''Chaw'' (), released in the United States as ''Chawz'', is a 2009 South Korean

action-adventure film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...

about a

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

killer pig wreaking havoc on a small mountain town, and the ragtag team of five who set out to stop the beast. The Korean title is pronounced "chow", which means "trap" in Chungcheong dialect.

Plot

The quiet town of Sammaeri near

Mount Jiri Jirisan is a mountain located in the southern region of South Korea. It is the second-tallest mountain in South Korea after Jeju Island's Hallasan, and the tallest mountain in mainland South Korea. The 1915m-high mountain is located in Jiri ...

has been crime-free for a decade until now. Bodies of villagers begin turning up, making the village leaders nervous just ahead of an

organic food Organic food, ecological food or biological food are food and drinks produced by methods complying with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resources, promote ecological ...

fair expected to be a financial windfall. Chun Il-man (

Jang Hang-sun Jang Hang-sun (born Kim Bong-soo on February 22, 1947) is a South Korean actor. Filmography Film Television series Awards and nominations References External links * * * * 1947 births Living people 20th-century S ...

), whose granddaughter was one of the victims, is sure that a man-killing

boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is no ...

is behind the crimes. He joins forces with detective Shin (

Park Hyuk-kwon Park Hyuk-kwon (born July 11, 1971) is a South Korean actor. Park began his acting career in 1993 as a member of the theater troupe Sanulrim. He later became a well-regarded supporting actor in films such as '' Chaw'' (2009) and ''Secret Reunion ...

) and Kim Kang-soo (

Uhm Tae-woong Uhm Tae-woong (born April 5, 1974) is a South Korean actor. He made his acting debut in 1998, but initially struggled to emerge from under the shadow of his older sister, popular singer-actress Uhm Jung-hwa. After several years of small roles an ...

), a reassigned cop from

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

whose mother has gone missing in the woods. With Byun Soo-ryun ( Jung Yu-mi), a biologist studying wild animals, and glory-seeking hunter Baek Man-bae (

Yoon Je-moon Yoon Je-moon (born March 9, 1970) is a South Korean actor. He appears in theater, film and television, notably in the movies ''The Man Next Door'' (2010) and ''Dangerously Excited'' (2012), and the TV series '' The End of the World'' (2013). F ...

) on the team to fight the giant killer beast, the five start up the mountain to face their enemy.

Cast

as Police officer Kim Kang-soo * Jung Yu-mi as Byun Soo-ryun *

as Chun Il-man *

as Baek Man-bae *

as Detective Shin *Kim Gi-cheon as Village chief *Lee Sang-hee as Head of village police *Go Seo-hee as Deok-gu's "mom" *Park Hye-jin as Kim's mother *Heo Yeon-hwa as Mi-young, Kim's wife *Jung Yoon-min as Officer Park *Ha Sung-kwang as Soo-ryun's researcher seonbae *Jo Moon-yi as President Kwak *Park Chang-ik as Deok-gu *Kong Ho-seok as Old Man in mountain cabin *Ha Yoo-yi as Choon-hwa, Il-man's granddaughter *Moon Jong-hun as Police officer *Nam Sang-baek as Resident 1 *Jung Jae-sung as Resident 2 *Kwon Bum-taek as Pathologist *Kwon Oh-jin as Cemetery owner *

Choi Won-young Choi Won-young (; born Choi Seong-wook on January 10, 1976) is a South Korean actor. Career Choi Won-young made his acting debut in 2002's ''Sex Is Zero'', and has since appeared in both film and television. But his most notable roles have be ...

as Prosecutor

Production

Director Shin Jung-won said his film adopted a typical Hollywood

B movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...

monster narrative to tackle environmental issues, particularly the serious destruction inflicted on Korea's ecology. He said Korea had never had a film dealing with real-life killer creatures like ''

Razorback The feral pig is a domestic pig which has gone feral, meaning it lives in the wild. They are found mostly in the Americas and Australia. Razorback and wild hog are Americanisms applied to feral pigs or boar-pig hybrids. Definition A feral pi ...

'' , ''

Alligator An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additiona ...

'' and ''

Anaconda Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus '' Eunectes''. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized. Description Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used ...

'' and was "intrigued by the idea of a familiar animal attacking and killing humans and wanted to create something out of this unexpectedness. But most of all, I wanted something funny and unique." After filming in Seoul, the production crew and the main actors flew to the United States to shoot

special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

s scenes. The shooting lasted for 40 days in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Misunderstandings in interpreting the nuance of a scene or dialogue sometimes arose between the U.S. special effects team and Korean actors due to different cultural backgrounds, but Uhm said, "after the shooting was over, we formed a strong team spirit, as if we battled together in a war." It took three years and to design and realize via

animatronics Animatronics refers to mechatronic puppets. They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films and in theme park attractions. It is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy a ...

, stuntmen with costumes, and CG ― provided by the creative team Polygon Entertainment and Stareast Digital Lab led by Hans Uhlig and Erik Jensen ― a mutated, super-sized pig that develops a taste for human flesh.

Release

''Chaw'' was screened Berlin Film Festival's Film Market, afterwards it was released in 15 countries, including Germany, Switzerland, India, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and Japan. The film was released in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

on July 16, 2009.

References

External links

* * * * {{Hancinema film, Chaw, Chaw 2009 films 2000s action adventure films South Korean action adventure films Films about pigs Natural horror films 2000s South Korean films 2000s Korean-language films