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