Fantasia’09 Review: The Chaser
First-time writer/director Na Hong-jin’s The Chaser (Chugyeogja) is another entry in the ‘new wave’ of South Korean films, most notably amongst its more violent contributors such as Park Chan-wook. Far from Oldboy, The Chaser is more like Na Hong-jin’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a film that relied too heavily on coincidence and cliché. Worse, its mixture of horrific violence, melodrama, misplaced humour and Bourne-like chase scenes makes The Chaser a wholly uneven first effort.
Let’s start with the horrific violence, which is present here to a lesser extent than, say, Oldboy. While this last was gruesome it could also be called entertaining, like that of a Tarantino film. In The Chaser, it borders on the more extreme violence of a torture porn, and is definitely of a more psychological nature. The villain here is a young man who happens to hire and murder prostitutes with blunt objects. The story begins when a pimp, who happens to be an ex-detective, discovers that his missing girls all last visited the same customer. This leads to some chase scenes, which may have led to the title of the film – although this is never clear, as I wouldn’t designate this film as a chase film in the same vein as The Italian Job or The Fugitive. In fact, I would really appreciate anyone who can explain to me why this film is called The Chaser.
Did I mention this is based on a true story? I was surprised to learn of this afterwards, as I found many of the events ludicrous. How many are actually true or just inspired by the true events I have yet to find out. Without ruining some key points of the film, there are a few instances of Hollywood-esque coincidences that are tough to swallow: the kind where everyone ends up in the same place at the same time. And while a major influence of the South Korean ‘new wave’ is the Hollywood actioner, it’s a shame this cliché had to be utilized. Also, the film is meant to be a heavy social commentary on the Korean police force, who were widely criticized for incompetence, especially during these events. While they are certainly portrayed as incompetent in the film, it borders on farce. Just when we think they are the biggest idiots in the world, we get another scene in which two cops are asleep in their car, not able to hear the frantic 911 call of a person in danger. For shame! The criticism of the force is lessened both by its unanimous portrayal of incompetency, as well as the director’s tendency to use their laziness as comic relief.
In all, The Chaser was a disappointing experience, moreso for its promise of meeting the standards set by other contemporary South Korean filmmakers. The fact that the American rights to remake this film have been bought by Warner Bros. so quickly may stem from the fact that it lends itself to the kind of crowd that may have enjoyed this year’s Taken: a brainless actioner that fails to deliver on its ‘message’ and is content with forgetting certain plot elements in its search for the entertainment of the now. There is one element that the future remake should keep: the ambiguous loyalty of the pimp, whose search for the missing girls is either out of genuine sympathy or all about bread-and-butter. His character, if anything, is worth a decent revisit.
Film Festivals, Film Reviews | 
July 20, 2009
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By Nir Shalev, August 1, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
Oldboy is up for a remake, produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Will Smith. Last time I checked, Oldboy is an instant classic and contemporary masterpiece and is rightfully so.
Most of what you mention sounds to me like you hadn’t picked up on the structure of the film and I would recommend you do so because this film grossly sidestepps cliches in most instances.
Now, a formula exists in every film and tv show so that what you call cliches in this film are simply part of the formula, and they need to belong, strengthening the structure of the film.
I like your honesty and I have a word of advice for you: rephrase your sentences so that you never write cliched sentences like “he happens to be” or “did I mention”.
You can read my film reviews at commentarytrack.com Just look for my name under “writers”.