Succeeds in repulsing and enlightening viewers simultaneously, even if its views on self-sacrifice and redemption are cynical.

Nasty is as nasty does, and this lurid if aspirational potboiler does its thing, but the camera could have been let in on the joke.

Oedipal metaphysics give way to something altogether more mundane, but Jo and Lee are committed leads, the former carrying the burden of the movie with motherly care and attention.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the imprecise but effective way Kang-do destroys human bodies is the frank simplicity with which Kim presents it.