Chawu

Starts well, some good funny characters introduced. Boar fear without it being seen much, works well in 1st half.

Then, having seen so many movies on lion hunt, tiger hunt, shark hunt movies, this movie's use of that pattern is hard to miss: monster attacks in a mass festival, that was allowed by an authority overriding warnings, a team of pro hunters is hired, they kill one & celebrate, but the real killer monster strikes, some retired legendary hunter takes on himself to finish the job, some traps don't work, some gunners fail to shoot in nervousness, characters tell each other their life stories around a gathering before the final showdown, etc.

So many of these ideas was used, with some humour definitely and some poor execution. Boar's unconvincing and clearly artificial look & movement was hard to reconcile with. Not enough fear/caution/naturalness towards the end seen in the hunters who enter the boar's territory, plus cliched poor decisions like not shooting, running slow with many pauses while being chased, easily escaping the boar who has trapped him a meter away.

Disgusting show of eating: a pig-head, a live fish in boiling water, bugs/larvae, bats. May be part of Korean culture but was horrible to watch. Boar's killing/killed scenes needed blood and body parts and that was fitting.

A 4-5/10 rating would be fair, +1 for the final chase on a rail line, -1 for the disgusting food shown.

So the title of this movie is...? The Korean title is "Chawu", but the DVD movie I got from Amazon is titled "Chaw", but the one shown on the cover on IMDb is titled "Chawz".

For a black comedy, then "Chaw" had surprisingly few laughs. There were some here and there, but they were far in between. But that is quite alright, because the movie is quite entertaining and doesn't necessarily rely on the comedy to carry it along.

The story is about a police officer from Seoul who end up in a small rural village, where life is supposed to be quiet and uneventful. But the small idyllic village is terrorized by a marauding boar of gargantuan proportions.

"Chaw" is fun and entertaining, as it has some interesting characters and good dialogue, plus the effects in the movie were actually quite good. Don't expect Hollywood blockbuster effects - but they get the job done, and they do so nicely.

"Chaw" is not groundbreaking in any way, and it is unlikely to make a lasting impression, but still, it is well worth a watch and does provide good entertainment. A good Korean movie in the likes of "Razorback". Hardly worthy of a place alongside "The Host" (the Korean monster movie, not the Meyer's pseudo-teenage Sci-Fi), but still fun enough.

No this isn't a Bruce Lee film. This is a South Korean giant wild killer pig movie – "another one?", I hear you sigh.

When the self proclaimed "crimeless village" of Sameri in South Korea is beset by a 500kg 6 foot tall killer boar it's fair to say the locals are unprepared and largely incapable of handling the beastie. After all, all bar one of the cops are a bunch of lazy idiots, the new guy arrived in town that day and the local citizens would win a "Crazy-off" with the 90s TV town of Twin Peaks hands down.

Locals start falling off the map and reappearing as various limbs and fragments of body-parts, newly interred corpses are summarily exhumed, and buses full of curious city folk show up to pick the local organic produce – but are really there to get Chaw-gnawed.

So outside help is sourced, including experienced and renowned hunters, a pack of dogs, and some skylarking adventure seekers. The locals want the thing dead, the hunters want trophies and a bunch of greenies just want everyone to get along. The hunt goes on and a large pig is taken down – ce-le-brate good times… Come on? Nope, it turns out that the big fat beast wasn't Oprah on another of her around the world publicity stunts but the psycho killer pig's missus.

Now: it's personal.

As tends to happen in these film a rag tag bunch of disparate individuals forms to take on Porky high in the mountains that flank the village, each with their own specialty, motivation and story to tell – usually late at night around a campfire in a moment of surprising vulnerability.

Now this is a big scary animal movie so I can't finish without discussing the big scary animal, and this is where Chaw really disappoints. In a few scenes Chaw is a guy(s) in a suit and in close ups and confined spaces it looks like a puppet. Both of these efforts were acceptable… in long shots and action sequences however Chaw was 100% distracting CGP – Computer Generated Pork. The size and weight of Chaw seemed to vary greatly in shot to shot, he had no obvious momentum or force when he was changing direction or running, and in certain scenes he just looked damned… cuddly.

In the early going they were wise to minimise the sightings and on screen depiction of Chaw, towards the end when he was all over the shop I almost laughed every time he appeared on screen – especially when he morphed into cuddly-wuddly piggy-wiggy for some shots.

Chaw has no real gore at all to speak of, most of the deaths appear offscreen and the only real evidence aside from muffled screams and quick cutaways are the random body parts alluded to earlier. There is way too much exposition and unnecessary character development for what is essentially a silly B flick with an audience only demanding "get to the killer pig!", leaving us with a 90 minute film that unfortunately takes two hours to watch.

In this way it reminded me of The Host from a couple years back, but while that film supplied a carefully rendered, original beastie as the primary threat Chaw is only able to proffer a size changing, largely unreal – and often fluffy! – giant pork chop.

Final Rating – 5 / 10. For most lovers of slightly obscure cinema "South Korean killer pig" flick is a big enough hook to initiate a search for the video shop card – it sure was for me. But Chaw is one little piggie that should have stayed home.

I watched the English translation of this Korean monster movie. The original movie is a silly throw-back (in the vein of Lake Placid) about a killer boar. But what's best about it is the absolutely hysterically awful English dubbing. It is easily some of the best bad acting I have ever enjoyed (including every Godzilla movie ever). It must truly be seen to be believed. The film itself is actually a fairly amusing, purposely silly 'monster' movie. Someone else on here said that this movie feels like something David Lynch might have made if he ever made a creature feature... and they were completely right, with all of the bizarre seemingly nonsensical characters and offbeat dialog. But, at over 2 hours, runs way too long. Still, I recommend this film for any fan of strange movies or creature features. But do yourself a HUGE favor and watch the English-dubbed version over a subtitled one.

CHAW is a South Korean monster movie that attempts to ride the wave of popularity that followed the similarly-themed THE HOST; while it can't hope to hold a candle to that outstanding film, it proves to be an entertaining enough comic yarn that offers more genuine laughs than most. It occupies a specific niche of Asian movies whose quirkiness alone is enough to give them instant cult appeal.

The story is a simple enough effort about a giant wild boar terrorising a rural community. There's all the usual hypocrisy amongst the police officers and detectives responsible for the village's safety, along with an outsider hero through whose eyes we witness the proceedings. The plot isn't dissimilar to the Aussie flick RAZORBACK, with various oddballs joining together to beard the beast in its lair – although, of course, it doesn't go entirely to plan.

Monster flicks like this live or die on the strength of their titular menace, and Chaw himself is a good 'un; a very well animated (with a mix of animatronics and CGI, it seems to me) and truly gigantic creature who chews on his victims in a series of grisly death scenes. The action follows the usual template, building up to big attacks and the final search-and-destroy mission, and it's all handled with relative aplomb.

The film goes for the humorous note throughout and it works; there's enough meat on the bones of the story to make it an enjoyable outing, even for those who've watched a dozen similar films. The acting is typically strong from the Korean performers, and director Shin Jeong-won clearly knows what he's doing.