The Chaser is a slick Korean movie that is exciting, horrifying, and ultimately depressing. The plot follows Joong-ho (Kim), a dirty cop turned pimp, who recently lost two of his girls on jobs. Believing they were being stolen and sold, he asks Mi-jin (Seo) to go on the next call and text him back the address. She agrees, even though she's sick with the flu and her daughter is home alone. When she arrives, she has no service and tries to leave to find an area with better signal, but the doors are all locked. We soon find out that the customer, Young-min (Ha), is actually murdering the women, and he plans to do the same with Mi-jin.
The first part is exciting and tense. The plot progression is a little unorthodox, which gives the audience even less sure footing and ratchets up the uncertainty and fear. But it doesn't go anywhere; the second half fell flat on its face. I suppose the movie is meant to be frustrating, much like the finale in David Fincher's Seven, but I cannot get over how depressing this film is. I am having trouble figuring out a single reason for it to exist. While Seven has a similarly bleak ending, the movie as a whole feels much more complete, especially because we are given some sense as to the murderer's motives and characteristics. The Chaser, on the other hand, feels empty. Young-min is not a character--he is nothing but a faint idea--and I think the movie suffers because of it. The most credit I can give this film is that it produced a visceral reaction in me.
As for the rest of the technical aspects, they were not noticeably bad. The acting is difficult for me to assess because I found the mood and mannerisms ultimately too foreign for me to see the acting beneath it. As with almost every modern Korean movie I've seen, the cinematography is crisp and beautiful. All in all, I would only recommend this movie to fans of Korean dramas and/or people who love dark, gloomy murder thrillers. Everyone else can, and should, pass.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190539/