Enjoyed it very much, but had a couple issues

All the warnings held up.
I did do a little digging into what this movie was about and heard that it was a rather gore infested film. (Seriously do not watch if you are the faint of heart. the gore is abundant.)
I don't mind seeing all the blood & gore, so the film wasn't too bad.......though I may have trouble sleeping tonight. XD
I mainly took notice of this film because it featured Lee Jong Suk playing a completely new type of character. (I am currently steam-rolling through most of his filmography). I was interested to see how Lee Jong-Suk would tackle this role and I must say, very well done indeed. He gave a bone-chilling performance and I actually hated his pretty face for once. I was especially happy when his character's brains were finally blown out, which speaks to how well he portrayed the psychopath.

The overall structure (not so much the story) of the movie was rather engaging, The titles presented at the beginning of each section made me curious as to what story would be covered in each.
The story itself, however, felt a bit too all over the place. I was a bit unsure as to how and why we reached a certain location. Especially when we went from the Prologue into what I believe is to be Chapter 1. We are transported from NK to SK, with a time skip and the only visual aide is that for a dead body tortured in a similar fashion as the victim we had just left. I had initially thought the dead body was the same victim and had been sent down a river or some such and was found years later, hence the time skip. But that was not the case as Gwang-Il had somehow managed to defect from NK through methods unknown during those three years and continued his grotesque habit. Like how did he manage to get out of NK in the first place?! Those questions were answered much later through character dialogue, but it was still a jarring transition.

One change I would have made would be where the film ends. The ending felt lost, overshadowed, by the events that happened just before it. It would have been more impactful to have the movie ends at the boat scene, as Ri Dae-Bum and Kim Gwang-Il are returning to NK. Gwang-Il managing to get away with all that shit would have been sad but entirely realistic. Sometimes, unfortunately, fucked-up people end up getting away with their fucked-up shit because they have the power in all the right places. It is very infuriating and would leave a bad taste in many people's mouths but would have left a greater impression on the audience instead of dragging the film out with the Epilogue. I was actually expecting the story to end at that scene but when I check, I was surprised to see an extra 10 minutes. (Either that or I was really in the mood for a tragic ending.) If I'm calling out the Epilogue. then the opening scene is also unnecessary, it made me a bit confused as to why a white dude and a Korean were meeting in Hong Kong when the story was about an NK serial killer.

But overall, if you're in the mood to mentally check-out and watch some fucked-up people do their shit with plenty of blood, gore, with a side of injustice, with an ultimate good-guys-win ending, I would recommend this.

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