The Chaser aka Chugyeogja (2008) Review

What first turned me on to Korean film was the seemingly complete disinterest in Hollywood tropes. What I didn't know at the time was that prior to the mid 90s Korean cinemas showed almost exclusively Hollywood films. After nearly a decade of little to no domestic film success, Korean directors decided to reinvent their national cinema, passing over the glitz and gloss of Western films in favor of the grit and realism of the art-house film. And it worked; Korean-made films began to retake the domestic box office around the year 2000. However, around 2006, at the height of this New Korean Cinema, the revolutionary nature of the industry inexplicably halted. Korean directors began to settle back into safe content, and financiers played it safe with the blockbuster gangster genre or the sappy romance/sex comedy genre.

Amidst all this, The Chaser is a breath of fresh air, and maybe the best Korean film I’ve seen in the past couple of years. But considering the current state of Korean cinema, that doesn’t necessarily make it a resounding success. Just a step in the right direction.

Business is bad for ex-detective turned pimp Joong-ho: his girls keep getting sent out and not returning. Recognizing a pattern in which particular phone number calls the girls before their disappearance, he asks one of his best girls, Mi-jin, to go to the man’s house and text Joong-ho with the address so he can come over and confront the man for stealing his prostitutes. But the man she encounters isn’t a rival pimp, he’s a serial killer named Young-min who traps Mi-jin before she can text her location and graphically attempts to kill her with a hammer.

If this sounds exciting to you, fine. Go see the film already, you’re hooked. But The Chaser is not content to be a routine action film; it is at this point that the film takes a step in a new direction. While disposing of a victim’s car, Young-min gets into an accident with none other than Joong-Ho. Noticing blood on Young-min’s shirt, Joong-Ho chases him down and the two wind up at the police station. Strangely, Young-min doesn’t deny his crimes; he confesses quickly to 12 murders. But he won't say where the bodies are. So while the police fruitlessly question Young-min, Joong-Ho tries to find Mi-jin on his own before the police are forced to set Young-min free for lack of evidence.

It’s an interesting reversal of the genre to have the killer found, but the crime scene hidden, and I don’t feel that it's the only trick up the film’s sleeve. Reversal or no, I found The Chaser often exciting and suspenseful, and at times even affecting. Watching Joong-Ho slowly change from a caricature of a disgruntled pimp, hot-headed and insensitive, into a caring man when forced to care for Mi-jin’s daughter brought his character full circle, and made his efforts to find Mi-jin all the more emotionally felt.

The odd flash of inspired camerawork by first time director Hong-jin Na shows promise, and his decision to play the violence completely straight is more than welcome. Muting the soundtrack to emphasize grunts and the sound of objects on skin and bone made even this old bloodhound cringe a few times. Much less welcome were stray moments of extreme artificiality, particularly the steadfast Korean archetype of portraying the police department as absolutely incompetent, and a few rogue actors who showed the director’s lack of precision.

In the Western press, The Chaser has often been likened to Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Memories of Murder, two of the most unanimously praised Korean films of the past five years. Perhaps its unfair to lump The Chaser in with such films; it’s not nearly as well-rounded or thought-provoking, but it is a satisfying and engaging thriller. I’m not terribly surprised to find that there is talk of an American remake with scribe William Monahan, who rewrote China’s Infernal Affairs into Oscar-winner The Departed, at the helm. It’s possible The Chaser is getting a bit of a free pass because the industry has been so stagnant, but minor quibbles aside it is a good film. And it’s really nice to have a good new Korean film. It’s been a while.