Blu-Ray Review: ‘CHAWZ’

Monsters come in all shapes and sizes.  Recently they have terrorized shaky-cam party-goers in Cloverfield, bore lots of hair and teeth with The Wolfman, creeped out cave spelunkers in The Descent, and represented our internal fear of the outsider with Monsters.  Yet, very few monster films approach the fine-line between horror and comedy.  Going completely to one direction or the other seems to be main route that many directors tend to go.  You want the horror elements to be scary and the comedic lines to be funny.  Yet, interweaving these parts into a perfect chemistry is harder than it seems.  The most recent film to tackle this beast is the 2009 South Korean film Chawz.  The film saw a limited theatrical run last year, but finally is able to be seen by a larger audience thanks to Magnet’s recent release

Chawz opens with a police detective in Seoul who gets transferred to the small Korean town of Sameri.  Filled with quirky villagers and clumsy police officers, Detective Kim now not only has to deal with his pregnant wife and mentally unstable mom but also the new town that has the moniker of “The Crimeless Village.”  Not too long after Kim apprehensively slips into his new position, strange occurrences begin to happen and rumors begin circling of a giant boar.  After a team is called in to take out the problem, the town quickly learns that the hunters didn’t take out the main beast but only the female half of the abnormally large duo.

 

Chawz is nothing original but that isn’t the problem that many will have with the film.  The bizarre kaleidoscope of characters and their overly quirky lives come off as more annoying than endearing.  Unlike the more successful 2006 South Korean film The Host, Chawz’s humor never draws the audience into the film more and instead makes us want to flee in horror.  This is not to say that the actors don’t do a great job with the material.  If the blame should be put on anyone it should be the amateur directing (why there are some random slow motion shots in the first hour of the film and nowhere else is beyond me). In fact, much of the cast gives strong performances with the standouts being our flawed protagonist Kim and one of the hunters played with cocky charisma by Yoon Jae-moon.  Aside from the cast, what works well for the majority of the film is the beast itself.  Utilizing both practical effects and CGI, the wild boar is effectively vicious at times while other times it can resemble a Syfy channel creature.  Yes . . . it looks that bad at times.  The horror takes a back seat to getting to know the cast of characters at the beginning of the overly long two hour long film.  Thankfully, the last half hour is an entertaining ride as the boar chases the group through the forest.  When the group splits up causing two of them to run off, the chase results in a train cart chase that will bring to mind Jaws (clearly an inspiration) director Steven Spielberg’s The Temple of Doom.  Another fitting homage follows with an abandoned factory pursuit that looks straight out of Terminator 2.  These twists on these classic genre films do breathe life into an otherwise dull film.

 

The picture quality and sound are top-notch all around, once again proving that Magnet is one of the leaders of quality DVDs and Blu-rays.  The Blu-ray’s picture was absolutely perfect and barely a flaw was noticed.  The audio on the disc was Korean or English and both were presented in 5.1 DTS HD.  As with most of their releases, Magnet has provided numerous special features for those of us who like to go beyond just watching the movie.

 

The first and main special feature on the disc is a series of “Making of Featurettes” which total to an impressive hour long feature. This extremely in-depth look into the film is an intriguing study of the production and the many people involved.  Everyone from the director to executive producer Has Uhlig are on hand to discuss the process of making the film.  While Director Shin Jung-Won comes off as overly serious, Uhlig (whose background includes visual effects on the Star Wars prequels) details the different effects they used to create the giant boar.  Seeing the practical effect of the giant boar puppet will make you wish they did the entire film with the puppeteers instead of the uneven CGI.  What was most intriguing about this series of featurettes is finding out that the film was a US and a Korean production.  Finding out that many of the Korean actors didn’t even need the translators on-set after a few weeks was pretty interesting.

 

The second feature we are treated to is a group of “Deleted Scenes”.  Of the six, most of them are actually extended or reworked scenes from the finished film.  One involving Kim leaving the Seoul police station for his new job is actually very funny.  I’m surprised that this series of humorous and awkward good-byes was not included in the film.  Also worth noting is a scene that gives away a surprise that is revealed in the end credits.  The reveal at the end does come a little out of left field without the inclusion of this scene.

 

Another special feature, “A Q&A Session Premiere Event” is mostly a throwaway if it wasn’t for the amusing Yoon Jae-moon.  The actor can previously be seen in Mother and The Good, the bad, and The Weird.  In this short three minute segment we see him joke about being a celebrity that wears sunglasses al the time and decided to go buy a hat to look cool.  His timing and delivery is perfect.  Unfotuantely this extra isn’t more then the cast and director introducing the film in front of an audience followed by two minutes of them getting their photos taken.  Needless to say, there are no questions asked and your stuck with a mainly boring extra.

 

Next up, is “Blooper Reel Poster Shots.”  Since a blooper reel is usually associated as being funny outtakes from the making of the film, image my surprise when I saw that it is nothing more than a recorded photo shoot for one of the film posters.  Again . . . a slightly misleading title given the fact that there is nothing humorous about it.

 

Finally, the whole package is wrapped up with an international trailer for the film as well as a handful of other Magnet released film trailers.

 

As can be expected at this point, Magnet has once again released a great looking disc complete with an array of extras.  Chawz attempted to tackle the monstrous “horror/comedy” beast that many other films that came before it have successfully done.  Some of the humor may be lost in translation for American audiences.  Ultimately though, the film simply suffers from trying to be too quirky.  With the success of The Host a few years ago, Shin Jung-Won seems to be channeling the off-kilter balance that that film sustained with its odd characters and horrific monster.  In the case of Chawz, the final product just comes off as odd; never really all that funny and never really all that scary.  In a film world filled with all sorts of monsters that are both funny and scary (and sometimes both), Chawz is a beast that fails to leave a scratch on the genre.

MOVIE RATING

BLU-RAY RATING