Deliver Us from Evil (다만 악에서 구하소서) (2020 film)

Deliver Us from Evil (다만 악에서 구하소서; Daman Akeseo Guhasoseo) is a 2020 South Korean crime-action film written and directed by Hong Won-chan, starring Hwang Jung-min as a hitman whose final job entangles him in a kidnapping case and Lee Jung-jae as the killer pursuing him for revenge.^{1 • 2} Produced by Hive Media Corp. and distributed by CJ ENM, it opened in South Korea on August 5, 2020, running 108 minutes with a 15-and-over rating.² It finished as the second-highest-grossing Korean film of 2020, drawing about 4.36 million admissions.³

Production

Director and crew. Hong Won-chan worked as a screenwriter on the adaptations The Chaser (2008), The Yellow Sea (2010), and Confession of Murder (2012), and directed his feature debut Office (2015), which was invited to the Midnight Screenings of the Cannes Film Festival.⁴ Deliver Us from Evil is his second feature.⁴ The cinematographer is Hong Kyung-pyo, whose credits include Parasite, The Wailing, and Snowpiercer; the score is by the composer Mowg.^{8 • 4} Kim Chul-yong served as producer.⁴

The film was shot on location in Korea, Japan, and Thailand.⁵ Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae had last shared the screen in New World (2013), so their reunion was a talking point well before release; Hwang called the action sequences ones the director, cinematographer, and martial arts director had fully designed in advance, and named the role among the most difficult he had played.⁹

Title. The director has said the title comes from the closing petition of the Lord's Prayer, "deliver us from evil" (다만 악에서 구하소서).¹

Reception and box office

In a depressed 2020 theatrical market affected by COVID-19 outbreaks, the film was one of the few summer signs of box-office life, along with Peninsula.³ It ranked second among 2020 Korean releases with 4,357,803 admissions and about 38.6 billion won in revenue (roughly US$32 million at the period exchange rate the source uses).³ On its opening weekend it topped the daily box office, taking a 77.6 percent audience share on August 8, 2020.¹⁰ The Numbers records a worldwide theatrical total of $33,608,503, essentially all from South Korea.¹¹ A re-edited version, Deliver Us From Evil: Final Cut, opened in South Korea on October 28, 2020.¹¹

Critics were broadly favorable on craft and action. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 95 percent Tomatometer from 19 reviews and an 81 percent audience score.¹² Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it 3/5, calling Hwang "a very persuasive and impassive action hero" and Lee "creepy and uproariously over the top."¹² Cine21's six professional critics averaged 5.83 out of 10, with praise centered on the cinematography and mise-en-scène rather than the story.²

Awards

Hong Kyung-pyo's cinematography was the film's most decorated element: he won Best Cinematography and Lighting at the 41st Blue Dragon Film Awards (held February 9, 2021, after the 2020 ceremony was postponed due to COVID-19) and Best Cinematography at the 2020 Buil Film Awards, and the film also took the Buil award for Best Art/Technology (Martial Arts).^{6 • 13} The film received a Korean Association of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor and screened in the Korean Cinema Today - Panorama section at the 2020 Busan International Film Festival, followed by festival invitations including the Asian Film Awards, Udine Far East Film Festival, and Florence Korea Film Fest.⁶

Context in Korean action cinema

The film sits squarely in the Korean hardboiled action cycle of the 2000s and 2010s, alongside pictures such as A Bittersweet Life, The Man from Nowhere, and The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil, built around a capable, damaged male protagonist moving through a criminal underworld.¹⁴ Reviewers repeatedly read it as kin to The Man from Nowhere, another kidnap-rescue thriller with a foreign setting, and the Sightlines analysis notes one notable structural choice: the film declines to give In-nam a redemption speech or moment of self-understanding.^{12 • 14} Released a few months after Parasite swept the Academy Awards, it was conceived for the domestic theatrical market and reached international audiences mainly through streaming and festival-adjacent channels.¹⁴ The film's proof that Korean action could work commercially on entirely foreign locations is cited as a precursor to later location-shot hits such as The Roundup (2022).¹⁴

References

1. 정용인 (2020). "<다만 악에서 구하소서> 구원을 포기한 두 남자의 대결", 주간경향
2. "다만 악에서 구하소서 (DELIVER US FROM EVIL) 상세정보", 씨네21
3. "Korean Movie Reviews for 2020", Koreanfilm.org (KOBIS data)
4. "Deliver Us from Evil", Busan International Film Festival archive (2020)
5. "Deliver Us From Evil", AsianWiki
6. "DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2020)", Korean Film Council / KOFIC film database
7. "DELIVER US FROM EVIL", KOFIC new films feature
8. ["[‘영화’로운 나날] ‘다만 악에서 구하소서’", 대한경제](https://www.dnews.co.kr/uhtml/view.jsp?idxno=202007291737317490879)
9. ["MOVIST 보자마자 한마디! 액션, 연기 OK! 정민-정재 브라더스 [다만 악에서 구하소서]", MOVIST](https://www.movist.com/movist3d/read.asp?id=31420&type=13)
10. "영화진흥위원회 자료 (2020 일별 박스오피스)", Brunch/KOFIC
11. "Deliver Us From Evil (다만 악에서 구하소서) (2020) - Box Office and Financial Information", The Numbers
12. "Deliver Us From Evil (2020)", Rotten Tomatoes
13. "2020년 국내 영화 시상식 주요부문 수상실적", KOFIC-issue compilation PDF
14. "Deliver Us from Evil (2020), dir. Hong Won-chan — analysis, influences and similar films", Sightlines

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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