Korea can’t seem to get enough of monsters and disasters, it seems. A giant monster from the Han River wreaked havoc on Seoul in “The Host.” Korean writer Hyung-rae Shim set dragons from a Korean legend loose in Los Angeles in “D-Wars”. And this summer, a rabid boar has Korean moviegoers rushing back to the theaters for more.
The summer monster flick “Chaw” is creating more buzz in Korea than the sixth installment of Harry Potter. The movie brings together the multinational talent of director Shim Jung-won, dubbed the “Tim Burton” of Korea, the creative team behind “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace,” and the visual supervisor from “Jurassic Park” to create a massive, human-eating boar that will chill the blood of even the most seasoned monster movie fan. Especially when the story is based off real-life cases of deforestation and a decreasing food sources driving wild boars to eat dead bodies in tombs and attack villages.
The movie is set in a quiet town near Mount Jiri that hasn’t seen any crime in nearly 10 years. Out of the blue, mangled and ravaged bodies begin showing up, throwing the town into a frenzy. Police first believe the crimes were committed by humans, until Il-Man (Jang Han-sun), a retired hunter who lost his granddaughter in an attack, tells them it was a wild boar.
An unlikely team, consisting of Il-man; Su-ryeon (Jung Yu-mi), a biologist; Shin (Park Hyeok-gwon), a klepto detective; and Baek (Yoon Jae-moon), a celebrity hunter, forms to track down the beast before it causes the town’s big city visitors to leave and never return. Disgruntled police officer Kim (Uhm Tae-woong) is forced to join the rag-tag team when his mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s disappears into the forest.
The movie features a giant, mutated CG boar that took three years to construct in order to insure that it struck fear into the hearts of viewers. Most of the film was made in California because of environmental issues with Korean forests, though the forest looked identical to Korea. The climatic ending takes place in an abandoned mine in Gangwon Province, which is sure to induce more thrills.
Several scenes in the film are from the boar’s point of view, adding more to the fear with crunching sound effects, flesh-gnawing gore and showing how the hunters can easily become the hunted.
Full of drama, suspense, and, of course, bone-crunching gore, “Chaw” is certainly expected to be the blockbuster of the summer. Of course, I also suspect that there might be a drop in summer vacation camping and hiking trips as well…
“Chaw” is currently in theaters in Korea.
Check out the trailer for the thriller “Chaw!”
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