Hey, here's an idea -- take the animal run amok idea of Jaws and set it on dry-land. And instead of having a shark as the killer beasty, have it be a pig. Doesn't that sound like a great idea? Oh, what's that? It was done by the 1984 Australian film Razorback? Oh, OK, but can't it be done again? The answer to that must be yes, as the 2009 Korean film Chawz takes on this exact same concept. The original title of the movie was Chaw, which means "trap" in some Korean dialects. For the American home video release, the title was changed to Chawz. Was that mean to make it sound more like Jaws?

As Chawz opens, police officer Kim (Eue Tae-Woong) is transferred from Seoul to San-Mae-Ri ("The Crimeless Village"), simply because he put "anywhere" on his police application. So, along with his wife, Mi-Young (Hur Yeonhwa) and his mother (Park Hyejin), Kim moves to the country, expecting to fish and look at tractors. Upon his arrival, he finds that the Police Captain (Lee Sanghee) loves to delegate every task, and Kim is soon cleaning up a murder scene along with Officer Park (Moon Jongpill). Inspector Shin (Park Hyuk-Kwon) is also involved in the case, and it's soon surmised that a large boar is responsible for the killings. Renowned hunter Hunter Baek (Yoon Jae-Moon), who was once an apprentice to Mr. Chun (Jang Hang-sun), is brought in to stop the beast. Soo-Ryun (Jung Yu-Mi), a scientist studying the behavior of animals, gets involved in the hunt as well. Soon, several members of the group are headed up the mountain to try and subdue the giant pig.

Oh man, I hate when I'm reviewing a movie like this and I run into the cultural barrier, because I hit it really hard with Chawz. The cultural barrier comes into play when one is watching a foreign film which simply doesn't click with you and you can't help but wonder if you are missing something because you don't live in that culture. These movies often make narrative sense, but their goals seem odd or they have no effect on the viewer. This definitely happens with Chawz.

First and foremost, this movie seems to have absolutely no idea what it wants to be. Well, let me re-phrase that -- this movie seems to have little interest in being a "giant pig" movie for most of its running time. In reality, Chawz is a goofy comedy which just happens to have a big boar running through select scenes. The movie is far more concerned with subplots concerning Kim's Mother (who has some sort of dementia-like issue which causes her to leave home and be belligerent) and a crazy woman who forces a boy to call her “Mommy”. (The movie seems to have some potent mother issues.) We also get a lot of scenes focus on the incompetence of the local police force. There are only select scenes which have to do with the boar.

This is somewhat odd to realize, as the first half of the film plays as if the script from Jaws was taken and the word “pig” was substituted anytime “shark” appeared. We have the big-city cop who has come to a small-town, just like Brody in Jaws. The mayor is more concerned with local industry than with the threat of an animal being on the loose, just like in Jaws. A hunter and a scientist get involved, just like in Jaws. (There is also another big plot-point taken from Jaws, but I don’t want to give too much away.) In short, the beginning doesn’t show many original thoughts. However, the second half of the film does veer away from this formula, as it seems to be avoiding the pig issue. When the hunting party finally forms, “It’s about time.” will be a common response.

The movie’s 2 hour running time tells me that Director Jeong-won Shin intentionally tried to integrate all of these various parts. The result is a movie which is clearly far more interested in being funny and quirky than scary. The “all over the map” feel hurts the movie and it never gels. Then after wading through all of the various elements, the ending comes very quickly. The questionable CG effects don’t help either, as the pig’s size changes from shot-to-shot. Chawz’s similarity to other movies (I haven’t seen Razorback in years, but a quick scan of the plot synopsis makes it sound very similar) could be forgiven if it were truly scary or truly funny or truly something. It’s “let’s see what works” approach is either a total misfire or a cultural thing. I’m leaning towards the former.

Chawz left me in the dark on how police hierarchy works in Korea on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Magnolia Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 20 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no grain and no defects from the source material. The colors look good, most notably reds, and the image is never overly dark or bright. (It was nice to see a movie which has nighttime scenes in the woods where the action was clearly visible.) The image is nicely detailed and textures can easily be made out on objects. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.5 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The surround effects during the action scenes are very well done. The forest setting allows for many different sounds to come from the front and rear channels and there’s a lot happening off-screen here. There is also some nice subwoofer action when the boar attacks.

The Chawz Blu-ray Disc contains a few extras. The "Making of" featurette is an hour-long in-depth look at the film's creation. This 3-part featurette contains a nice amount of on-set footage and interviews with the filmmakers and cast. We see how the boar was created (and get a better look at the boar puppet). There is also a discussion of the film's tone, while the actors talk about the extensive location shooting. The Disc contains six DELETED SCENES which run about 10 minutes. Some of these scenes show what life was like for Kim and Mi-Young before moving to San-Mae-Ri. The rest are simply longer versions of scenes already in the movie. We see the cast and the director speak in front of an audience in "Q&A Session Premiere Event" (4 minutes). "Blooper Reel Poster Shots" (4 minutes) is a very unique feature, as it takes us behind-the-scenes to the photo shoot used to create a movie poster. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. The final extra is the "International Trailer" for the movie.