Chaw (2009, Shin Jeong-won)

Chaw tells the familiar tale of a man-eating wild boar and the brave villagers who confront it. The boar’s descended from the mutant boors the Japanese created when they invaded Korea. These abominations have been low-key terrorizing the countryside for decades and as the hipsters started doing weekend trips from Seoul into the countryside, things have gotten worse. The boars have gotten a taste for man-flesh, which post-grads Jung Yu-mi and Ha Sung-kwang have been investigating for years in hopes of breaking it big into tenured positions. They just happen to be in this one particular village when the giant man-eating boar attacks, and the timing coincides with Seoul cop Eom Tae-woong getting reassigned to this one particular village, which is important because Jung and Eom are going to be the third act action heroes.

Eom’s brought along mom Park Hye-jin and wife Heo Yeon-hwa; Park’s got dementia (you wouldn’t feel good about it, but you’ll laugh at her dementia antics too) and Heo’s pregnant. Heo and Eom might have chemistry together, but they’re never in the movie long enough together for anyone to find out. Heo’s got home stuff to do, not protagonist work like Eom.

Eom initially shares the spotlight with absurd Seoul detective Park Hyuk-kwon. Chaw actually has an incredibly complicated first act, lots of characters, lots of layers. But the movie starts with a horrific Jaws-inspired death scene, followed by exceptionally straight-faced slapstick. Director and co-writer Shin isn’t shy about setting Chaw’s tone, which is one of its greatest assets. Along with his confidence. Chaw’s finale, which attaches the second half of Predator to the first half of Jaws, with some Aliens thrown in, is exceptional action direction. Especially since the film’s shot in frequently iffy DV. Shin and cinematographer Kim Yung-chul compensate—and the silliness but thoroughness of the CG wild boar helps a lot (it’s intentionally cute)–and it all works out.

But the first act is a lot. There are multiple victims to remember—and to remember who, if anyone, knows about the victim (since it’s a vacation town, I’m pretty sure at least one victim gets forgotten). Eom’s subplot initially seems to involve Park and Heo, but it doesn’t. Instead he becomes best friends with adorably weird detective Park—who never breaks character, which is the point, and it’s superb work start to finish, especially since all the village cops are buffoons. It’s like a mix of Se7en and Keystone Cops.

Eventually–Chaw’s real confident in its runtime—Shin knows they can keep this going for a couple hours, they just need to make it to the second act, and so the first act throws a bunch of spaghetti at the wall. All of it pays off in the end, which is chef’s kiss; Shin and Kim Yong-cheol’s script is so narratively sound it rings. But the first act. So lots of comedy, lots of characters.

The second act brings in master hunter Jang Hang-seon. He quickly becomes everyone’s grandpa. What if Robert Shaw was cuddly? Jang’s great.

So then it seems like it’s Eom, Jang, and Park. Jaws. Including some great homage scenes. Though much grosser with mammals than fish.

Then the movie adds Yun Je-mun to the mix. He’s Jang’s former protege who’s become a TV celebrity hunter. Yun’s weird. He does this macho thing until he gets sweet on Jung, then he’s very… inappropriate at times. Harmlessly? But grossly? Don’t sniff girls’ hair when they’re asleep, fellas.

It’s a neat, very amusing subplot the movie introduces in the second half for Yun and Jung. There are a number of major subplot resolutions in the second act. Chaw’s clearing the deck for the finale but also compensating for it not having an infinite amount of space for the hunting party to cover. There are only so many places the boar can be.

Chaw’s great. The main cast members all get nice standouts, the script’s strong, production’s good. Shin even knew not to show off too much when shooting with DV because who’s going to notice? It’s a delight.

Train to Busan (2016, Yeon Sang-ho)

The middle of Train to Busan is excellent. The first act is iffy, the ending is forced, but the middle is where the film excels. It’s where director Yeon just gets to do action, not getting slowed down with the humanity of it all (which he’s uneven on), and just executes these breathtaking action suspense sequences. Not just Yeon, editor Yang Jin-mo, photographer Lee Hyung-deok, composer Jang Young-gyu—and of course the actors. During the action suspense stuff, everyone does really well. Even lead Gong Yoo is good during these sequences and doesn’t have the overwhelmed look he gets the rest of the movie. Gong’s the only character with a real character arc—he goes from being a selfish hedge fund manager and bad dad to a hero in the fight against a zombie horde; he even becomes a better dad and reals everything he’s been missing in daughter Kim Su-an’s life. It’s ought to be emotionally devastating.

But Gong can’t do it. Being fair, it’s not like he gets any help from Yeon on it either, who doesn’t do a good job with directing the character stuff. Outside the action sequences, Yeon’s best directing is all on Ma Dong-seok and Jung Yu-mi, who play an expecting married couple caught up in the afore implied zombie apocalypse. Worse, Yeon’s adequate directing on Kim—as she experiences having this bad dad—falls apart as the film progresses. It’s like Yeon can’t pretend Busan’s about Gong and Kim patching things up thanks to a crisis situation and just sleepwalks the film through the series where they act like it’s working. Maybe it’s just a bad combination; the way Yeon directs the actors, the script, Gong’s flimsy performance. Because a lot of things do come together just right in other ways during Busan. Ma and Jung are wonderful. They’re both excellent—he’s a loving tough guy and she’s, well, okay, she’s just the loving tough guy’s pregnant wife, but she’s really good. And Ma’s able to carry the film when Gong can’t and the film acknowledges it, Gong acknowledges it. Yeon just doesn’t use it to further anything along. Top-billed Gong goes into the third act a better person but a thinner character; everyone else has more depth than him, with the possible exception of daughter Kim, just because she’s a plot device to keep him moving through the picture. Not in a craven way, just a very pragmatic one. Gong and Kim might be the A plot in the film, but all the other plots are more interesting, which becomes real obvious in the third act.

First there’s teen paramours Sohee and Choi Woo-sik, who barely get introduced during the film’s rapid-free introduction of the disaster movie cast—I mean, it’s zombies on a bullet train—have a little do at the beginning of the second act, but then get this layered C plot leading up to a heart-wrenching, loving conclusion. Very nice work from Choi and Sohee and from Yeon. He takes their C plot seriously. He also takes the out of nowhere and completely awesome conductor turns action hero subplot seriously. Jeong Seok-yong is fantastic in that part. Total surprise, but great pay-offs.

The supporting characters’ arcs always pay off (save businessman worm villain Kim Eui-sung’s arc, which goes on too long and gets too important) and always a with a little more enthusiasm than Gong and Kim get. Their family drama is basically red herring and not particularly tasty red herring because Gong’s so wanting at the dad stuff.

When Yeon makes it work—like with Gong, Ma, and Choi unintentionally becoming three musketeers and having to save people and get past zombies on the train and figure out how not to get bit doing it… great stuff. Great chemistry between the actors. It’s not just smooth, it’s easy. It feels like Yeon’s found the film’s vibe and he couldn’t possibility screw it up. He burns through all that newfound goodwill slow then fast; when he hits the third act, it’s a bunch of wide swings. They’d be fine, if they could just hit anything.

Train to Busan probably ends on its lowest point. It’s not bad, it’s got some strong performances, some great special effects—the “choreography” on the running, scary but silly zombies, is breathtaking—but Busan’s got problems pulling into the proverbial station. The third act’s just way too pat.