Starring Park Seo Joon, Ahn Sung-ki and Woo Do Hwan. The Divine Fury is a South Korean action horror. After the tragic death of his father as a child, a Mixed Martial Arts champion gains divine powers to battle and exorcise demons. With the help of a priest, together they banish demonic forces.
After reading the synopsis and watching the trailer I thought I would be able to stretch my martial arts horror legs once again but unfortunately not as there’s very little martial arts action on show.
Conceptually bizarre. The Divine Fury tells the story of a possessed MMA champ, working with a good-natured father to exercise demons, all the while saying he doesn’t believe in god. On paper, it sounds awesome but unfortunately, it’s not Enter the Dragon meets The Exorcist. The slow pacing and lack of fights make it seriously drag, clocking in at just over the 2-hour mark. Although the end battle is the highlight of the movie but still not worth the wait.
The Divine Fury starts with a Yong-hoo (Seo-Joon Park) as a child. He is cooking breakfast for his father. They are both quite religious and regularly go to church. His father goes to work as a traffic cop. He is in an accident where a driver he stops who happens to be The Dark Bishop (Do-Hwan Woo). The same demon who Yong is chasing through the entire movie. He drives away dragging Yong’s father along. Yong-hoo prays for his father’s survival with the church priest. His father passes and comes to him in a dream. This causes Yong-hoo to reject god, saying he doesn’t believe in god. Cut forward 20 years. Yong-hoo is now a Mixed Martial Arts champion. In his latest match upon spotting a crucifix tattoo on his opponents back, he starts hearing voices in his head. “God killed Dad! Get revenge! Revenge!!” He overpowers his opponent but doesn’t relent and nearly beats him to death.
On the plane home, he has a dream of being burnt by a crucifix he is holding. He awakens with a bleeding hand. He goes to sees a doctor who is confused by the whole thing. That night in his sleep he is attacked by a shadow spider demon thing. His hand starts to bleed and the stigmata wound scares the demon off.
He goes to see a blind psychic medium who pretty much says your screwed. she tells him he is surrounded by demons. She tells him to go to a certain place at a certain time. He does where he encounters Father Ahn (Sung-ki Ahn) who is exorcising a demon. The demon proves troublesome. Yong-hoo steps in grabs the demons head with his stigmata hand which sets fire to the demons face. Father Ahn finishes the job by pouring holy water on the demon’s fire face, setting his whole head on fire.
So, it turns out he can use his stigmata wound to exorcise demons. He uses this to full effect at the end of the movies which was kind of awesome.
Although the The Divine Fury is quite atmospheric, there’s plenty of screaming demon children, glowing red eyes, and levitating people. The cast playing the possessed do an awesome job. Unfortunately, the movie is too drawn out with a nonsensical plot and dialogue that don’t make sense. The father seems to babble on saying such lines like “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”. Maybe there was some trouble with the translation to the Weston market. You’re never quite sure what The Dark Bishop Ji-Sin is trying to achieve. Every time one of his demons is exorcised, he takes revenge on the host with dark magic killing them.
Yong can be confusing too. He witnesses untold amout of demon possessed people, literally see’s the demons burnt out of them with holy fire and still keeps saying he doesn’t believe in god.
A credit scene sets up a sequel and possible franchise with Father Choi looking to take the lead as a closing-credits tag sequence announces, “Father Choi will return in ‘The Green Exorcist’”. Father Choi has had a minor role up until now. Being Father Ahn apprentice, the first time Yong encounters father Ahn, Choi is scared shitless by a demon, running out of the room leaving Yong to pick up the pieces. He crops up again later when Father Ahn is injured and Choi takes care of him as Yong proceeds to the final confrontation.
In conclusion, if The Divine Fury was more like Blade but demons instead of Vampires and Yongs flaming stigmata hand, it would have been awesome but unfortunately, it seemed to get lost in endless dialogue and confusing plot with a concentration on horror over action. Some parts were pretty much copied straight from The Exorcist. If it is going to become a franchise it’s going to need a lot more than cliché possessions which have been done a million times before and lackluster action pieces.
Rating: 2/5 Belts
