Culture Blues

The Instant Movie Club: The Chaser

Every week, your friends at Culture Blues get together to watch a movie from their Netflix Instant queue. Then, they sit down over a cup of noodles and talk about it. This is The Instant Movie Club.

This week, we’ll be discussing The Chaser, the acclaimed South Korean police thriller. The below discussion contains spoilers.

Next Week: Felon. A prison movie starring Stephen Dorff and a fully wacked out Val Kilmer.

Jeff: For the second week in a row, we’re checking out a foreign film with an inevitable American remake already in the works. Warner Brothers has snapped up the remake rights on The Chaser to the tune of a million bucks, and there are early rumors of a reteaming of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. However, unlike last week’s mediocre The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that could only be improved in the capable hands of David Fincher, The Chaser doesn’t need any of Scorsese’s meddling. It’s already close to perfect.

Full disclosure:  I love me the South Koreans. Their best films – stuff like The Host, Oldboy, Save the Green Planet! – are always couched in a familiar genre, which is then twisted into something refreshing and awesome. In the case of The Chaser, director Na Hong-jin is playing with the well worn serial killer thriller genre. While the film certainly begins in familiar territory, it spirals into so many twisted and unexpected directions that, by the end, what you’ve seen has become entirely unique. Last week, we all had a good laugh when someone compared TGWTDT to Se7en. This week, in terms of best thriller ever, I’m saying The Chaser needs to be in that discussion.

The Chaser is anchored by two brilliant performances. Our anti-hero, Joong-ho (played by Kim Yoon-seok), is a former detective turned pimp out to find out why some of his girls have gone missing. That puts him on the trail of Yeong-min (Ha Jeong-woo), a serial killer who, just like Ben, uses a hammer and chisel to work out his impotency issues with grisly results. Our killer is caught about 20 minutes into the film and yet I was still on the edge of my seat for the duration. Without any tricks or twists, the people behind The Chaser have crafted a masterful thriller where the killer spends most of his time handcuffed and in custody.

There’s just so much to talk about here, I wish I had more space. Beyond the heaps of suspense, there are also a number of badass action sequences, including the final showdown between pimp and killer where they just absolutely beat the shit out of each other with a bunch of blunt objects. Into good characters? Curmudgeonly Joong-Ho transforms from an unlovable bitch-you-got-my-money type to a man trying to redeem himself in a believably natural way that never sacrifices his darker edge. Need some subtext with your thriller? There’s satire here on the incompetent bureaucracy of the Korean police department that would make The Wire guys proud. I can’t sing the praises of The Chaser loudly enough.

Any haters in The IMC, be forewarned, I have a claw hammer and I will put your severed head in the office fish tank.

Jason: Simply put, this movie pissed me off. To me, the premise was far too flimsy and I did not appreciate the juxtaposition of goofy ineptness and gruesome, heartbreaking murders.

As Jeff mentioned, our killer is caught very early on. Usually in movies like this, the police are up against the clock, left with a mystery to solve while the killer mercilessly toys with them. Here, Yeong-min confesses to multiple murders in vivid detail right away but, due to some ridiculous loophole, has to be released after 12 hours due to a lack of evidence. Now I don't know the laws in South Korea but, regardless, we are asked to take a huge leap of faith here and frankly I refuse to do it. I'm sorry, do confessions not count as evidence?

But fine, let's play along. Solve the mystery in 12 hours. Wait a second... the only mystery here is to just find the dude's house! ARGH.

This is not to say that I didn't appreciate parts of The Chaser. I giggled any time there was a reference to the guy who threw shit on the mayor and chuckled when the cops chased around Joong-ho yelling at each other to "run faster!" Oh and I absolutely loved every scene with Meathead.

Likewise, when Mi-jin's tough-as-nails seven year old realizes that there is a good chance her mother is dead, watching her breakdown and cry was an intense moment for me. When Joong-ho arrives at the convenience store and pieces together what has just taken place; that he was right there but just too late, I felt that too.

But the sum of these parts (which are polar opposites emotionally) didn't equal a cohesive movie for me.

If you are pretty damn sure that you just released a serial killer, why would you only put two cops on his tail? Why didn't the female detective go into the store sooner? Why was Mi-jin's frantic emergency call rerouted to sleeping patrolmen? I don't know what the fancy cinema term is for this stuff, but there was far too much of it.

I'm curious to see how the American remake turns out though. Especially if Leo has to play a pimp.

Jeremiah: I agree with Jason that there are many things about this movie that made me go "hmmm." For one, this guy seemed a little sloppy to be such a prolific and untouchable serial killer. I definitely bought the "we have to release him in 12 hours" bit. Obviously I don't know about the specifics, but I'm confident this type of technicality comes up all the time in real life (it sure comes up in movies and shows all the time). And to answer your question, a confession is technically "evidence" in the sense that it can be used in court, but it's also some of the worst evidence you can have. It's not concrete and the defendant can recant at any time (and claim they were coerced). See, despite finding some of the logic on display a little questionable myself, I was never bothered me because I loved so much of The Chaser.

As Jeff said, there is so much we could talk about, so I'm going to restrict myself to a few topics. I'm glad Jeff brought up The Wire because much like that show, the scope of The Chaser is one of its most impressive aspects. Coming in, I didn't expect to see so much of the police department, as people at many different levels crave justice while feeling handcuffed by regulations and orders from on high. I also didn't expect to spend so much time with the killer. I wanted to jump out of my chair and fist pump when the psychologist cracked Young-min's cool exterior. For once it felt like we were making headway.

When Young-min finally succeeds in killing Mi-Jin, we get a little montage showing us where our characters all are. During this montage, I was suddenly struck by the breadth of this movie. I felt like I had just watched a season’s worth of television come to a head, and not just because this kind of montage has become a season finale fixture. Similarly, when the sun finally rises and the police feel like this is both their best and last chance to get some evidence, I felt rejuvenated. It was just like the feeling you get when you come out the other side of an all-nighter or working the overnight shift. Many movies have set their events in the course of one night, often ending with a few scenes in the daylight. I don’t think any has given me such a vivid feeling of actually being up all night.

One last thing, am I alone in thinking this isn’t an open and shut case? If I’m Young-min’s lawyer, I’m looking at the fact that my client was made the target of this investigation without good cause, he was beaten while in police custody and then the next morning he’s found beaten to a bloody pulp in the hands of a former detective/current pimp that the police have allowed to meddle in the investigation for hours. They are found in a location that can’t be tied to my client that happens to house a bunch of dead bodies. I’m sure the police are hoping to pull some DNA evidence off those bodies, and I’m not sure what South Korea’s laws are like, but this was hardly a by-the-book investigation. And it seems to me like Young-min might improbably slip the noose yet again.

Is The Chaser a masterful, sprawling thriller or an overly ambitious and uneven movie that tries to distract you from some serious leaps of logic? How awesome is Meathead? Tell us what you thought in the comments.

Next week: Felon

Tagged as: american remake, ben's a murderer, leonardo dicaprio, martin scorsese, police thriller, the chaser