Watching Chaw, the greatest (and I presume only) porcine horror movie the world has ever known, you may find yourself agreeing with an observation thrown out late in the film: “Boars don’t eat people.” Well, people don’t typically make movies about man-eating boars, so let’s call it a draw and agree to suspend disbelief all around.  I have no desire to learn more about this pig-eat-man genre, as director Shin Jung-Won has done it perfect justice on his first attempt, and this isn’t exactly the kind of thing that needs reinventing. Rest assured that it’s entertaining, and, as other reviews have suggested, might put you off pork for a while.

So where to start?  Well, the pastoral village Sam-Mae-Ri, self-declared “The Crimeless Village” because they’re just asking to get royally messed with by something, has been besieged by a gigantic mutant boar with a taste for human organs. Like all problems faced by the Korean populace, the boar’s mutant bloodlust is caused by none other than the Japanese. However, Chaw wisely abstains from making any  statement about the impressive array of issues it touches on — including but not limited to environmentalism, deforestation, and conservation — to give the people what they want: Mutant boars! Blood and guts! Horror cliches but funny ones! Oinks of woe!

The plot is surprisingly well thought-out given that this thing is a two-hour vehicle to watch people get eaten and terrorized by a pig monster, but in a nutshell: City cop Officer Kim (Uhm Tae-Woong) gets transferred from big bad Seoul to the sleepy Korean countryside.  There are reasons involved in this, but again, this film is about watching people repeatedly try to kill something with eight nipples and piggy hooves, so who wants to get bogged down in logistics?

Along the way, Kim meets a whacky cast of characters who all possess some bizarrely helpful knowledge about mutant boars to turn the tide in humanity’s favor.  Seasoned mutant boar hunter? Check. Nerdy mutant boar researchers weirdly in Sam-Mae-Ri for no apparent reason? Check. Did I mention that all things and people in this movie are funny enough to make you forget about the mutant boar entirely?  Sure, it’s kind of scary at parts, but it’s more like watching a movie about a ragtag band of hilarious Korean hillbillies interspersed with bouts of grotesque boar-spawned violence here and there.  Think The Dukes of Hazard meets Jaws meets a pig monster.  Then stop thinking altogether.

A word of lamentation for the boar, however: It’s hard not to sympathize with this thing.  For starters, the Japanese mutated him to gigantic proportions, then the Koreans slaughtered all the animals on his mountain through illegal poaching. With his traditional food source torn asunder, Mutant Boar has no choice but to start eating the only thing left on the mountain — people — to put food on the table for his family. It’s an earnest crusade on behalf of the boar to make ends meet, but unlike most struggling blue-collar types in film, there’s no one around to appreciate, let alone better, his plight. By the end, once the humans develop a habit of massacring his family members and burning their corpses to get Mutant Boar’s attention, you can’t help but think some basic diplomacy might have made things better for all parties involved.  But that would deny viewers the morbid peace of mind in finding out exactly how much over-the-top violence is necessary to take down a bullet-proof pig beast.

– Ben Milam

Chaw
Directed by Shin Jung-Won
Starring: Uhm Tae-Woong, Jung Yu-Mi, Jang Hang-Sun
Korean with English subtitles, South Korea, 2009, 122 minutes