• Feb 09
• THE CHASER: Review
• Posted by Deljhp - 09/02/09 at 12:34 PM

Director: Na Hong-Jin. Review by Tim Irwin.

There's a dirty ex-detective who has turned to pimping out girls to make the big bucks. He still has some tenuous connections with the force, but those are waning. There's a sidekick he calls Idiot that does his dirty work, like jamming topless pictures of his girls in the windows of every car on the street. Then there's the girl of his that he sends on a job, even though she's quite sick with the flu. He loses touch with her and starts becoming paranoid that someone is selling his girls, as she's the third that he's lost. Things get a little more complicated after that, as there's a serial killer targeting young women. The police are involved with a man who threw sh*t at the mayor and jump at the chance to switch the media focus to catching the serial killer.

I don't really want to give away much more as the film kept my attention for the entire two hours and I wouldn't want to ruin the experience for anyone. That's because I think most people reading this ought to see the movie. It's very Korean, in the best possible ways. It crosses a plethora of genres, though not to the extent of films like The Host. There's the buddy-cop aspect, the Leon the Professional aspect of a little girl and a hardened bad guy. There's a heart wrenching family story. And then there's the police criminal investigation, which takes a back seat to the vengeance story of the dirty ex-detective. It balances all of these elements wonderfully. The ex-detective isn't entirely evil, but he doesn't play the hit-man with the heart of gold we've seen so many times before. In fact, because the movie is Korean, it wont give American audiences what they are used to....Continue reading review.

The Chaser trailer page