The Chaser (2008)

Essentially "The Chaser" is about a former police agent tracking down a murderer.
Now that sounds quite familiar and not too exciting, doesn't it?

You might be just as surprised as I was to see this story unfold and develop.
The screenplay to this South-Korean serial killer flick is much trickier than its premise suggests.

Our protagonist, an ex-cop, is now a pimp. And he is not a very nice man either.
When a client gets rude he won't hesitate to beat the hell out of the guy.
He has to look after his girls. Business is not blooming and lately some of his chicks are missing.

His investigation soon reveals one of his clients as the person who, he guesses, could have kidnapped his girls to sell them. The same client who is just meeting Mi-jin, another girl of his. The problem is he doesn't know where this guy lives but he needs to find him before it's too late.

What Joong-ho, our pimp, also doesn't know is that this guy is not in the selling-hookers-business but in the killing-hookers-business. But we know it: this guy is totally insane. Now the chase is set up.
And if you think you know the rest of the story you couldn't be more wrong.
The way this story plays out is a bloody joy! I won't go too much into detail here.
Just let me tell you this. Killer and chaser meet early in the movie, there is trouble with the police
and the pissed-off pimp on top of everything else suddenly has to adapt and reconsider the case when things get even more complicated with the appearance of Mi-jin's daughter.

The little girl is also the key role. She provides the emotional content. She makes our "hero" care.
The small problem of the film is that the victims themselves are hardly fleshed out. We know that the women go through hell and if you are not a serial killer yourself then you will also condemn the crimes shown. But still we don't really care for them as much as we should simply because we don't know them and they stay fairly unknown. Not only is there no relationship to us but also there is no emotional connection between them and the pimp who is desperately trying to find them.
He begins to look for them because of his business and he evolves just because he starts out empathizing with the girl and he eventually feels sort of guilty for the deaths of the women or in case of Mi-jin the girl makes him feel responsible and urges him to save her. That of course makes him interesting, but not the poor suffering women. Let's not forget that he still is the rude pimp who exploited these women too and in the end that's why the payoff lacks a bit in terms of emotion and conviction.

In its methods this picture reminded me of some films by the Coen brothers (who are among my favorite directors by the way). What makes this plot clever is not only the events itself but how the characters react to what happens and why.
Most of time the different characters don't know all the pieces of the puzzle. They behave logically considering the information they have, but to us as the viewers who are already way ahead it is horrible to see them making one false decision after another which leads to some creepingly exciting situations.

Along with its realistic chase and fight scenes the film also provides a darkly funny sense of humor throughout and even some subtle slapstick moments.

An underlying theme in the movie is its portrayal of the police which reminded me a lot of the police procedural "Memories of murder", also from South Korea.

"The Chaser" is a flawlessly directed and clever crime-thriller that you should definately go for!