural Korean movie section. His opponent comes with a large crucifix tattooed on his back, and if anything triggers Seo-joon into an uncontrollable rage, it’s the sight of a crucifix. After obliterating said opponent, on the flight back to Korea he begins to show signs of stigmata through bleeding palms, an inconvenience which eventually leads him to Ahn Sung-ki to seek answers. Playing a Vatican based priest, Seung-ki’s been sent to Seoul on the trail of the Dark Bishop, a powerful Satan worshipper played by Woo Do-hwan ( Master ), who’s been happily providing victims for demons to possess. Somehow, Seo-joon and Sung-ki must team-up to take Do-hwan down.

I’ll be honest, as a reviewer I know I’m not supposed to assume I know what I’ll think of a movie before I’ve seen it. But I mean, come on, an MMA fighter battling a Satan worshipper!? I was already anticipating the cathartic experience of writing a joyously harsh review. So it came as a surprise when I found myself being rather entertained by The Divine Fury . Let’s get one thing straight, it’s a B-movie. It may be a B-movie wearing a big budget movies clothing, and featuring some of the top talent working in Korea today, but the concept is pure pulp. What makes The Divine Fury work, is that it takes itself ridiculously seriously, to the point where you just kind of smile and go along with it. The first time Seo-joon meets Sung-ki he walks into the middle of an attempted exorcism of a wild-eyed demon, and without a second thought starts busting out the MMA moves in the middle of a church like it’s the most normal thing in the world. It’s hilarious.

As bombastic as proceedings get though, everything is underpinned by the chemistry between Seo-joon and Sung-ki. Now 67, Sung-ki remains one of Korea’s most enduring actors, and can make even complete dreck like  Sector 7 at least partially watchable. He’s also one of only two Korean actors that has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the other being Lee Byung-hun). Compared to Sung-ki’s 100 plus movies, Seo-joon on the other hand is a relative newcomer, however has already established himself as a solid performer on both the big and small screen. This is a guy who clocked in a special appearance in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite the same year as The Divine Fury after all. Despite an age difference of over 35 years, the pair have a likeable chemistry together, one as the kind-hearted but world weary priest who’s seen it all, and the other as the cynical MMA fighter who wants nothing to do with religion.

The likeable chemistry between the leads is complimented by a brisk pace. Korean filmmakers often have the accusation levelled at them that they’re incapable of making a movie less than 2 hours, and it’s a valid one, with even a pulpy concept such as this clocking in at just over the 2 hour mark. However the time passes remarkably quickly. Ironically, the unlikely ingredient that makes The Divine Fury so enjoyable, is just how familiar it all seems. Crucially, it’s much more of an exorcism movie than it is an MMA flick, and as such Joo-hwan unleashes all of the exorcist movie tropes with giddy abandon. We get scenes of over-enthusiastic projectile vomit, evil flocks of crows, sacrificial hearts, possessed twenty-something girls clambering over the ceiling, and at one point Do-hwan even possesses a dog. There’s nothing really here that we haven’t seen before, but the jump-scares and gross out moments are still effectively executed.

There’s also no doubt Korea’s CGI work has come a long way in the last 20 years, and here the effects are delivered thanks to Dexter, the effects house that Along With the Gods director Kim Yong-hwa founded in 2012. The Divine Fury uses CGI much more sparingly than the Along With the Gods franchise (although you could replace The Divine Fury with literally any movie in that sentence and it’d still be valid), however what’s there is top shelf. Particularly impressive is Seo-joon’s method of exorcising demons. First off he invokes the stigmata (which, yes, means he has bloodied fists before he’s even thrown a punch), and then busts out the WWE wrestling move The Claw on the possessed victims head, making it burst into flames. There’s something undeniably cool about watching these possessed people and their flaming heads, and as I mentioned, it’s all executed completely poker faced.

Events eventually culminate in Seo-joon seeking out Do-hwan in the underground nightclub he’s been operating. But not before he’s given a shirt and dog collar that’s been blessed by the pope himself, explained to be “armour” by a colleague of Sung-ki (played by Choi Wooshik, here clocking in a special appearance to repay Seo-joon’s in Parasite , in which he was one of the main characters). Forget about those iron vests you see in old-school kung fu flicks, it turns out Catholic threads are the real invincible armour! The scene is Do-hwan’s call to action, who’s spent most of the movie so far lurking in a dungeon beneath the nightclub, which appears to house a satanic serpent in a dark pit of water (one which occasionally offers up random gifts that float to the surface).

The finale makes for a ridiculously gratuitous mix of what can best be described as Blade meets John Wick in terms of aesthetics. Seo-joon barges in and takes on all kinds of possessed opponents, setting so many heads on fire that I can genuinely say I enjoyed it more than the cop-out finale of John Wick 3 . By the time he battles his way to face Do-hwan, he has an honest to God flaming fist, and after taking a dip in the aforementioned dark pit of water, Do-hwan reappears looking like a hybrid of a K-pop boyband member and the Creature from the Black Lagoon . The fact that his transformation is presented using practical effects and not CGI was a pleasant bonus. The premise promised an MMA fighter versus the forces of evil, and in the finale that’s what we get, complete with the obligatory post- John Wick neon.

In a slightly left of field mid end-credits sequence, Choi Wooshik is seen sitting on a park bench, having received a postcard from Sung-ki sent from Vatican City. It’s a brief scene, but ends with the onscreen text that ‘Father Choi will return in The Green Exorcist ’ So it would seem a sequel is in the works which will thrust Wooshik’s limited screen time to starring role status, and hopefully include another martial arts based hook as well. Taekwondo versus Satan, or Hapkido? The opportunities are endless, much like the battle between good and evil.

Similar to the way titles such as Operation Red Sea and Wolf Warrior 2 may be shameless advertisements for the Chinese military, so The Divine Fury can be considered a shameless advertisement for the Catholic church. However also like those movies, it just so happens to be highly entertaining in a leave your brain at the door kind of way, to the point that it makes any of the more cringe worthy moments entirely bearable. I’m not sure if The Green Exorcist will give us more God-powered MMA, but based on The Divine Fury alone, I daresay I’ll happily check it out. Amen.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10

7 Responses to Divine Fury, The (2019) Review

Sounds intriguing! I wasn’t sure what to make of the trailer, but Divine Fury seems to have a Mr Vampire/Evil Dead/Exorcist vibe going for it, and I guess the trailer didn’t show the best parts!

This sounds entertaining, not gonna lie. I’ll almost definitely be giving it a watch.

By the way Paul – any chance you’ll be writing a review for “The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil”? This is another Korean flick that also seems to be getting a western release around the same time, in fact actually sooner. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on it.

It’s like somebody watched ‘The Priests’ and thought, “You know what would make this movie even better? Mixed martial arts!” Actually, I’m looking forward to catching this one when it releases on Blu-ray. Glad to hear that it mostly did the trick for you, Paul.

I’d definitely approach it as a fun B-movie . The concept of a cynical MMA fighter and his newfound ability to put the holy beatdown on evil Satan worshippers sounds ridiculous, and onscreen it’s no less so, but mainly because of how seriously it takes itself. For such an out there concept, it’s a surprisingly sincere flick.

PS As for ‘The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil’, I believe a certain Mr Ravas may be offering up his esteemed take on it very soon!

I’m a fan of The devine fury movie.can’t wait for next chapter of the movie The green exorcist.when will the movie coming out?? Make it more epic and stay with the actual star Park Seo Joon.. Love The Devine Fury. #sarawakianloveTDF #TheGreenExcorcist

I just finished watch the diving fury and must say I simply enjoyed it beyond words could say. It has everything I love. The suspense the action an gore. What makes this movie such a hit. Is it keeps it on the aspect of some realization. Just think of life. It takes you through so many ups an down an just when you think it couldn’t get worse god always lead you right back to him through others. And that give you purpose. I hope the second part comes out soon. Which is the Green Exorcist. I will definitely watch. Keep on making movies like this an I will watch it every time.

I really enjoyed this movie. And am looking forward to The Green Exorcist.

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

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Aug 2, 2019 | 3 minutes

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.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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The Divine Fury

An MMA fighter helps an exorcist fight evil. An MMA fighter helps an exorcist fight evil. An MMA fighter helps an exorcist fight evil.

• Joo-hwan Kim
• Park Seo-joon
• Ahn Sung-ki
• Woo Do-Hwan
• 61 User reviews
• 43 Critic reviews
• 33 Metascore
• 1 win & 3 nominations

• (as Seo-joon Park)

• Police Sergeant Park

• Father Choi
• Nun Theresa
• (as Si-eun Kim)
• (as Ji-Hyun Park)

• Soo Jin's mother

• Babylon club Ladies
• (as Seol Lee)
• Yong-Hu Trainer 2

• Delivery woman
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia All entries contain spoilers

Father Ahn : As children, the reason we follow our parent's wishes is not because we understand their intentions. The reason we do it is that we believe that they love and cherish us. The Lord's intentions are also to be believed, not understood. Because He is our Father, and He loves us.

User reviews 61

• Sep 4, 2019
• How long is The Divine Fury? Powered by Alexa
• July 31, 2019 (South Korea)
• South Korea
• Naver (South Korea)
• Official Site (Japan)
• Bàn Tay Diệt Quỷ
• Seoul, South Korea
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Aug 18, 2019
• $11,799,556

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 9 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Tuesday, August 13, 2019

'the divine fury' (2019) movie review.

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The divine fury.

2019 ‘사자’ Directed by Kim Joo-hwan

Will you stand with good or evil?

After waking up with mysterious wounds on his hands, a champion fighter finds himself in an otherworldly battle against evil forces that wreak havoc in the human world.

Park Seo-jun Ahn Sung-ki Woo Do-hwan Choi Woo-shik Park Ji-hyun Jung Ji-hoon Lee Seung-hee Sim Hee-seop Kim Si-eun Kim Seon-min Jeong Eui-soon Kim Beom-soo Park Jae-hong Cha Si-won Lee Seung-joon Ryu Kyung-soo Seo Jeong-yeon Jo Eun-hyung Lee Jung-hyun Park Ji-yeol Shin Min-ho Mi Seok Lee Sul Park Jin-joo Han Hye-ji Jeong Da-eun Seung Hyung-bae Shin An-jin Yoon Jae-in Show All… Lee Chan-yu

Director Director

Kim Joo-hwan

Producers Producers

Park A-hyoung Park Sung-hye Shin Pil-soon Im Jun-hyuk

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Cha Won-chun Jeong Gyeong-jae

Writer Writer

Editor editor.

Kim Sun-min

Cinematography Cinematography

Cho Sang-yun

Lighting Lighting

Park Jun-gyu

Production Design Production Design

Lee Bong-hwan

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Ha Jae-gu Jay Seung Jaegal Seo Byeong-chul

Stunts Stunts

Jeong Seong-ho Park Young-sik Kim Yong-ho Choi Kwang-rak Lim Wang-sub

Composer Composer

Sound sound.

Park Yong-gi Jang Cheol-ho Lee Soon-sung

Costume Design Costume Design

Chae Kyung-hwa

Makeup Makeup

Son Eun-ju Seol Ha-un

Lotte Entertainment Content K KEYEAST

Releases by Date

• Theatrical limited

16 Aug 2019

31 jul 2019, 15 aug 2019, 22 aug 2019, 19 nov 2019, 31 jan 2020, releases by country.

• Physical 18
• Theatrical IIB
• Theatrical NC16 (with cuts)
• Theatrical 15
• Physical NR

129 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Sierra ★★½ 2

dohwan unhinge ur jaw and swallow me like the demon lizard daddy u are hail satan

Review by maider ★★

this movie is part of the hpcm (hot priest cinematic universe)

Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★

Spooktober III: The Haunting of the Blood October

This film was pretty much a letdown. I mean, you practically have a Korean Constantine who also happens to be an MMA fighter who literally fights his a** off. The fight editing and choreography are particularly strong points. The primary demon has a cool, albeit not wholly original design. Furthermore, the film's cinematography is excellent, as is customary for Korean movies. The acting is fine considering the kind of movie it is.

But overall, it's a film I just couldn't get into. It contains a lot of interesting concepts, but the execution left me feeling very unimpressed. Though effective, the effects occasionally came off as comical.

All in all, though I found the film's concept and parts of it enjoyable, I couldn't shake the feeling that it fell short of its potential.

TODAY SCHEDULE Baby Blood Cat Sick Blues Terrifier 2 The Divine Fury

Review by donnia ★★★★

A hot MMA fighter taking on the devil's army with his literal fists...................... The Exorcist can't relate

Review by HKFanatic ★★★

If you watched William Friedkin's 1973 horror classic "The Exorcist" and thought, 'Gee, that was great, but you know what it could have used? Mixed Martial Arts,' then director Kim Joo-hwan has you covered with this year's "The Divine Fury." The film looks slick and stylish, with neon nightclubs lit like the ninth circle of hell, but it's surprisingly ponderous and self-serious for most of its 130 minute runtime, at least until the action finale impresses with flaming punches and a single take fight scene.

Review by shi qin ★★★

3 stars for the hot holy trinity park seojoon, woo dohwan & choi wooshik 🥰

korean cinema 🇰🇷

Review by Aléks ★★★★

Park Seo-joon and Woo Do-hwan big tiddie fight to the death! This is the new Constantine! Genius!

Review by Chris Brown ★★★★ 6

"I Kick Ass for the Lord!" The Movie.

This flick surprised me by being a hell of a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Who could've watched The Exorcist and thought, "You know, I think this needs more fight scenes!"

This kind of reminds me of the more exloitationy American "Christian" films like Revelations, but with horror, marital arts and a superhero origin story. And it's all the better for it.

Review by yuw ★★★

woo doo hwan you kinky angry demon lizard bitch

Review by Geoffrey Broomer ★★★ 4

MMA Exorcist.

That title would give Santa Jaws a run for its money, but The Divine Fury had to go the classy route. A celebrated mixed martial artist (Park Seo-joon) with atheist tendencies seeks out a priest (Ahn Sung-ki) to deal with a nasty case of stigmata, only to discover the clergyman on the ropes against the forces of darkness. With bad dreams that suggest he might be facing similar demonic forces, our bruiser puts aside his godless ways to become a holy warrior - guillotine choking the devils out. The Divine Fury brings a variation to the exorcist template that was sorely missing from the 12th Assistant Deaconverse - though does so in a more ludicrous manner that borders…

Review by Matt Malpica Reifschneider ★★★★

Had The Divine Fury been made in any other country besides South Korea and been made in any other time, the film would have been a hokey genre affair with a tagline like “First he brought the fight to the octagon, now he brings the fight to Satan!” To be fair, that is essentially what this film is in a nutshell. At the basics, it’s about a star MMA fighter who finds himself side by side with a Vatican priest fighting off a horde of demons possessing a bunch of people in Seoul. The brilliant maneuver that The Divine Fury brings to the floor is that it takes itself shockingly seriously and it’s impeccably executed. It’s stylish as hell (pun…

Review by André Hecker ★★★ 1

MMA-Priester kloppt Dämonen mit Flammenfäusten kaputt. Gibts nicht? Gibts doch! The Divine Fury mixt Exorzismus mit Fighting zu einem experimentellen Mash-up aus Südkorea zusammen. Anders als zunächst erwartet, nimmt der Exorzismus allerdings deutlich mehr Raum ein und anstatt Over-the-top-Action gibt es reichlich düstere Bilder und unheilvolle Bilder. Die Eigenschaften des MMA-Kämpfers spielen im Film lange keine Rolle, ehe es erst am Ende ordentlich was auf die Dämonenfratze gibt. Ein abwechslungsreicherer Mix hätte mir mehr Spaß gemacht, so behält sich der Film allerdings seine Ernsthaftigkeit länger als vermutet, bevor das Finale dann sehr an Videospiele erinnert.

Trotz 130 Minuten Laufzeit weiß Divine Fury diese auch zu füllen und langweilt nicht, wenn die Story auch reichlich quatschig daher kommt. Insgesamt ist das…

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Movie reviews and discussions by Paskalis Damar

Review: The Divine Fury (2019)

Midnight Runners ‘ director, Kim Joo-hwan returns with a new blockbuster that reunites him with the Runners’ star, Park Seo-joon. Combining the corniest elements of exorcism horror and comical action-hero tropes, The Divine Fury is a gothic action fantasy which immediately reminds us of Constantine minus the angelic apparitions. From spiritual imagery of Catholicism, priests chanting prayers in Latin to expel demons, to fistfight against demon-possessed people, you are up for an action-packed ride full of blood, holy waters and… campiness, nevertheless.

The Divine Fury seems to seam unlikely components into one helluva narrative drive. The story roots on an enticingly crafted mythos of the Dark Bishop, a worshipper of the evil Holy Serpent. Dark Bishop corrupts problematic people and makes them hosts to eponymous demons before sacrificing their souls. In opposition to such a malignant force, a senior priest, Father Ahn (Ahn Sung-ki), lands to Seoul from the Vatican to exorcist the Dark Bishop’s minions. On his holy mission, Father Ahn encounters an MMA fighter, Yong-hu (Seo-joon), who mysteriously gets stigmata on his palm. Yong-hu resents God for abandoning him when his cop father died fighting crimes; however, Father Ahn sees something in him and he’s willing to make an unlikely alliance with him fighting off diabolical powers in the town.

The Divine Fury , however, is never scary or nerving in its horror department. The horror is limited to inhumane behaviors of the possessed people maniacally screaming and laughing if not defying physics. Director Joo-hwan manages to make all exorcism scenes disturbing with the amplified noise. Interestingly, The Divine Fury —albeit portrays Catholicism elements—takes parallel similarities to classic Hong Kong exorcism fantasy, in Jiangshi movies usually led by Lam Ching Ying or Sammo Hung. There will be a parade of sacred spells, relics, and instruments to expel the demons. Yet, the real deal is the martial actions that follow.

With Seo-joon injecting some zesty action-hero persona, The Divine Fury combines horror elements rooting back to The Exorcist (1973) or Stigmata (1999) with action set-pieces spiced with fantasy elements. At least, the first half of the movie shows promising build-ups, introducing the good, the bad, and the alliance between the good guys (involving Seo-Joon, Sung-ki and Parasite ‘s Choi Woo-sik as Father Choi, Father Ahn’s exorcism mentee). After some time, the plot becomes monotonous as Father Ahn and Yong-hoo go from one exorcist to another with similar stakes and methods.

The further the plot goes, the more the character’s backstories become irrelevant. Yong-hoo’s backstories serve nothing but a deus-ex-machina device for the third act. At times, The Divine Fury delivers sentimental moment as Yong-hoo starts to see a fatherly figure in Father Ahn. They will share intimate dialogues about the divine plan and love. Similar to Midnight Runners , Joo-hwan highlights the chemistry between the two leads; however, the bond between them is rather instant in this story.

Between the horror of exorcism and the action-hero tropes, The Divine Fury takes the gothic campiness too seriously, believes it as a credo. The movie never gets to be preachy about being religious or anything since its main goal is to provide a guilty pleasure entertainment. Even when the story becomes too repetitive, but it had its moment. At the end of the movie, they promise a spin-off about Choi Woo-sik’s Father Choi in upcoming horror titled The Green Exorcist . If the two movies should be related, let’s hope that the movie will stick to the characters more than The Divine Fury sticks to the spectacles.

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‘Monkey Man’ Review: A Revenge Thriller Packed With Punches, Politics, Fury, and Joy

This ambitious movie is a blood-filled vengeance tale, a diatribe against institutional injustice, an ode to indian culture, and a case for dev patel as a prodigiously muscled action hero..

A kitchen-sink directorial debut from actor Dev Patel ,  Monkey Man  is a knife-through-the-throat revenge thriller, a diatribe against institutional injustice and wealth inequality, an ode to both ancient and modern Indian culture and folklore, and a portfolio that proudly displays the action hero bona fides of its prodigiously muscled leading man— who just so happens to be the director himself. It’s an everything, all at once approach that at times threatens to overwhelm a knock-about good time with too many portents of meaning. But Patel, teaming with producer Jordan Peele and his Monkey Paw production house, manages to pull off his ambitious plan thanks to a plethora of fury, joy, and just enough moments of bold cinematic repurposing, if not reinvention.  

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Monkey Man  uncoils like a South Asian remix of the Batman myth, but one where the central inspiring tragedy is not committed by a couple of pearl-snatching thugs in an alley, but by the same type of systemic injustice that holds many down in the modern world. 

Here it comes in the form of a sneering, mustachioed chief of police (Indian actor Sikandar Kher ) who murders the mother of the hero (Patel’s character is called Kid in the press notes and, when not in his Monkey Man get up, calls himself Bobby in the film), and sets her and the rest of the village ablaze at the behest of the elites to whom the chief is indentured.   

The hero is left with scars psychological and literal: his badly burned hands are one of many aspects of his identity that connects him to the Hindu deity Hanuman. Patel’s film is meant to serves as a modern updating of the Hanuman, a divine monkey who once was said to have climbed a tree and grabbed the sun, thinking it a mango. Another link they share is evidenced by his day job: donning an ape-like mask, our hero ekes out a living as both heel and patsy in an underground fight club run by a sleazy South African promoter ( Sharlto Copley , from District 9 and  Beast .)

After cleverly gaining entry to the King’s Club, a high-end brothel and drug den frequented by local and foreign elites and overseen with ruthless authority by Queenie (the popular Marathi and Hindi language actor Ashwini Kalsekar ), Kid unleashes a bold yet unsuccessful attack in a club bathroom. It is a set-piece that goes toe-to-toe with the washroom contretemps  in 2018’s Mission: Impossible-Fallout , without quite besting it.

Set in the fictional Indian metropolis of Yatana and shot in Indonesia, Patel’s film is awash with violence of every sort in every setting— in the ring, on an elevator, in a rundown brothel where the pissed off proprietor wields an ax, etc. After he is nursed back to health in a hidden temple by a group of third gender mystics, Kid finally confronts the big bad guy in a lengthy face off pieced together by a team of editors to look like a continuous take. 

All of this whiz bang bloodletting is scored to needle drops that are sometimes playful—his training is spurred on by a cheeky tabla player—and sometimes corny: when drugs are introduced, we get a remix of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.”

These moments—like the one in which Patel’s camera lingers on people sleeping on the street as cars race by—speak to the director’s heavy touch when trying to drive home his themes. It would feel more tiresome if it weren’t countered by his impatient enthusiasm: having aced both cinema studies and social science, Patel comes off like a kid super eager to show off their report card. 

In the end, all is forgiven because Patel and his DP Sharone Meir (he also shot last year’s similarly themed John Woo revenge thriller  Silent Night , and   Damien Chazelle’s beloved  Whiplash)  have the good sense to make sure their star always looks as gorgeously heroic as humanly possible. 

Indeed, there must be some extra padding in that monkey mask because his face stays mercifully unblemished despite the considerable beating he takes. Even when Patel’s character is posing as a dishwasher, his crisp white work shirt is perfectly fitted and red carpet ready. 

Who knows if it was on the list of Patel’s lengthy agenda in undertaking the project, but if there was any doubt that he was capable of filling James Bond’s loafers, he himself has quashed it.

Observer Reviews are regular assessments of new and noteworthy cinema.

• SEE ALSO : Dorian Harewood Returns To Broadway In ‘The Notebook’ After Almost 50 Years

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‘The First Omen' Review: The Devil Is In The Details In Gory Nun's Story Prequel To 1976 Original

I am not sure the world asked for yet another take on 20th Century Fox’s Omen franchise, the constantly regurgitated series with Damien (who made the numbers 666 iconic) and company. Since the 1976 original when Damien first appeared in the movie with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, we have had Damien: Omen II, The Final Conflict, Omen IV: The Awakening (in which a girl becomes the antichrist for the first time), the 2006 remake The Omen , even a 2016 Damien TV series. Of course like all these horror franchises it is inevitable that someone would come up with the idea for an origin story, and that is what we now have with The First Omen which is, of course, not the first , just the latest. But, set in 1971, it does attempt to take us right to the doorstep of the actual first , the Richard Donner-directed 1976 starter.

So far the past few months have been quite ripe for the devil, incarnating with the boxoffice disappointment reboot, The Exorcist: Believer, the clever and fresh Late Night With The Devil which imagines a network talk show being possessed by Satan, Immaculate (which offered tickets for $6.66 in a box office promotion this week) with Sydney Sweeney as a nun caught up in a demonized immaculate conception, and now First Omen which shares some similarity with the latter in that it centers on a novitiate targeted for pregnancy and caught up in dark and mysterious circumstances surrounding several pregnancies in the Roman orphanage where she goes before becoming a nun..

Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) is at the center of this particular universe, an American woman, once an orphan herself, who comes to Italy to begin her service to God, but gets caught up in circumstances that will eventually explain just how – and why – Damien would emerge. In many ways this film from a female director, Arkasha Stevenson who also co-wrote the script, is even less a horror film for most of its running time and more of a kind of 70’s style psychological paranoid thriller, and with no small debt to Roman Polanski’s 1968 Rosemary’s Baby.

It is stylish, scary at times, and quite familiar as it takes on those in the catholic hierarchy who feel they are losing the younger generation and need to find a way to change the trajectory with an extreme exercise that becomes a dance with the devil. Margaret is a shy young woman who only very slowly realizes there is more here than meets the eye. Her roomate on the other hand is a real live wire named Luz Velez (played with spirit by Maria Caballero) who doesn’t act like a nun in training and in fact has lived quite a life and urges Margaret to loosen up, even by going to a nightclub with her where she meets a man, an event that eventually becomes a turning point for her as things get really dark.

Margaret also takes a liking to Carlita (Nicole Sorace) a young teen orphan with whom she personally identifies. Ralph Ineson, a fine actor, turns up as Father Brennan, a character in the 1976 original, who is ex-communicated and trying to warn Margaret of some weird circumstances and dangerous goings on in the place.

Among the rest of the cast, Bill Nighy, as always, is a standout, as the powerful Cardinal Lawrence who at one time was the priest at the orphanage. Veteran Brazilian star Sonia Braga plays the suffer-no-fools Sister Silva, the Abbess of the orphanage,and adds her special brand of fire to the proceedings. The Rome locations are welcome, and Mark Korven’s score certainly doesn’t top Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar winning 1976 original, but it does tip its hat and echoes it in parts, even to the use of Goldsmith’s haunting Oscar nominated song, “Ave Satani”.

Although this is a well-worn genre, and the Omen franchise is nearing a half century now, the Italian setting and an excellent cast make this all worthwhile for fans looking to see how it all began, even if the nun-in-distress sub genre is getting to be fairly predictable. The First Omen isn’t for the squeamish, and it builds to its obvious crescendo just like you might expect, but still it is well-crafted enough to be an intriguing entry into the series that had no where else to go but, uh, backwards. Whether the First Omen is also finally the last Omen, time – and boxoffice – will tell.

Producers are David S. Goyer and Keith Levine.

Title: The First Omen

Distributor: 20th Century Films/Walt Disney Studios

Release date: April 5, 2024

Director: Arkasha Stevenson

Screenwriter: Tim Smith & Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas; story by Ben Jacoby

Cast: Nell Tiger Free, Bill Nighy, Ralph Ineson, Sonia Braga, Maria Caballero, Nicole Sorace, Tawfeek Barhom

Running time: 2 hr 0 min

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The Origin of Evil review – classy comedy-thriller with shades of Succession and Knives Out

Call My Agent’s Laure Calamy stars as a scheming factory worker with designs on a mega-rich fortune in this classy feast of backstabbing, double cross and venal greed

S uccession meets Knives Out in this comedy-thriller directed by Sébastien Marnier in what is an extremely French comic style: tongue-in-cheek, a little frothy, tiptoeing close to camp. It stars Call My Agent’s brilliant Laure Calamy as a scheming factory worker who wheedles her way into a dysfunctional mega-rich family. Calamy is often cast as likable, relatable women but here she does a very convincing Isabelle Huppert (circa her Claude Chabrol years); there’s something a bit off about her character from the start, possibly even unhinged.

Calamy is Stéphane – at least that’s what she calls herself. Bored of her job on the production line at a fish factory, and broke, out of the blue she calls her father, a self-made hotel and restaurant tycoon. (They’ve never met; she is the result of one of his many affairs.) This is Serge (Jacques Weber), an ageing lion of a man, with a mane of white hair, frail after a stroke but still dangerous. Some of the funniest scenes are at his villa, garishly filled with taxidermy and ghastly furniture. Serge introduces Stéphane to his wife Louise (Dominique Blanc), a frivolous compulsive shopper with a bitchy streak, and their glossy adult daughter George (Doria Tillier), who drops her mask of impassive disdain to shoot Stéphane dagger stares. In the double crossing and backstabbing that follows, no one is blameless. Serge is a monster of Logan Roy proportions. George is trying to seize control of the family business, and have her dad declared incompetent by a judge.

For a while The Origin of Evil looks like it might shake out as a feminist tale: the women uniting to topple an oppressive patriarch. But Marnier’s script, co-written by Fanny Burdino, is more cynical than that, and casting the normally likable Calamy only adds to the air of deception, keeping us guessing about her character’s motives. Without a doubt this is easy entertainment, never dull, and it has some shrewd things to say about class and money – though the satire might have been sharper and the running time shorter by a good 20 minutes.

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Director: Kim Joo-hwan

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Park Seo-jun

Kim Joo-hwan

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