Day five of the Milwaukee Film Festival.The Chaser (Chugyeogja), Hong Jin-Na's dark hued meditation on corruption and redemption hones in on Young-min Jee (an excellent Jung-woo Ha), former dirty cop and current amoral pimp, with little discernable distinction between the two, over the course of one long and hellish night.
Jee is in a pickle. He is late with his payment to his over-bosses while concurrently experiencing a cash flow problem caused by an inconvenient shrinkage in his stable of available call girls. Jee believes his girls are skipping town, while still owing him money, or are being snatched and sold to other pimps. He inadvertently discovers something much more terrible is going on when his bottom girl, Mi-jinn Kim (a heart-breaking performance by Yeong-hie Seo), goes missing after he forces her out of her sick bed, away from her seven year-old daughter and into the arms of a serial killer.
The Chaser exists in a cruel, god forsaken world where evil preens in all its permutations and goodness is snuffed out at every turn. It is a grim, rain soaked place, a brutal maze of tight, rabbit-warren neighborhoods where human bunnies hop, fornicate, fight, fart, fling feces - and get felleted alive.
A kinetic, edge-of-your-seat thriller that dredges deep into the heart of the darkness of Seoul, The Chaser is must see film noir that cements South Korea place on the world cinematic map.
~rave!
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