Chaw (2009)

Director:

Jeong-won Shin

Release Date:

15 July 2009 (South Korea)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

A black comedy about the events that are set into motion in a town after a man-eating boar goes on a rampage. |

Plot Keywords:

One Word Title

Cast

Tae-woong Eom	...	Police Officer Kim
Yoon Jae-Moon	...	Hunter Baek
Yu-mi Jeong	...	Su-ryeon
Josiah D. Lee	...	Detective #1
Earl Wayne Ording	...	Hero Dog (as Earl)

Runtime:

South Korea:121 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:12

Filming Locations:

Nicasio, California, USA

Company:

Lotte Entertainment

Imagine a western directed by David Lynch. Do yourself a favor and track this one down.

There's something curiously compelling about this unbelievably strange mix of western and monster movie. It's Charles Bronson in one corner and an obviously phony, mechanical buffalo (!) in the other, (Complete with dinosaur roars and steam spewing from its' nostrils). Good supporting cast (Especially Bae Park), Hardly a classic, but so much better than the "cinematic efforts" of 00s Hollywood. Solid soundtrack.

Piled on top of the film's other many flaws, the final indignity is the peccary itself. Resembling a bedraggled, malnourished Muppet, its first on-screen appearance is a close-up of the face, which looks very much like the current logo of the Buffalo Sabres. When the beast is in full rampage, the over-the-top vocal effects are not dissimilar to the foghorn that sounds when the Sabres – or any other NHL team – score. There is much in the beast's appearance or manner that inspires fear in the audience, even though its motion resembles a harmless carousel horse rather than a marauding wild animal.

I have no clear reason why. If you can get some suspension of disbelief generated and enjoy the character movement, character tension, and the odd placement of surrealism and Gothic ambiance in a seemingly straight "western", then you ll love the long boring build up to some villagers finding this blanched razorback and when it finally appears we are treated to the sight of a king size wooly rocking horse on tracks wobbling to and fro in a swirl of foam chips! Then there's the Gogo, that bizarre Furby-like creature that creates miracles by peeing on things... even when you can't see the wire attached to his head, you just KNOW it's there.

The tape I saw was dubbed in Japanese and had no subtitles, so I can't say I followed everything, but I still found it immensely enjoyable. It helps to read the Mohoyaktik story first, so I dug out my copy of "The Korean Fairy Book," compiled by Yei Theodora Sujen (Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1970) and read the original folk tale. Still, even with the story in hand, I didn't quite get who the chicken boy was.