Chawu

Chawz is another entry in the horror/comedy genre, this one coming from South Korea. Not as good as The Host, also from South Korea, a couple of years ago, but there is still some enjoyment to be had. The plot moves along a little too slowly for this type of film and has more than one similarity with the plot of the original Jaws. The comedy plays more to the slapstick side, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your taste in comedy. I personally found a few gags that made me smile, but nothing that made me laugh. The actors do a convincing job with their characters, but no one will blow you away or steal the show. The visual effects are good, using a mix of practical and computer generated, but not up to the normal standard of major North American films. If you have seen other movies of this type from this part of the world, the effects are on par. If you're expecting something along the lines of Slither or Army of Darkness, you most likely will be disappointed or even bored with this. But if you have seen The Host or Tokyo Zombie, this film is similar in tone and pacing and while never reaching the quality of The Host or the comedic absurdity of Tokyo Zombie, Chawz is an enjoyable monster movie. Flawed, but enjoyable.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It was what I expected which is kind of a Jaws on land movie but what made it so much more is the black comedy through out the entire movie. I also enjoyed the crazy witch doctor lady and crazy mom quite a bit.

The giant boar was also excellent.

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.

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.