The Chaser (2008)

Reading around the subject a little after Memories of Murder, this film cropped up due to the style of it. It wasn't the only film mentioned around it, but it was the one with the best cover/film poster. They say you shouldn't judge a book by the cover, does that hold for films.^[1]?

Based on a true story, The Chaser follows an investigation into a string of disappearances of young women - disappearances that had not been reported. The simple reason that people didn't seem to care was that they were prostitutes (or women working as prostitutes.^[2]) that had gone missing.
The pimp is an ex-police officer and he is annoyed about his girls disappearing - or running away. It is a simple employment dispute. When he notices that a few girls seem to have gone missing from the same customer, he thinks that the punter has sold them on and so he wants his money back. He is very protective of his assets although I cannot think they are thought of as people really. As he goes to find out what has happened to his girls, he flukily runs into the person and gives him a beating. Beatings seem to happen quite regularly throughout the film and it is fairly violent. After the beating, both the pimp and the punter are taken to the police where they are questioned and the punter admits to murdering a string of women - while he is in the police station, to the police officers. This should be the end of the film, but this is only about 20 minutes in - how is this one stretched out beyond that?! Quite well, actually with a few more twists and turns showing police "skill" and it helps that the pimp does not believe him. 

As entertainment, it is a pretty taut film and the fact that you know who has done what does, surprisingly, add quite a bit of tension. I guess the thing I found strangest was the fact that the police were turning a blind eye to a lot of violence and the fact that he was a pimp. I assumed this meant prostitution was legal in South Korea but apparently not [link], just widespread and accepted. If you know it is a true story, it does make some of the coincidences feel contrived and maybe added for dramatic effect but you cannot be sure. Well, I am not sure. 

The reservations I have are to do with the violence of some scenes, it is the first time I have kind of looked away from the screen in a film for about 15 years I think so it was pretty bad. Not in a blood splattered kind of way (which it was) but just an unflinching depiction in parts. Strangely, that is not consistent and some scenes were implied which struck me as a bit odd. In essence it is a pretty dark and dirty film which may not suit everyone and is not really suitable for a Sunday afternoon. I'd go as far as saying it is one of the darkest films I have seen due to the way the main characters are shown and the callousness of a lot of it - some of which may be cultural difference (as in it seems it to me but is actually not). It is also a particularly unflattering portrayal of the police involved, especially as the pimp is also an ex-police officer. This is similar to Memories of Murder in that respect. There are/were rumours of a Martin Scorsese remake [link] to presumably remove some of the cultural differences but you can never be sure how they turn out.
It was a good film, and it had a lot of buzz a few years back it seems but it definitely is not for everyone. Well not until it loses the foreign language, gets about twice as long and loses any type of moral ambiguity, anyway.

You can see a trailer for the Korean film here:

<sup>1. Actually, as film is a more visual medium, I think there is some merit in partially judging a film by its cover. And graphic novels are a type of book.↩
2. There is a very good sketch point by Stewart Lee and the point is made at enemies of reason here[link].↩</sup>