The Chaser

Na Hong-jin's first film, and the structural trick is that the killer is caught in the first act and the film is about the police being unable to hold him.

Everything after the arrest is procedural failure: no body, no confession that sticks, a mayor covered in excrement occupying the department's attention, and a woman still alive somewhere with a clock running.

It is based on the Yoo Young-chul case and is unusually angry about institutional incompetence.

Kim Yoon-seok plays the pimp as an unpleasant man doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, which the film never softens.

The hammer, the shop and the last twenty minutes are relentless. There is no catharsis at all, which is the point and which is why people find it hard.