The Chaser (2008) - Korean Thriller

The problem that I face now a day is of a different kind, whenever I see an old movie – say which is like 10 years or more – is already remade in some other form. You pick up a foreign movie and realized it was already made again in our part of the world too. Similarly while going through my quota of Korean movies came across this movie last night and was shocked to realize right in the first ten minutes, that our “Murder 2” was a scene to scene copy of this one. Although they again changed it as per Indian taste and standards (Read – screwed it) but I wonder how in the hell they did not credit this one for the idea? Just read on Wiki that it was an unofficial remake of this movie. The less I say about Emran who plays the lead in our movie the better – if you see this one – you will curse him big time as the dude who plays the lead in Korean movie is simply outstanding – his body language, dialogue delivery, facial expressions – almost everything is simply superb. At times he reminded of “Irfan Khan”, they both actually talk and behave the same way. One hell of a movie this is – fantastic thriller with a damn good pace – not to be missed by any thriller lovers but mind it – some scenes are over the top typical Korean stuff. Even after having a run time of 2 hours – it never feels long – even while it ended I was looking forward to some kind of miracle hoping it will continue a little longer. 

Beautiful Seo Yeoung

The Movie: Starts with Eom Joong (Kim Yoon Seok) who is a former police officer, going through a financial crisis as couple of his prostitutes are missing – he has a hunch that one of his customers is selling them to someone. He sends one of his girls Mi Jin (Seo Yeoung) to a customer even when she is sick and is reluctant to go – later realizing that this was the same guy who had take the other missing girls as the last customer. He meets one of his friends in police and asks him to help tracing the missing girl but the cops are already busy as the mayor of Seoul is already in the town and someone had thrown shit on his face publicly. Its quite hilarious to see the whole episode of Mayor being attacked and culprit taken in custody while a female cop drives the vehicle and Eom’s friend curses the culprit for attack, who in place wants to take a leek but they refuse to give him a break. The pace is simply superb and so much happening onscreen keeps the audience hooked to their seats. While Eom looks everywhere for the missing girl with whatever address he has in records where she goes in his Jaguar, he does comes across the guy followed by a fantastic on foot chase, which is too close to reality, simply one of the outstanding scenes of the movie. All this while Eom is accompanied by 7 year old daughter of Mi Jin. There are so many small instances which actually touch your heart and make you connect well with the character of Eom, he isn’t a bad guy but stuck in a bad situation, the way he handles the kids, feeds her and takes care of her. He hopes to get her mother back at any cost although he is afraid of her being alive anymore too. The cold blooded killer is another highlight of the movie – the way he is shown on a killing spree is not everyone’s cup of tea, its brutal on your face stuff which at times is a little too much on unsuspecting audience. He is actually on a killing spree for no rhyme or a reason – explained during his interrogation in the police station while they catch him but had to let him go cause of no evidence found.

Seo Yeoung Tortured

The use of hammer and chisel by the killer is something you do not expect in the first place and the way it is shot is totally gross. My heart wished that Eom should be able to find Mi Jin alive and unite her with her daughter, the killer should get cause after so many murders and should be hanged – but I guess all wishes don’t come true. So was the case of this movie. You’ve got to watch the movie to know what happens next. It was a perfect Saturday night thriller for me – I was actually looking forward to some friends but couldn’t resist finishing the movie right on time as its pace was such that I simply couldn’t stop it and watch it later – I had to finish it one go. One more thing that I love about Korean movies is their awesome use of songs in the background – this too has some of the best songs although because of the language barrier – I couldn’t understand them – unfortunately the subtitles too aren’t there for those songs. It was a damn good watch and made me curse the Indian Director who made a Hindi movie out of it and screwed the originality. I guess they should have stuck to the original while remaking – it would have come out to be a great movie. Check out both the movies and decide for yourself which one is better.