The Chaser (2008 film)

The Chaser is a 2008 South Korean film, and is the feature film debut of director Na Hong-jin.

Eom Joong-ho is a former police officer turned pimp, and several of his girls have gone missing. One night he gets a call from a customer and sends Mi-jin, one of his few remaining girls. Later he realises that the same customer was the last to see the missing girls, and believing that Mi-jin might be in danger, he goes to look for her. While searching for her, he dents another car in an alley, and when he sees blood splattered on the unharmed driver's shirt, he senses that the man, Jae Yeong-min, is the suspect. Yeong-min tries to run away but Joong-ho catches him, and both men are taken to the police station.
At the police station, Yeong-min confesses to the murder of the women, and says his last victim, Mi-jin, could still be alive. But despite his confession, the police have no evidence to imprison him and cannot detain him for more than 12 hours. As the police search for the bodies of his victims, Joong-ho is the only one who believes that Mi-jin is still alive, and must find her before the killer is released.
The movie was inspired by a real-life serial killer in Korea, Yoo Young-chul.

Director: Na Hong-jin
Producer: Kim Su-jin & Yun In-beom
Writters: Na Hong-jin & Lee Shin-ho
Cast: Kim Yoon-seok
         Ha Jeong-woo
Runtime: 125 min
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean

Review
Few years ago Korean society was shocked by a horrible serial killer mayhem. Dozen of call-girls are disappeared and never returned when they visited unknown customer. The serial killer also murdered innocent old men and women on his loose. After caught of serial killer the revealed fact was beyond one's imagination. He killed girls with hammer, chisel and amputated the victims. Some of them were cannibalized. He mashed victim's liver with food processors and drank it. Now the serial killer is sentenced to death and his existence throw serious questions about execution of death sentenced prisoner to the Korean society. For ten years Korean government never executed prisoners and now UN approved Korea as a No Execution country.

This movie is a product of these social circumstance. Of course any modernized country can have notorious serial killers. But this is most brutal and abominable criminal act as reported to the public.

Another phenomena described in this movie are the inactive police act and ugly politician. Koreans are very disappointed at this and this movie is quite accurately visualized the situation.

Whether or not crime is the best motif for movie and this movie successfully hold the breath of viewers. I am waiting another movie from this director.

Good work.