The Chaser (Na Hong-jin, 2008): South Korea

Reviewed by Jason Sanders. Viewed at the ArcLight theater, AFI Film Festival.

For the first film I was going to watch during the festival, I have to admit, I had a lot of expectations.  The Chaser blew all of my expectations away.  In the first few scenes,  I was already shocked, and disturbed by what the film maker had done with the story.  Hong-jin had already presented a short yet shocking twist to the story that has not yet been revealed.  

This was a shocking tale of a detective turned pimp, who strangely has girls running away, at least thats what he thinks.  When his best girl goes missing, he turns to his detective skills and goes on his own to find her.  When he discovers who she was with last, it becomes crazy, and a chase for the girl, and a way to find out the truth.

The way the film was presented was in a way to shock, and to make the audience think and always guessing.  As I watched, i notice details that reminded me of certain films, such as SAW, and realized that the scene that made me think of the film, was portrayed as realistic as possible and made me think of SAW as another fictional horror film.  

I would hope that other horror/thriller/mystery fans would see this movie, and it would give them a whole new definition of the genre.