The Chaser

Na Hong-jin inverts the police thriller in his first feature: the killer is caught early, and what follows is a station that cannot hold him against a clock. Kim Yun-seok plays Joong-ho, a former detective now working as a pimp, who starts hunting the missing women to collect what they owe him. Ha Jung-woo plays the man who owns up to nine murders at the station and is let go for want of evidence. The chases were staged by Yoo Sang-seob, trained at the Seoul Action School; the Korean Film Council calls his work here sticky action. Parts were shot on the real slopes of Mangwon-dong, in the Mapo district of Seoul, and it screened out of competition at the 61st Cannes Film Festival. At the 45th Grand Bell Awards it took six prizes, among them best film, best director and best actor for Kim Yun-seok. The 44th Baeksang gave it the Grand Prize and named Na best new director. At home it led the box office three weekends running and sold 5.1 million tickets, third among Korean releases of 2008. A good fit if you want the tension coming from a custody limit and a waiting warrant rather than from who did it. Not for viewers who assume a rescue is coming; this one withholds that.