Korean Movie Review: The Divine Fury

Posted By: Ajummah Posted On: September 15, 2019

Stats:

Release Date: July 31, 2019
Genre: Horror
Cast: Park Seo Jeon, Ahn Sung Ki, Woo Do Hwan

The Divine Fury. My gosh, what a ride. What a JOURNEY! I haven’t done a review in a while and I know I’m rusty. Bare with me. I need you to know how awesome this movie is, though. Even though I’ve been gone for a while, I’m still the same Ajummah. I still love action and horror. Heavy on the horror. Let’s get into it, shall we? First, a note from AsianWiki.

When he was a child, Yong Hoo’s father died in an accident. Yong Hoo has distrusted and resented people since then. Now, Yong-Hoo is champion in martial arts. He meets Priest An. Priest An is also an exorcist. They get involved in a case and must fight a powerful evil.

Review

The Divine Fury is pretty new so I was excited to see it available on OndemandKorea for a small fee. I paid happily. Let me interrupt myself to give a trigger warning (TW), if are afraid of things that go bump in the night, do not watch this after 4 pm. I’m serious. There are some jump scares but the graphic scenes in this movie were insane. Also if you aren’t into spoilers, don’t read this.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into it. Yong Hoo didn’t just lose his father in an accident, he was murdered by a demon. This started off the whole graphic scene thing I mentioned earlier. Within the first few minutes, I was crying. young Yong Hoo was adorable and I wanted to protect him at all costs.

Before his father dies, Yong Hoo goes to church to pray for his father’s life and meets a priest. The priest tells him as long as he prays, his father should be fine. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. When the priest comes to pay his respects, Yong Hoo throws a large cross at him and basically curses him out (he didn’t actually curse) and tells him to stay the fuck away from his family.

Jump forward 30 years and Yong Hoo has become an MMA fighter.

credit: cinemaescapist.com

His opponent has a cross tattoo on his back and it sets Yong Hoo on fire with rage. Needless to say, he kicks his opponent’s butt. Like within the first round, the fight was over. I wondered how could someone get so angry over a cross? Also how long did Park Seo Joon train to become fit like that? I mean, I get it, actors need to be in shape all the time but he really seemed to have trained in MMA (at least a little bit) for this show.

On the ride back to Seoul, Yong Hoo has a nightmare that ends in stigmata. Stigmata is an appearance of bodily wounds, scars, and pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ, such as the hands, wrists, and feet (thanks Wikipedia). Yong Hoo gets checked out but is referred to a shaman who tells him some things that has him running, albeit begrudgingly, to a priest.

While there, he stumbles onto a scene that scared the crap out of me and I don’t scare easily. Yong Hoo showed once again that he worked his ass off while training for this role. Either that or I really just like the fight scenes.

Now let me take a pause of my gushing over Park Seo Joon’s work ethic to discuss the antagonist of the movie, The Dark Bishop. When I first saw him, I might have muttered something along the lines of “hot damn” or “make me your Dark Queen” or something like that but I digress. I have seen Woo Do Hwan before in dark roles, but this took the cake. I don’t want him to get typecasted but I do enjoy seeing this side of him.

credit: Hancinema

At the risk of beating a dead horse, if you are squeamish with demons and blood and gore, do not watch this movie. The Black Bishop does some things, eats some things that made me glad I wasn’t eating while watching. It wasn’t clear who The Black Bishop answered to but one could guess it wasn’t anyone from upstairs if you know what I mean. It seems that the main reason why he was causing so much havoc is because, well he’s a demon. Actually, some type of high up-there demon that can cause other demons to enter peoples bodies with a mere touch of his hand.

Priest An and Yong Hoo have their work cut out for them as they try to defeat him. Yong Hoo also has to fight himself and his inner “demons” to save Priest An in the end. The Black Bishop does try to stop Yong Hoo several times to keep him away from Priest An and I will tell you, it almost worked but Yong Hoo came to his senses thank..well God.

There was a huge fight scene at the end that caused me to roll my eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of it all but overall I found The Divine Fury quite enjoyable and encourage those who like things that go bump in the night to check it out. There is a drama called The Guest from the OCN Network that gives me the same vibes of this movie. Here is the trailer for more info.